Trans Mongolian
Arriving in Ulaanabaatar via a train from China was a scenic little treat in and of itself, seeing gers strung along the railway tracks in the midst of the Gobi with the stars beaming sporadic light on the sand was incredible. To top it off we stayed on board while the train was lifted from its bogeys to switch them out to match the Mongolian/Soviet track gauge.
After stargazing and gawking at a feat of engineering we crashed and awoke in a new country that couldn’t be any more different than the last. Huge, vast, empty, untouched is what Mongolia is all about, quite the contrast to it’s southern neighbour.
We ripped, that’s an overstatement, we rolled into the UB station where a representative from our guesthouse was supposed to be meet us. Since lots of things go awry when we are in limbo between countries we were not surprised when they “forgot” to pick us up…
After trying to explain where we were headed to a taxi driver who only understood Mongolian, we made it to our destination – hand signals, facial expressions and limited Cyrillic knowledge goes a long way.
Ulaanbaatar
Ulaanbaatar is on the beginning of an upswing but it definitely isn’t the prettiest city in the world. The sidewalks are cracked, the architecture echoes it’s soviet past and there are plenty of interesting folks on the streets, some more inebriated than others. At first glance it doesn’t seem like a place you want to spend much time in but it has it’s own unique charms and is a necessary stop to make for supplies and hiring drivers to get out to the steppes, desert and mountains.
Like any soviet built city UB has a central square, not holding images and tributes to Vladimir Lenin or current political leaders, but to the great Chinngis Khaan the man who put Mongolia on the map and basically took over half the planet back in the thirteenth century. Pretty slick seeing ol Chinngis seated like Abe Lincoln in a massive statue that is bigger than the loft we live in.
Sitting in all his glory - the mighty Genghis Khan
UB has a couple of decent museums and we decided to give the history museum a look before stepping out into the wilderness. There was an awesome Chinngis Khaan exhibit that paid tribute to the leader and had some awesome artifacts from the day including full sets of armor for both man and horse as well as a tonne of information regarding the reign of his and his son’s armies.
The other museum option is the natural history museum which is the equivalent of a soviet era labyrinth filled with very poorly stuffed animals that look like they died of a stroke, heart attack or something equally sudden. As far as the animals go there is everything from blowfish to big horn sheep. I think the only uniting theme of the museum is the fact that everything on exhibit used to be alive.
Of all the animals we saw, the most interesting and intriguing one we saw was the ancient animal known as the vampire deer. Yes according to the museum there once was a bloodsucking vampiric deer that feasted on innocent animals, including unfortunate humans as well as other vampire deer. This is what I learned from reading the cyrillic explanation anyways…if you believed any of this have no fear, it turns out that the curators of the museum or the soviet taxidermists decided to create a new predator that has never been found on planet earth. Seriously this was the shittiest looking thing I have ever seen, they literally glued two fangs to Bambi’s beautiful lips turning a fawn into ferocious beast. I thought museums were supposed to educate and showcase reality not create monsters of the imagination. Could you believe if these things existed? It would make hunting a hell of a lot more interesting, instead of blasting a deer you would always have to wonder if the little bastard had friends around waiting to suck you dry like Count Dracula.
The Most Vicious Predator in History - The Vampire Deer
The museum is home to one amazing exhibit, the dinosaur room. As a kid I had dreams of becoming a palaeontologist, unearthing the beasts of yesteryear in the Gobi with a revolver strapped to my belt to heed off vicious, barbaric raiders ala Indiana Jones. Unfortunately that dream faded when I found out it was all about patience and science instead of adventure, battle stories, fame and fortune. Anyways this place has REAL dinosaur bones and full blown skeletons assembled in magnificent form, it was amazing to an ex would be palaeontologist, I have seen the casts but never a full on dinosaur made of legit bones. Easily worth the eighty cents admission and since we weren’t headed to the Gobi, it would be as close as I would get to seeing Mongolian dinosaur bones in the wild.
Yeah the eyes are of the craft store glue on googly type, quality at its best
On top of the museum, the square and a bunch of candy runs to the state department store we also planned an excursion to the north of Mongolia to see the beauty of Khosvgol nuur and other famous Mongolian landscapes. We hooked up with a guide, driver and a sense of curiosity regarding one of the last untouched places on the planet and are anxiously awaiting the morning when we set off for a couple of weeks of Mongolian exploration.
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