Ulanbataar

We spent 2 nights in Ulanbataar, the first and the last in Mongolia and roughly a day and a half.

The firrst day we visited the National Museum and what impressed me the most was the traditional costumes in silk with so detailed embroderies.

It was a folklore festival at the soccer stadium and that was spectacular with traditional dancing in incredible costumes.

I hoped to see traditional Mongolian wrestling and that was part of the program. It was mostly pushing so how they decided who won is a mystery to me. A few times it was easy when one was thrown to the ground.

Not all were interested in what went on, it seems I was more interesting.

After the performance I took pictures and talked with a couple of monks. One spoke very good English and answered my question about traditions, clothes and the festival.

Mongolia.

Mongolia is land-locked and is sparsely populated. The area is more than the double of Texas and has a total population of 3 million. 1.4 million live in the capital Ulanbataar and all together 72% live in urban areas. Which basically means that most of the country is empty. As one Mongolian woman said  said after I told her we saw very little traffic: “Yes, where are the Mongolians?”

The north of the country has more mountains, forests and rivers and we visited a national park just north of Ulanbataar, so we experienced that part of the country. The rest of the trip was south and west of the capital where the landscape is very flat most of time and is first steppes, the semidesert and finally the desert Gobi. They had unusually much rain this year so the landscapes were much greener than normal.

I found very few that spoke English, but i talked to a few. I also tried body language and sign language with mixed success, except laughter and smiles. People were very friendly.

We saw very little cultivated land, so south of the capital it was grazing land, and herds of sheep, goats, cows and horses were a frequent sight. Close to the Gobi we also saw camel herds. The shepherds we saw were either riding a horse or motor bike, it was possible to ride a motor bike almost everywhere, but it was long between gas stations!.

The main roads were OK, but we were often on sideroads. Well it is streching the truth to call them roads, they were tracks and our drivers had to choose the right track as there were always choices.