Lap-Dino

So, back to UB - we arrived in the late evening and checked back into the UB Guesthouse. This time we didn't stay at the main guesthouse, but a smaller apartment like place. We went to eat at the Greek place again. Baked feta! Greek Salad! Stuffed grape leaves! Moussaka! Lovely!

After dinner we met our roomies for the rest of our time in Mongolia - Nadia and Antonio. There were so awesome! She was a French Moroccan and he was a Spaniard. They both had been living in London, working for a big company. They got tired of it, so they quit and have been traveling, looking for a new place to live and work. Both of them were so laid back and interesting we had a lot of fun chatting with them!

*Oooh! I just saw 2 camels! I'm have been working on these posts as we make our way through the Gobi Desert. Pretty desolate, but I like it! Gets me thinking about the 1920 Gobi expedition and Andrews' excavation. It's really a crap shoot if you'll find anything. Kind of like, "um...well, shit, I don't know. How about digging here? Just as good as any other place." Anyhow, back to the travel log.*

On our last day in UB we had a lot to do! We talked a little more with the Aussie, who was just back from his trip out to a nature reserve - sounded like they all got a little sick. We wanted to go out to a reserve too, but no time. He highly recommended the Monastery-Museum of Choijin Lama (which was good as I was prepared to bump it if we were slim on time). The first stop though was the Mongolian History Museum.

The MHM was a really nice place - they took a lot of time with the exhibits and signage. I was really impressed with the good English signs. Pretty straight to the point and not a lot of over description. Nice! After the MHM we walked to a restaurant called, "Modern Nomads" - not quite authentic, traditional Mongolian food, but clean, plague free food which was more of what we were going for. Even with a ped toilet, we were hopping a 30 hour train the next morning.... It was good but a lot of food! I had them wrap up my leftovers so I could give it to the street kids later.

BTW (by the way), we did not eat Bodog - authentic Mongolian BBQ. First, the innards get pulled out of the goat or marmot through a slit in the neck. Then, the carcass is stuffed full of scalding rocks and the neck re-closed with wire. Then the animal is thrown on an open fire or blowtorched to burn the fur off the outside while the meat is cooked from the inside. Oh any FYI, the bubonic plague - the great Black Death can be passed by handling marmot skins. Whoohoo! Extreme eating!

Next stop, The Natural History Museum (let's see me some dinosaur)! So, the NHM was basically a creepy taxidermy affair, lots of those not quite right glass(?) eyes staring at you from posed animals that are never really quite right. There was this baby penguin that was, well, um, its neck was craned real strange like. Creeped me out. But had to go through the museums to see the Protoceratops Andrewsi!

Now, I didn't exactly know what to expect as I hadn't researched the dino before going - was leaving that to be surprised. So, I was expecting something large and fierce, further fueling this thought was that the LP mentioned that the museum had a rare preserved example of Andrewsi and a velociraptor locked in mortal combat (probably were buried alive when a sand dune collapsed). Needless to say, I needed to check this bad ass out! We walked through the main dino exhibit hall with all of the large specimens and, hmmm...no Protoceratops Andrewsi. Then, anticipating wanting to get a photo picture of the 80 million year old baddie, I paid the photo fee and took some other pictures while Matt wandered into the next gallery. Matt called out, "hey, Molly! He's in here!" Ooooh, so excited! I can't tell you how excited I was walking in to the next hall - goose bumps!

So I entered the next hall and Matt motioned, "it's over there". I look over to where Matt was pointing and walk up to it and finally was face to face with the Protoceratops Andrewsi! The bad ass dino. Um, the little bad ass dino. Err, the little, vegetarian, bad ass dino. Okay, the little, vegetarian, a little chubby, probably pretty cute bad ass dino. Let's see, so, um, the Andrewsi would kinda be like the ankle biter of the dino world. A sort of "lap-dino", if you will. But, hey, I have to give lil' lap-dino Andrewsi props as it looks like it was kicking the velociraptor's ass! That is before a bunch of sand killed them both. Oh well, go Andrewsi, go!

But the dino skeletons were really neat and pretty complete. I also really enjoyed the paintings. Y'know the paintings at natural history museums that recreate the dino/animal/what have you in their natural environment? Well, Andrewsi looked like a happy little playful tyke, all chubby and content. Definitely for the baddie I was envisioning but cute! And, hey, do you have a dinosaur named after you? I didn't think so.

After hitting the history museums we set out for the monastery-museum of Choijin Lama. It wasn't an active monastery anymore though and hasn't been since the late 1930s. I am really glad that we didn't scratch it 'cuz it was really interesting! The Mongolian's Tibetan Buddhism seemed to focus on the feminine deity - the one with all of the skull and disemboweled and tortured people. Don't know why, but it just seems fitting. All over the chapels were depiction of people being tortured and ripped apart; embroidered entrails terracing the tops of the walls. It was great! Quite different from the other temples we saw in Tibet.

Next, shopping! I think one of my new favorite animals is the camel. I bought a plush herd. We didn't make it out to the open black market though, which we were disappointed about (didn't get to experience the experienced pick pockets) because we had a cultural show to get to!

Usually cultural show are a bit disappointed and cheesy-lame. But this one was awesome! The music was wonderful and the singing was unbelievable - I shot some video and will post it up later. The throat singing was just amazing. Hard to believe that those sounds were coming from a person! The dancing was lively and fun and they even had contortionists! They were, um, flexible. Whoohoo! Kick ass! Seriously, really cool! I could have easily watched for another couple of hours.

So, after the show we went for our last meal in Mongolia. We wound up going to the Sands restaurant - Arabian and South Asian food. Mmmm-mmm-mmm! Then back to the guesthouse to pack up for the train back to Beijing :(

We were ready to go before 7 AM - I walked over to the main guesthouse to get our key deposits back. When I got outside, snow! Mongolian snow on our last day, last hours in the country. How great is that? The people at the guesthouse were very helpful with our departure and the Mongolian owner was even down at the train station just in case there were questions or problems! They were really great to stay with!

Anyhow, sunset over the Gobi, I want to try to get some "through the dirty window pictures". Talk to you later!