The next morning after a breakfast of bread, butter, deep fried dough, jam and tea we got into the jeeps to make the long journey back to the Ulaanbaatar Hotel. We got a little way down the road when we came across a couple camels close to the road. They were the two humped kind found in Mongolia and hardly anywhere else in the world. They are very useful to the people and they adapt well to the harsh winters found in this part of the world. In the summer they shed their coat and this wool is used by the Mongolian women to make things with. An adult male can shed up to 18 kilos of wool a year. A female camel can produce up to 575 liters of milk during her 18 month lactation period. There are about 355,600 of this type of camel in Mongolia.

Camels



Our driver had calmed down a little after a wreck we saw the previous day. It effected every one. The vehicle was upside down in the road. I didn't see any bodies of the people that were in the cab of the truck. I think we arrive a little bit after it happened. The people involved in it were not there. They may have been taken by others out of the area. There were pelts of sheep in the back of the truck. When someone gets in an accident like this it is usually fatal. There are no ambulances, no hospitals, no doctors, and everything is miles away. All they have is shaman who practice an ancient form of magic and spells that borders on witchcraft. We were able to get by the accident and proceed on our way.


We were in a part of Mongolia where there are many hills. Once you pass a hill, pretty soon you would come upon another one. Then after you pass that one another one would appear in the distance. This went for quite awhile. In this part of the country the scenery was very nice.

After a while we stopped near a river and had a light lunch made by our guides. this consisted of hotdogs and bread with some kind of relish that was made in Russia. One of the drivers made sandwiches of butter and raw bacon. None of us Americans would touch the raw bacon. This little trick must have well calculated and well practiced by this guide and probably sprung on every unknowing tour group that came into his clutches. He well knew that Americans on the whole, don't eat raw bacon. So he and the other driver got an extra little snack. This was also in keeping with the tradition of Chinggis Kahn whose career was to plunger and steal from whoever he and his hoards came accrost, feeling it was their right to do.

After lunch we proceeded up the road and in a little while stopped at a couple wooden shacks by the side of the road which they called kiosks and got ice cream from a freezer that sat infront of one of them.

It took about four hours to get back to Ulaanbaatar. Once we got back in the hotel and got a room it was announced that we had to move to a different room. Someone made a mistake and put us in a room that had been rented out to someone else. So we got our stuff and drug it down the hall to the other room which was on a different floor. Lucky for us the new room was bigger and roomier then the previous one. There were actually two rooms to it and it had a regrigerator.

We had a little time so I decided to wash my clothes since I was running out of clean ones. I put my clothes in the bath tub and started running the water. I added soap. When there was a fair amount of water in the tub I turned the shower on and got in and proceeded in giving myself a wash down. Then I started stomping on my clothes with my feet. I did this for a while then emptied the tub and filled it with fresh water and stomped some more and kept doing this til the clothes were clean and rinsed. Then I wrung them out and hung them on a line that I brought with me on the trip and had strung around the room. I also hung some clothes on hangers and placed them around the room to dry.

After a little rest we were on our way to the Gandantegchinlen Monestary which was in town. It is the main Buddhist center in Mongolia, built in 1840. It is one of two monestaries that were not destroyed by the communists. The other was the Erdene Zuu Monestary. Before the Soviet take-over there were 110,000 lamas living in Mongolia in 700 monestaries. Thousands of monks were arrested and sent to Siberian labor camps and were never heard of again. Religious worship and ceremonies were outlawed. Then in 1990 when the Soviet regime collapsed religious freedom was again restored. Since then there has been a revival of the Buddhist religion as well as other religions.

As we approached the front gate of the monestary we were occosted by some locals who were trying to sell us snuff containers, coins and wooden hats. No one in our group bought any of these things or wanted them. The front entrance was a large oriental style portico.

Gandantegchinlen Monestary



In the distance there was a building that houses a large golden statue of Buddha which is very famous among the Mongolian people, and many go there to pray before it.

Building where large Buddha is housed



All the building in the monestary was closed that day so we were unable to go inside any of them. We were able to look at the architecture of the buildings and learn something about the ties between Tibetian Buddhism and the Mongolian people. These ties go back many centuries.

When we were finished with the monestary we went to dinner at a Japanese resturant. This was a very welcome visit. We hadn't seen fruit or a variety of vegatables in days. The Mongolian people don't eat a steady diet of fruits and vegatables. Their main food is the meat of the animals they herd and the milk products that come from them. They also eat a little grain which they barter for from people passing through the country side or when they can get it in the city. We had a great time in that Japanese resturant. After that we went back to the hotel.