TERELJ NATIONAL PARK

Got up in the morning and had breakfast. It was scrambled eggs, bread, tomatoes and other things. Then we were off to a national park which is about eighty kilometers east of Ulaanbaatar. It was quite a long drive. On the way we passed through the rolling hills and the wide open plains of the Mongolian steppe. We passed the occasional village consisting of a cluster of closely built wooden shacks. It was a beautiful day to take a ride in the countryside. The sun was shining and the sky was blue with not a cloud in sight. Most of the roads there were of pretty good quality, but there were a few rough spots.

Life in the country in Mongolia is slow and laid back. It's not surprising to see a red faced man walking through a field at a slow pace with a bag slung over his shoulder with out a care in the world. Everywhere you go you see herds of cattle in the fields and sometimes in the road. The driver rarely honks at an animal in the road. I beleive he does this out of respect for the animals.

Man on Horse



Another sight often seen in Mongolia is of a horeman sittin high in his saddle on his horse prancing at a a fairly fast speed. It is quite a spectacular thing to see if your'e not used to this sort of thing.

We passed a large military compound that looked to be about a five hundred years old. Some of its walls were crumbling away and looked to be in immediate repair. At the entrance was a picture of Chinggis Kahn, the idol of every Mongolian.

Just before we got to the park the driver stopped the bus. We got out and climbed up a small bluff. On top was a beautiful view of the alpine scenery. The reason why we stopped was the ovoo which was a short distance away. It was a large one and had the usual blue cloth attached to a stick and was gently waving in the slight breeze. We walked clock-wise around it as usual and picked up small stones and threw them on it. This ovoo had a ram and a horse skull. There are no trees in most places in Mongolia, but this area there were larch trees, forests of birch, and pine and fir on the tops of the surrounding hills.

Finally we reached the park. There was a ger park there with a resturant ger and other wooden buildings. We were met by the curator.

After a brief introduction it was decided that all of the group except for three people were going to ride horses. I didn't want to ride a horse because I had an injured arm at the time. I pulled a muscle in my upper right arm and experienced some internal bleeding and if I fell off a horse it might start hemorrhaging again and I didn't want to take that chance. Gene and his son Daniel also weren't going to ride so we went on a hike instead. The scenery around us was beautiful but there were alot of flies and grasshoppers around.

We started walking in the direction of a tree line in the distance. To the right of us there were rock formations in unusual shapes. These were mountains. There were trees gowing on the top of them. It was hot but there was a cool breeze hitting our faces. We walked along and talked about all the things we had seen on this journey. On the ground there were some wild flowers that looked interesting. Even the weeds were unusual. They looked like something from the succulent family. Pretty soon we went around a bend and down a hill following the track of a four-by that had been there recently. In the distance there was a wooded area and beyond that there was a large field dotted with a couple gers. I wanted to get close to one of the gers to try to get a good picture. In those days I didn't have a zoom on my camera. I didn't even have a digital camera. They were just coming out then.

When we got down to the foot of the hill where the wooded area was there was a man getting water from the stream that ran through the woods. He was filling two small wooden buckets. He didn't see us at first, but when he finally did he got up and took his buckets and started walking toward the gers. We continued walking until we reached the trees and then stepped over the little brook and then into the open field where cattle grazing. Most of the grazing animals were yaks. We walked a little way farther then decided to go back. The man with the buckets was on his way back to the little stream to get more water.

Countryside



When we got back to the ger camp we found Fran and Arlene sitting on the porch of the building ajacent to the resturant ger drinking a beer. I went in the resturant and bought one and went back out to the porch and sat down. We spent a little while talking about Mongolia. After this we had lunch and then went back to the hotel in Ulaanbaatar.

Later in the afternoon we went to a park on the out-skirts of town to a place called Zaisan Hill. It is a monument commemerating the unknown soldiers of Russia and Mongolia. It overlooks the city of Ulaanbaatar. There is a statue of a soldier carrying a flag and a mosaic depicting Russians and Mongolians shaking hands and stepping on a Japanese flag with a horse and a tank in the background. This is one of the many monuments made by the Soviets during the communist days of this country.

Zaisan Hill



On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a large government store to buy a few things since we were leaving for Russia the next evening. I bought a few things for the train trip. Cookies, tea and bottled water.

That evening we went to the largest ger in Mongolia. It is a resturant. For dinner we had more beef, but this time they also served mutton. As we ate we listened to some traditional singers singing traditional songs in traditional costumes. They were playing on their traditional instruments including the horse hair fiddle. They were throat singers. I had looked forward for many years to hear something like this.

Musicians and Throat Singers



After the singing came the contortionist. It was a very young girl contorting her body in all kinds of ways on a table. Even balancing her body while holding something from her teeth. That took consentration, skill and endurance. The art of contortionism goes back a long way in Mongolian history.

Contortionist