Mongolia; pretty much lost on me...

5/25/15
Ok, so for those of you who read my last blog entry, you won’t be expecting the most pleasant account of my time in Mongolia.  In an effort to not belabor the negative, this will be a relatively brief entry (compared to my usual expansive accounts).  No sympathy required however, I assure you, as I am now feeling 95% well, and have since left that country.  UPDATE: this was written days ago, and I am definitely 100% better now!

We arrived in Mongolia’s capital city of Ulaanbaatar just in time for our private banquet buffet dinner with Mongolian entertainments.  The buffet wasn’t too bad; hit or miss depending on the dish, but I managed to find plenty to enjoy, despite not being very hungry for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, I was still full from a late, heavy and delicious lunch on board our jet.  And by that point, I guess my stomach problems were setting in, although I wasn’t fully aware that this bloating sensation was prescient of something far more sinister than a simple case of mild overeating scant hours earlier.  

The talent showcase began with a nice musical combo who played a pleasant Asian sounding classical type music on otherworldly looking but familiar instruments, as seen here:

They were then joined by two successive throat singers, one female and one male, both interesting, vaguely operatic, vaguely grating, but interesting as a diversion of the local cultural variety over dinner.  I shot video, but no photo, so these are very low quality screen shots, perhaps just to prove they really existed.  ;-)

Next up, the climax for me, was a pair of impressive teenage contortionists who worked very nicely together.  Although their show seemed a bit erotic for dinnertime, they were well received.  Some of the photos not revealed here contained audience members in the front row appearing to have their heads right up between dangling and upward pointing legs!

And serving as the denouement was this “Old Mongolian Guy” caricature character, who danced around for a bit as, frankly, some people started to head for their rooms, I’m sure tired from a long day’s journey into Ulaanbaatar...

And that’s about all of the amusement I personally experienced in Mongolia.  One of the top three draws for this trip was the time in the Gobi Desert, which I completely missed.  It was a great lesson in not regretting what was missed, and I succeeded quite well on the final exam, as I completely moved forward to the next thing once we left the country.  And I was too absorbed by misery to have been concerned about that as I was holed up for 48 hours in our suite.  And fortunately, this was one of the locations where we were able to upgrade to a deluxe suite.  This came in very handy for us both as I writhed in cramp pain and Jack was able to sprawl out, read, etc. in the parlor.

Therefore, in the absence of too many interesting things to share from this big country (our third out of 7 on the trip, not including our embarkation/disembarkation point in England), I will submit two impressive photos from our suite.  The suite features a glass enclosed bathroom that’s essentially “in” the living room.  The clever blinds allow one to see out, but no one to see in.  I’ll let the reader figure out which is which!  haha

But on the depressing side, I had to snap a shot of the brown water that flowed from our bathroom sink.  All I really want to say in response is that I love the USA and I love SF water, directly from our beloved Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite!

So we did make it out for a walk around the big square across the street from our hotel.  Most striking were the facts that it was so dirty (and windy that day), we felt grit in our teeth in just that short time, and the incessant honking of car horns.  I lasted about 20 minutes before retreating back to my sick bed.  But I did manage to find the requisite police car and ambulance.  Compared to The Republic of Georgia, it’s amazing what they look like!  haha

The Mongols are fans of the small street shack style of commerce, rather than 7-11s and Quick-Stops.  Some of them are quite cute even.  The photo doesn’t do it justice, but this one is like a stationary ice cream truck:

And that was the last one I shot heading back to the comfort of our hotel.  Sometimes when I’m sick, nothing seems to work out well.  When I was finally ready to re-introduce sustenance into my digestive system, the country showed me very little.  We missed breakfast, and were early for the lunch buffet, so I took a stab at the lunch a la carte menu.  Soup and pasta felt safe.  Although the mushroom soup was decent - a small step up from Campbells, but not as salty - the pasta - full of ripe olives and weird sausages - was what I’d describe as “gummy” and, to me at the time, inedible.  Good thing the appetite hadn’t fully resumed.  I turned to Trip Advisor for guidance, and discovered a place called Millie’s Cafe, but we were unable to locate it on our walk.  Although some of the highest rated places were Mexican (of all things) and Indian, those were too high risk for still mildly sick. So ultimately we settled for room service sushi, which wasn’t too bad, but confirmed our great fortune for living in SF with such great food from not only Japanese culture, but so many others.  We truly can “travel the world” in SF restaurants!

Two things I want to share are the world clock from my iPhone, as a time reference; and the other is the Google screen one sees when logging on in Mongolia:

So the next day we were to check out, have an English speaking guide (and separate driver) bring us to the airport, meet the group, and depart by our jet for Yangon, Myanmar.  On the way, the guide did tell us a few things about Mongolia and Ulaanbaatar.  Turns out they honk so much because no one obeys the traffic laws, and everyone gets upset with everyone else for how they drive.  There are about 5 million people in Mongolia, and 1.5 million live in the capital city.  The number one industry is mining (for many different things), and the number two is construction (which is as evident and ubiquitous - if not more so - than in SF right now).  In fact there are some of the most enormous housing and shopping mall developments I’ve seen anywhere in the world.  According to the guide, 70% of the people are of the old nomadic culture and live in ger towns with no plumbing, no running water, and no sewage.  A ger is more commonly know around the world as a yurt, but that is a Russian word, and they reportedly reject the Russians, so refuse to use their word.  We also learned that they do, however, have power, which is generated at four coal-burning power plants right here in this capital city.  And I managed to snap a shot of Power Plant Number Three, as evidenced here:

And with that, our threatened up-to-two-hour ride to the airport took about twenty minutes, and we were comfortable with free wi-fi, snacks, and all the trimmings in the executive lounge awaiting the arrival of our group from the Gobi.  Although I only had a soda water myself, these were the kinds of snacks on offer therein:

Upon boarding the plane, I received so many, “How are yous,” “We missed yous,” “and “Welcome backs,” it was quite touching.  There was even a small eruption of applause.  Gosh, folks, I’m ferklempt!  Although at the time I was only about 80% recovered, I was so relieved to be among the group, it might as well have been 100%.  The warned bumpy flight never materialized, much to my stomach’s relief, and we arrived safely in Yangon, Myanmar, to be blogged after it happens.  Stay tuned.  E.R.   ;-)

UPDATE: We had terrible internet in both locations in Myanmar, therefore no recent blog updates.  Thanks for your patience.  I'll let it go at this for the moment, as I still have some processing to do with the massive stock of photos from that country.  Stay tuned for that one in the coming days.  But I want to foreshadow the post after that, which will cover our time in Sri Lanka.  And after checking in to our jungle hotel just over an hour ago, I can already say that this is definitely the highlight so far!!  (Check out our resort by clicking here).  Hint: MONKEYS come to the sliding glass door on your balcony here!!!  E.R.   ;-)