Yeah, yeah, Chinggis Khaan (blah, blah, blah), Kublai Khaan (blah, blah, blah), Golden Horde (blah, blah, blah). The real reason for our Mongolian excursion was...
...to see us some gerbils in the wild!
Mongolia has several species of jerboa. For me, I have wanted to see where my childhood pets came from. We were not disappointed. Because of the time limit, we couldn't go down to the Gobi. Oh, well some other time.
I did get to dune romp in the little Gobi, so, that filed the sand void for now. I like the desert. But I'm getting ahead of myself once again.
Gerbil town #1: We stopped off at a place for lunch. I went around to snap a few pictures. When I walked back I saw Matt staring at the ground. Gerbil town spotted! They were so cute! Poking their heads up from their little holes and scampering around. Perfect! I was so happy! As far as I was concerned, I could go home a happy girl. So, we (Matt, Temple and Reuben - fellow teachers in China and I) all had lunch at the little roadside diner. The food was good, but we were all surprised by the food presentation. The plate at this little roadside stop had a very eye appealing arrangement. Rice was molded with decorative ketchup dollop on top, and the vegetable salad was nice and colorful. The noodles were al dente and the meat was tender - not too bad! I finished eating quickly so I could go out on the gerbil watch a little longer before hitting the road once again.
Part way to the little Gobi, our driver met up with some friends of his. This was cool by us, but when they pulled out a bottle of vodka, not so cool anymore. So were all watched to see what he was doing (y'know, watching, but pretending not to really watch). But our driver just dipped his right ring finger in the glass that was offered to him and flicked a little once to the sky, once in the air (to the wind) and once to the ground. Then put the glass to his lips, but didn't take a chug.
Next Stop: Little Gobi. So, I needed a little desert fix so the little Gobi was pretty perfect for that! Kicked off my shoes, rolled up my pants and ran out to the mini dunes with Roy Chapman Andrews on the brain. I didn't discover any dinos or anything, but found plenty of broken glass (shoes back on), plastic bottles, poop and animal bones. So no great adventuring excursions through the Gobi on camel back, but making my way through the mini dunes, tripping on the sand, dodging poop is basically the same thing, right? Didn't stop me from striking some nerdy poses in my Beloit College gear (er, vintage T)! Ah, ol' Roy would have been so proud! Especially with this Beloiter! So, I was kneeling down on the side of a dune to take a picture and I started to tip over. My planted foot was deep in the sand. So, well...I just kinda went with it and log rolled down the side of the dune. Another proud moment was running on the sand and tripping on, well, nothing. Another, squatting in a prickly bush and all of this is a span of less than an hour. Ahhhh, good times!
So, after the dune fun, it was back in the car for bumpy road. The trip out to Karakorum was about 7 hours one way, most of that time was dodging pot holes - I think there was more hole than road. I remember looking out longingly at the dirt trail next to the asphalt. Anyhow, we arrived at our ger at about 5:30/6 PM. Dinner was to be served at 7:15, so we had some time to walk around the old Khaan stomping ground. We all made use of the cleanest pit toilet we had seen in quite awhile and set off! Temple and Reuben set off in one direction toward the flour factory and us in another.
We, of course, went out on the gerbil hunt. We saw many holes, but, alas, no gerbils. A gerbil ghost town. So, we got to work and bad-assed up a one of the gerbil domiciles we happened upon. Yup, grande nerds of the steppe. Then, um, "reenactment" time - I'll post that up later. Feeling satisfied with our lame wrath we unleashed, we headed back to the ger.
Dinner was small but good - buuz (dumplings) with mostly vegetables and just a little meat. Not quite enough for everyone, but quite tasty. Eventually one of the ger owners came and started a nice fire for us and we settled in for the night, swapping China stories. My favorite, "honey, I think I just ordered a prostitute." The stars were amazing at night and I slept pretty well, especially after I covered my head.
In the morning we had biscuit cookies for breakfast and I bought some hand sewn camels from the woman who ran the ger (who had one of the cutest daughters with huge cheeks). The little girl was all smiles and super happy as she toddled around with a box of Toblerone. Hey, I would be pretty too if I had some Toblerone! We left the ger and headed off to see Erdene Zuu Khid (first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia). Sooooo cool! It is in the middle of nowhere - just so neat to look out on nothing and see this huge, walled monastery. I was just drawn to the starkness of the area. We looked around the complex for a little bit and headed out to walk with the Great Khaan. Driving out to a turtle rock marker, I saw what looked like an excavation, but wasn't too sure, it looked like a foundation. We stopped over at penis rock. Guess what it looks like? Legend has it that the rock was placed here in an attempt to stop frisky monks, filled with lust by the shapely slope, from fraternizing with the local women.
Um, after that...we went up to one of the turtle rocks. There are 4 turtle rocks and they mark the boundaries of ancient Karakorum. The turtles act as protectors of the city (turtles are considered symbols of eternity). It was just cool to be standing where, perhaps The Man stood. The man of the millennium. Awesome!
Then, steppe fun was done, so we piled back into the car and headed back to UB. We had fun watching the wildlife and domesticated animals. Lots of cows, sheep and goats. Also, horses, a fox, golden eagles, vultures, camels, and course, gerbils! We only hit one animal scurrying across the road - a little gerbil :( But it was fun to watch then run across.
On the way back we stopped for breaks more at one place there was a most excellent gerbil town with the little cute gerbils that looked like my childhood pets (shout out to Slick, Scooter, Pita and Repita). So cute! One stared at me for a long time and some others kept on popping their little heads up out of their holes - like a miniature whack-a-mole game. I could have watched them for hours! But I had to pull myself away.
Along the ride home, we met up with some other travelers, form a mix of places, but wound up talking with a couple of guys from Israel. Sounds like they had been traveling for awhile (made their way to Mongolia from Russia) so they told us about some of their experiences from the road. They got hassled a little bit in Moscow (police officers wanting to get paid) and were hoping to pick up a little work in China. I think Matt and I are more interested in going to Russia than ever before, but have heard from many people (who we met on this trip) that it is a difficult place to travel for independent travelers, i.e. not on a tour.
*Sigh*
Maybe someday we'll hop the train again and go all the way to Moscow. Someday...
No comments:
Post a Comment