Day 7 - Thursday, Sept 19 - Zamin Uud to Ulaanbaator

Route to Ulaanbaatar

We did not sleep very well on the train, although the beds were quite comfortable. The rocking is more than "gentle" and it is often quite loud. Several times during the night, the train stopped to let other trains pass as in many sections there is only one track.

We woke to a bright sunrise over the Gobi Desert, more rolling terrain with low grasses. We passed herds of camels, horses, cattle and sheep. Overall it looks pretty barren. Amazingly, I was able to call Carmen on my cellphone!

Sunrise over the Gobi Desert

Mongolia is most famous for Genghis Khan and his descendants. In the 13th century, the Mongolian empire was the largest in world history, extending from Korea in the east to Prague and Budapest in the west. From Siberia in the north to Persia, India and China in the south. It was considerably larger than the Roman Empire and Alexander the Great Empire.

All good things must come to pass and the Mongolian Empire eventually collapsed. Since then it has had a complicated political history between the growing power of Russia to the north and China to the south. The Russian Czar helped throw out the Manchurian overlords in 1911 and then in 1921, it became a communist country influenced by the Lenin and the Soviet Union. In purges parallel to the Stalinist purges, all but one of the countries Buddhist temples were destroyed and thousands of people were killed.

 Although Mongolia has its own script alphabet, Uighur, as a consequence of the Russian/Soviet influence, the Cyrillic alphabet is primarily used for the phonetic representation of Mongolian words.

Ulaanbaatar has been developing very quickly, going from a small capitol city to a modern (ugly) city with over a million people, a third of the population of Mongolia. The pollution has been very bad due to the heavy use of coal for heating. Mongolia has huge deposits of coal but its use is bad for the environment. The current government is trying to reduce the pollution by promoting renewable energy. Along the train ride we saw large numbers of wind turbines. Mongolia has 250 days of sunshine and the development of photo-voltaic electricity is increasing rapidly.

Traffic in Ulaanbaatar is terrible although we are very impressed with the skill of our bus driver. Often he is inches from other vehicles and is adept at pushing between cars. One of the surprising aspects of traffic here is that while they drive on the right, as in the US, most of the vehicles are right-hand drive. Apparently it is very cheap to buy used cars from Japan which drive on the other side of the road in Japan. There is a very large number Toyotas and Prius in particular.

During the communist purges, almost all of the Buddhist temples were destroyed except one at the Gandan Monastery which was closed but not destroyed during the communist purges. After the fall of communism, the monastery has been restored and now is the center of Buddhism in Mongolia. There had been an 80’ tall bronze statue of Buddha in the temple which the Soviets used for scrap metal in 1937. In 1996, money was raised from the public to replace the statue with a copper (very plentiful in Mongolia) replica that is gilt with gold. Our guide took us through a temple where the priests where chanting and praying – it felt very intrusive to be doing this.

Prayer Wheels at Gandan Monastery

We don’t know why, but there were dozens and dozens of toddlers who were here on some sort of outing by their teachers. They were so cute!

Children at Gandan Monastery

After lunch of salad, braised beef and vegetables, we went to the winter palace of the last ruler of Mongolia, the Bogd Khaan, who reigned from the late 1800s until the communist takeover in 1921. He was both the supreme religious leader as well as the king, The palace is now a museum of Mongolian art – scrolls, sculpture, paintings and silk applique, His residence has many of his belongings, many of them gifts from foreign leaders.

Doors at Winter Palace

We had dinner at a Mongolian barbecue restaurant which wasn’t much different from ones in the US. You fill a bowl with vegetables, meats and shrimp that is given to the cooks who cook it on a large circular grill.

After dinner we went to a performance of traditional dance and music at the National Theater, including a full orchestra of traditional instruments playing traditional and classical music. It is impressive that relatively simple instruments and produce such beautiful music.

We are staying at the Ramada Inn, a very modern 18 story hotel. Looking out the window, we mostly see large modern buildings.

Modern Ulaanbaatar