Me and Kublai Khan

Mongolia is over and it’s onward to Beijing. Which means it’s time to start travel blogging again. Kinda cool that I’m going to Beijing after Mongolia, at least Khan wise!  It fits my blog title so nicely!

Here’s the new one:  Me and Kublai Khan.

I’m Back….

Wow, haven’t blogged here in ages.  Mostly that’s a sign of being settled in, I guess, and having a routine, so there’s not much to blog about!

Having said that, I thought the color of the water coming out of the bathtub tap was an interesting color this morning.  And it was actually darker than that, because the tub already had a couple of inches of water in it from the day before.  I closed off the plug yesterday and, apparently, there is no way to open it up again!

Libraries, Mongolian Style

If you’re interested, I wrote a post on Mongolian libraries on my library blog.  Several weeks ago, I was able to visit the UB Public Library and talk for a few hours with one of their librarians.  Amazing guy, who really wants to bring Mongolian librarianship into the 21st century, but he has an uphill battle.

Ex-pat Blogging

Hilarious, and too true for comfort!

Manning ( or growing) up.

I have odd little quirks when I’m overseas and in denial.  Little things I do that resist actually living in a place.  For example, when I first moved to Turkey, I didn’t sleep under the covers until October.  And it wasn’t just an “I’m picky about my sheets” thing, though that was part of it.  (I learned to bring good sheets with me, after that!)  Actually crawling in to bed seemed to admit I was in the place to stay, and I wasn’t even close to ready to do that.

Egypt was a breeze to settle into, but as you know, I’ve struggled with Mongolia…which took the form of refusing to learn any of the language.  And  I mean ANY.  Usually I at least pick up what I call taxi-driver language, if only to make getting around easier.  But up until last week, my two words of Mongolian consisted of “Thank you” and “straight ahead.”  I didn’t even know the words for yes and no.   Shame, shame.

I decided last week I had to grow up and give in to the inevitable.  I have now added yes, no, and  “turn left/right here” to my vocabulary.  Still pretty basic, but it’s a start.  I need to begin working on numbers.

Well, at least we don’t have any birthers here…

Haven’t posted since I returned from Malaysia because a) not much going on, and b) it’s been a bit tense with the anti-foreigner sentiment around here, and I was seriously freaking out over that.  Without going into lots of details, within a two week period, three of the teachers were attacked, one of them quite seriously.

Like the US, Mongolia has its own anti-immigration fervor, mostly aimed at imported Chinese workers, and apparently it tends to break out in spring.  It’s been particularly bad this year, and this is the first time it’s really affected the school.

Having been through three bomb attacks and 9/11 in Cairo and the earthquake in Turkey, I don’t think of myself as someone who panics, but I did over this.  Fortunately, everyone is fine, but as I was explaining to my (very sympathetic) boss, there’s a difference between the bag-snatching theft attacks in Egypt and Turkey (not that I ever experienced one of those) that are random and could happen to anyone, and being targeted simply because you’re a foreigner.  And I definitely stand out in a crowd.

Fortunately, I was never anti-immigrant at home, so I don’t have to deal with the personal hypocrisy it would cause to be anti-immigrant at home, then complain about being a potential target here!

It gets compounded as, when attacks do happen, Mongolians just ignore or watch. No one steps in to help.  Moreover, as with most places I suppose, the police tend to side with the locals; if you fight back and hurt somebody, you’re then embroiled in a legal battle and can’t leave the country.

Needless to say, after my initial “I am so out of here,”  I have calmed down.  The school held a couple planning sessions where we talked about how to avoid being targeted–though, again, even when I went into town by myself, I’ve never had a problem–but at least until fall, when all of this dies down (according to people at school who’ve been here a while),  we’ll travel in pairs or groups for a while!  (Could there be a more garbled sentence?  The English teacher in me protests!)

In defense of Mongolia, I will say this phenomenon is limited to Ulaanbaatar, and never happens out in the country, where nomadic attitudes about hospitality to strangers prevail.

And now for something completely different….

Gerald was here over spring break, which was a great opportunity (with the warmer weather, finally!) to get out and about and play the tourist with him.  Thanks to the Russians, there are only a few temples left in UB, but we went to Gandan, the largest temple in Mongolia (and also a Buddhist center of learning.  At least, Richard Gere went there!).  It houses one of the largest standing Buddhas in Asia, which is filled with, among other things,  a complete ger, with furnishings (according to the Lonely Planet)!  We went on the warmest day we’ve had so far–shirt-sleeves!–and were lucky enough to be able to watch part of a Buddhist ceremony.

Pretty cool, but the Temple Museum was truly stunning, and rather incongruously situated among the few examples of modern architecture in UB (see the photos for an example of what I mean!).  Mongolians practice a Hindu-influenced version of Buddhism, which was very obvious in the statues and masks here.  We also made the obligatory trip to Terelj and the big statue of Chinggis Khan.  We hired the school receptionist’s brother to drive us, a very charming young man.

I had to laugh because after doing to Turtle Rock, then going on to a few other stops and getting out to walk around a bit, stopping to have lunch at Ainshinn, we decided to head back.  Apparently, this worried him, and he called Annie to ask if there was a problem, if we were uncomfortable in the car or something, because we were heading back to town so soon.  We reassured him that all was well, and he offered to take us to the statue, a nice treat, as I hadn’t seen it. Much, much larger than I expected, and it housed a nice collection of Bronze-age artifacts.

Amusingly, you can climb to the top of the statue and out onto a platform for a view—but you exit the statue from Chinggis’s crotch….   I’m sure there’s something symbolic about that.

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Orangutan Rehab

Went to the Orangutan Rehab center for orphaned orangutans this morning. Amazing, amazing.  Species is seriously endangered–only 20,000 left, and they said they could be extinct in 10 years at current rate.  Horrifying.

It was linked to a big 5 star resort, which was weird, but they are apparently stage one of the rehab process, raising the orphans and teaching them to swing, climb, etc.  They currently have two 4 year olds, who were gallivanting around in the jungle reserve, and a 7 month old.  Photos below.

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Kazakh Eagle Festival

I went to the Eagle Festival yesterday.  TWice a year the Kazakhs hold their Eagle festival, showing off the huntings skills of their magnificent birds.  The first event is in October, in the west and is difficult to get to both geographically and, for a working teacher, practically.  Fortunately, they hold their second festival in Ulaanbaatar in ‘spring’–that balmy time of year when temperatures soar into the -10s.

Enveloped in multiple layers,  a few of the other teachers and I trekked to the Grand Khan Irish Pub (how’s that for a set of words you never thought you’d see together?) to catch the bus to Bogd Mountain, about 20 km outside the city.  It’s a sign of Mongolia’s lack of habitation that a mere 20 minutes outside the city, you’d never know it was there,  as the hills and steppes stretched around us.  It wasn’t actually snowing, but crystals floated through the air, sparkling like glitter, lending a surreal atmosphere to the surroundings.

There were probably only a couple hundred people there, including a crew from National Geographic Kids, and we had to do a lot of milling around waiting for the exhibition to start.  After a somewhat ridiculous fashion show inside the central ger–with marble floors no less (and who knew the inside of a ger could actually be colder than the outside?), we all trooped out into the sun again to the start of the opening parade.

Golden Eagles are about the most majestic bird I have ever seen, and far larger than you would think. Watching the hunters on their  ponies, in traditional dress with the birds perched on their arms, one had a sense of Mongolia’s past marching by.  After the ceremonies, there was about a km hike to the area where the hunting skills would be displayed.  Around this time, I realized that, while the rest of me was pretty warm, my feet, despite two pairs of thermal socks and my woolly Uggs, were absolutely freezing, and I started worrying about frostbite.  I was also a bit worried about hunting carnage, as part of the display was having the eagles kill a live wolf.  This, I did not want to see.

Fortunately, I ran into another of the teachers, who had driven, so we sat in her car and had an excellent, long-distance view of the hunting, as each of the riders, launched their bird, rode off, then called it back.    Apparently, the riders did not bring their actual ponies, but used Ulaanbaatar horses, so the horses were afraid of the birds and only a few of the eagles actually landed back on the arm of their hunter.   One bird got distracted by a bystanders fur hat and launched itself at the wearer.  Fortunately, neither bird nor bystander were hurt!  While galloping across the steppes, one rider’s horse stumbled and completely somersaulted, landing on rider and bird.  That was  heart-stopping to watch, but, again, no-one was hurt, which was pretty amazing.

Pictures are below–and I have a short video I’ll post later.

In other news, I’m booking a 5 day trip to the Gobi right after school is out, prior to coming home to the summer.  Very excited about that.  Then, a mere 3 months from now, it’s home for the summer!

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Mongolian Fire-Drill

Different from the Chinese fire drill!   The science lab set off the fire alarm today (it’s 0 degrees outside), so everyone trooped outside.

Here’s a pic of the kids wrapped up in their blankets.  Sorry it’s a bit hazy. I had my phone in my pocket; it must have steamed up when I took it out.

On a different note, Gerald arrives in about six weeks. I’m going to try to set up a couple day trips to places other than Terelj (out to see the Mongolian horses in Hustai, for example).  So with luck I can actually post something different for a change, and give you (and me!) a broader sense of the Mongolian countryside.

Don’t Throw Me Into That Briar Patch….

Just found out there were no flights out the day after the conference in Borneo, so we have to stay an extra day.  Wow, an extra day at a 5 star resort in tropical paradise–at the school’s expense.  How will I ever manage….  : )

Here’s the hotel, if you want to drool a bit.

BTW:  Check out this amazing photo essay of life in Ulaanbaatar