Hawaii

As I alluded to in the last post, we went to Hawaii last month. And I finally downloaded the last of the pictures off my camera over the weekend. All the photos are up on Flickr now if you haven't already seen them. We were there for Sam's best friend TJ's wedding, which was on the most perfect patch of grass on the beach at sunset. It was beautiful, and it was a lot of fun being at a wedding with under 20 people, as we really got to know everyone over the 24 hour span between the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. And the rest of the time, we got to explore the Big Island. Its really a tropical paradise. We had a great hike in the caldera of the volcano at Volcano National Park, explored the coastline thoroughly by car, stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast in Hilo, toured an amazing botanical garden and swam with the fishes on the Ironman course in Kailua Bay. Altogether a wonderful vacation.

Mongolia Recap

After the Flaming Cliffs, we headed north. The first stop to the ruins of two monasteries around Ongi (or Ongiin) Temple. The Soviets had destroyed the monasteries, which sit on both sides of a bubbling stream, back in the 1930's (I think). The buildings looked like they had been in ruins for much more than 70 years though.


Then, it was on to the ancient city of Karakorum. The city had been the capital of the Mongolian empire under the Khubilai Khan. Later on, the oldest monastery in the country of Erdene Zuu was built there. A lot of it had been destroyed by the Soviets as well, but there were still some buildings standing, as well as the wall.



We headed to the Terkhiin Tsagaan region and the Khorgo volcano. This was one of my favorite spots. The lake was beautiful and our ger camp location was well worth the extra drive. Sam and I decided that the lake was perfect for swimming. However, we decided to wait until the next morning to take a dip, which may have been a mistake. It was warm and sunny when we go there late in the afternoon, but the next day it was chilly in the morning and after wading, we decided it would be better for after hiking the volcano. The hike warmed us up and the volcano was amazing as well, but when we got back to camp, I just couldn't get the guts up to get past my knees. Sam managed to get in the water and did a few laps in front of the beach!


The last stop before heading back to the UB was to Lake Huvsgul, up near the border with Russia. The lake was beautiful, with crystal blue water, but by that point we weren't sure if it was worth the two days dive it took to get there.


Overall, we saw some amazing places, but it took a very long time to get to them. There aren't really any paved roads (or roads for than car tracks) outside of the capital, or road signs, so it is very slow going when you're driving, and very easy to get lost. Throw some flat tires in there along with some other auto troubles and it took 10 hours of driving one day. I think that until there are roads (or at least helipads, which we didn't see anywhere), its going to take a while for the tourist industry to get too crazy. There are only so many people who are willing to spend so much time in the car and stay in ger camps the whole trip.

+ All my Mongolia photos

Twin Cities

As you will have seen already from the previous post, Sam and I were in the Twin Cities over the weekend visiting Sam's family and paying a visit to the Minnesota State Fair. The state fair isn't a small fair by any means. This is a huge tract of land devoted to the entertainment of the state for two weeks a year, within the city limits of St Paul. Its a big deal. There's a ton of rides, prize winning quilts, jams, pumpkins, and cows. Livestock giving birth. Tiger Woods seed art.


And most important in my book, food. More to the point, fried food. On a stick. We started the day (breakfast because we wanted to beat the crowds) with corn dogs (which were way too large and we didn't finish since we wanted to leave room for other foods), then on to some cheese curds, draft root beer, walleye on a stick, pickle on a stick, and I think there was some ice cream and a few ribs thrown in there too. Mmm.


Saturday we hit up the St Paul farmers market for breakfast (yes, our whole trip revolved around food), met up with Sam's dad, managed to fit in a trip to The Mall, and then headed to TJ's where we were spending the night. And Sunday, more food at one of Sam's favorite breakfast places, Key's, and then a walk around the U, and eventually Minnehaha Falls which was right near the airport and was a good last stop. We know how to pack things in!

+ Photos of the trip
+ Sam's flickr also has some more photos from his camera phone than are shone here.

Flaming Cliffs

Our next destination was to the Flaming Cliffs. On the way, though, we had a very amusing attempt to get gas. We actually drove through a town, our first since we landed in the Gobi, and it had a gas station, but we couldn't find the person who ran the station so we ended up driving around town for about 30 minutes before we found someone to open up the gas station.

Anyway, we made it to our camp, and despite the threatening looking weather, we headed to the Flaming Cliffs. The cliffs are famous in Mongolia for being the site of a very successful archaeological dig back in the 1920s by the Museum of Natural History, when they found nests of dinosaur eggs. You can still see a bunch of eggs sticking out from the sides of the cliffs.

The Flaming Cliffs were really amazing - they were like a combination of all southwestern national parks rolled in to one in the coloring and scenery. And there were maybe 5 other tourists wandering around there. No paths, no rules, no entry fees - you can just roam wild. And the tourist museum they have set up nearby is a ger with a few fossils just sitting on the floor, and some posters with information about the dig.


+ More photos from the Flaming Cliffs
+ All the Mongolia photos

Khongor Sand Dunes

After a very long ride from our first stop (oh, did I forget to mention, outside of the UB, there aren't really roads. Or signs. So the drivers really need to know where they are going. And as great as our driver, Bor, was, we definitely seemed to get lost on more than occasion), we headed to the Khongor Sand Dunes.

First activity on the list was a camel ride. We got to the nomadic family who owns the camel herd right after another tour group, so we had to wait a while with the family for them to finish. It was extremely warm out, so we were welcomed into one of the family's gers, where we were given agir, fermented mare's milk, and homemade cheese and biscuits.


The fermented mare's milk tastes kind of like sourish yogurt. Its ok, but not my favorite. Then we sat around and watched some Naadam wrestling on the tv, since they had a solar panel and satellite dish. They even had a washing machine sitting out on their "front lawn". We also got to see the daughters milking the mares - they bring a foal over to its mother and have them start nursing, and then pull the foal away and milk the mare. By this point, the camels were on their way back and we hopped on the camels for a fun ride around the base of the sand dunes.


We headed back to the camp for lunch and a rest for the afternoon since it was really hot in the sun. We planned to wait for the late afternoon for a hike on the sand dunes, but when we peaked out of our gers after a nap, it was clear that we weren't to be making our hike. A yellow/brown cloud was heading quickly towards our camp from the west, and we hid out in the dinning room while it blew past.



Since we missed the hike the evening before, we decided to get up early and hike the sand dunes before breakfast. This ended up being great timing because the sandstorm had some significant rainfall accompany it, so the dunes had a layer of wet sand on top, making it much easier to walk on. Also, being early in the morning, it was a lot cooler than it would have been the day before. That said, by the time we half way up, the sand had dried out a lot and it was incredibly painful to reach the top since the sand fell away with every step. We made it though and it was just gorgeous at the top. Sand dunes for miles in either direction, and on the other side of the dunes, the Kazakh mountain range stretched on. Coming down was a ton of fun because the sand just slid away with every step. Sam took a great video of how easy it was to run down.



+ More photos of the sand dunes
+ All Mongolian photos
+ And photos from my brother, dad and Sam

Eagle Valley

We landed outside of Dalanzadgad and the tarmac of the runway was the last asphalt we saw for a very long time. Our guide Uyenga and driver Bor picked us up and we took off into the desert, with no signs as to where to go, and headed for our first Ger camp of our road trip.
A ger, shown above, is the traditional Mongolian dwelling, related to a yurt. There is a wooden frame covered in a waterproof layer and a layer of felt (around in mass quantities from all the goats and sheep around the company). They can be set up in two hours and taken down in half an hour, so the nomads (1/4 of Mongolia's population is nomadic) can easily transport them as they try and find greener pastures. All of the places we stayed on our road trip were camps made up of 20 or so gers, each of which can sleep 2-3 people on some very small and not so comfortable beds. Temperature wise, they're very comfortable though. The gers have a hole on the top of the structure, so in the summer, you can pull one of the layers of felt back to allow hot air to escape through the roof. When its cold, you can cover the top, and there is usually a wood stove in the center of the ger, with a flue out the top, which keeps the ger very toasty when its lit.
Anyway, back to the trip. We got to our camp, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, that had previously been the location of the airport, before it moved to its current location. The scenery, or maybe the lack of scenery, was beautiful.
The next morning, we got up early and went for a hike in Eagle Valley. Eagle Valley fills with snow in the winter, forming a glacier of sorts deep in the valley. It used to last through the summer, but these days it melts completely in August.
Eagle Valley was also chock full wildlife. We saw some small chipmunk type animals scurrying around, as well as larger ones that looked like mice that were the size of small hamsters and with feet kind of like rabbits so that the pounced around instead of running, called a pika. And we even saw some ibex, but from so far away that you could barely make them out. After our morning in Eagle Valley, we headed back to camp for lunch and then hit the road for a very rough six hour drive to the next camp.

Ulaanbaatar and Surroundings

So we've finally uploaded some photos and I'm getting around to writing about our trip. On our way over to Mongolia, we didn't have the most direct of routes, so after over 36 hrs of travel, we made it to our hotel in Ulaanbaatar (referred to as the UB by most Mongolians), one day after the rest of my family. And first thing in the morning, we got started on our trip in earnest, with our city guide picking us up to take us to Terelj National Park, about 1.5 hrs outside of the city, for some beautiful scenery.

It started pouring after we finished hiking down from the rock that looks like a turtle (above), so we headed to lunch and then back to UB and swung by an overlook of the city before hitting the Mongolian history museum.

The next day was the start of the action. The archery competetion was starting for Naadam, the Mongolian Independence Day that features lots of traditional Mongolian athletic competitions. The four sports are archery, wrestling, horse racing and anklebone shooting. And they are all very unique in Mongolia. The archery is shot using a different kind of bow than is used in western competition, and you aim for a target that is a couple of rows of rubber blocks on the ground, so is much harder to overshoot. The distance from the target from which one fires is dependant on age, if in the kids competition (some are very young!), or sex for the mens and womens competition.

Wrestling is kind of like sumo wrestling in that you just have to get the opponent on the floor and there is a lot of customs associated with it, in this case the eagle dance that one performs when they win. But unlike sumo, there's no ring, and it all looks very informal watching it. More on the horse racing and anklebone shooting below.

After the archery, we headed out to Chinngis Kahn's Cavalry show, which featured a reenactment of traditional horse battles on a huge scale, along with some wrestling and traditional music show. The horse fighting was really impressive, especially given the broad expanse of nothingness around the site.

The next day was the Naadam opening ceremonies, featuring a very packed house at the national stadium (though the fact that this was the biggest stadium tells you something about the infrastructure in the city). There were a bunch of contortionists, a fashion show of traditional clothing, a horse parade and the start of the wrestling competition.

The anklebone shooting was going on next door, so we checked that out as well. Anklebone shooting involves flicking an anklebone (a tile carved from a goat or sheep's ankle bone), at two targets (also anklebones I think).

Then, it was off to the races. The horses in Mongolia are much smaller than the ones we see regularly in the states, so rather than having adults ride the horses, they have kids. Very small children, usually between six and ten. And the horses race a really long distance - we watched the five or six year old horses race, so they raced 30 km. We had a good spot at the finish and below is a photo of the winning horse, which as you might notice, doesn't have a rider on it. A lot of the children fall off during the race.

There are more pictures of mine and Sam's over on Flickr. Sam has all his photos up so you'll get a sneak preview of the rest of the trip. And I'm going to try and keep posts a bit shorter in the future!