This was not going to be a pleasant trip and we knew that but the effect of the climate was going to be so strong on our bodies was completely unexpected. Our flight from Bombay to Delhi was at 12.10 am from Mumbai airport on Spicejet, which is really fancy low budget airline with nice design on their planes. The flight was empty and we got about 3 seats each so it was well worth it since we could sleep. We were on Delhi airport from 2-5 and then took the Deccan Air flight from Delhi to Leh at 5.20 am and got to Kushok Bakula Leh Airport at 7 am. This is supposed to be the 2^nd highest airport in the world at about 11000 ft and is a very cute little airport (reminded me of the airport at Roatan or Hilo) right in the middle of the ‘desert hills’. Our bags came in on time and the unionized taxi worked out great to get us to our Lotus Hotel in Leh.

 

All the structures here are made from dirt bricks and wooden structures with really pretty wooden panels on the French windows. Our hotel is a small B&B with 17 rooms very friendly people. Its decorated with Buddhist Tangkha’s everywhere. On our arrival we were told repeatedly what we heard before from our friends in bby, take rest the first day. Consider the first day waste because you will face headaches and breathing problems. We did not feel much besides lack of sleep, so we hit the sack at 8.30 am and got up at 11.30. That’s when it hit us: splitting headaches, dizziness, stomach ache, cough and cold, nose blocks, incessant burps…

 

Somehow we managed to have some lunch (the hotel cook makes killer dals) and then tried to sleep again. By 4 we decided we needed to get out and took control of our itinerary after some nice masala tea.

 

First we headed to Shanti Stupa: This is built by a Japanese gentleman, resident in India, whose intention was to propagate Buddhism by building temples around the world. Finally completed with the assistance of the Japanese Government, it was inaugurated by the Dalai Lama in 1985. The platform that it is built on makes it a great vantage point for sunsets or the view of Leh from the top. It was about 4 sides, all of which have depictions of Buddha’s dharma cycle, Birth, Enlightenment and Nirvana being the three most important ones.

 

Our next stop was the Sankar Gompa which is a more modern one, (17/18^th century), belonging to the Yellow Hat sect and is the main gompa used for worship by devotees in Leh today. The eleven-headed Avalokiteshwara with a thousand arms is particularly impressive with other Tibetan relics.

 

One of the main sites to visit is the Leh Palace, built by King Singe Namgyal in the seventeenth century. The nine-storey high structure, with its sloping buttresses and projecting wooden balconies, is apparently a miniature replica of the great Potala Palace in Lhasa, built half a century earlier. The Palace was damaged during the Dogra assault in 1834 and with the royal family having been exiled to Stok, has since been abandoned. I climbed up (in flip flops – stupid me!) to get a good view of the town and surrounding peaks. Above the palace, on top of the Mangyal Tsemo Hill, stood the ancient Leh Fort built in the early 16^th century to commemorate the defeat of the Balti and Kashmiri armies. We also visited the Tsemo (Red) Gompa that was built in 1436 by Tashi Namgyal. It contained a fine, three-storey high image of the Maitreya Buddha flanked by Avalokiteswara and Manjusri.

 

Finally we went to the Leh Market and walked around looking for some pretty Tibetan stones and pearls. Some of the stuff in the market was a direct import from Gujarat and Rajasthan and was mainly meant for western travelers (which outnumbered the Indian ones right now).

 

The night has not gone very smoothly with someone throwing up and others coming down with fever. None of the food seems to digest very well… hopefully things will be better tomorrow… 

I just got back from the incredible city of Hyderabad which accentuated the very image of Old and New within the exisiting subcontinent (which according to John should have been a continent since it is bigger than Europe but because of the euro-centric geographic divisions was short changed when drawing up the maps).

 

My first visit from the NT RAMA RAO / RAJIV GANDHI airport was going through the 'puls' across Hussain Sagar, a beautiful lake right in the middle of the city. As I understand this used to be a river which dried up (and so the story goes for many rivers in india). This has a really tall statue of Buddha right in the middle of the lake.

 

From Wiki:

 

Hussain Sagar is a lake in Hyderabad, India built by Hazrat Hussain Shah Wali in 1562, during the rule of Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah . It was a lake of 24 kilometres built on a tributary of the River Musi to meet the water and irrigation needs of the city. There is a large monolithic statue of the Lord Buddha in the middle of the lake.[1]

Next we went to the center of the old Hyd, Charminar. There is the Nizam hospital, city college, charminar, mecca masjid and minabazar. We could also see the Golconda fort from the top and I met this interesting security guard who came running when we saw me and started chatting in Marathi. I have no idea how he guess that I was from Bombay but he started by 'Jai Maratha' and I could clearly see how happy he was to see someone from 'apne des' as he called it. It was an exhiliarating experience that someone who gravitate towards me in such a manner and be very excited to share his story with a random stranger. In the ten minutes that he talked, I learned his aspirations to be a computer programmer and go to 'America' after his part time bachelors is done in hyderabad. He talked about his parents in Kandivali east and what I should do in HYD. Some details about the places I saw from Wiki:

Last day in UB

 

Sadly there always comes this point in the journey where the end is upon you. Today was my last day and I did was most tourists do at this point, Spent a ton of money at the Cashmere store Goyo which had some great sweaters made in Mongolia, 100% Cashmere.

 

Next I went for a 2 hour full body massage which was extremely relaxing, all for about 30 bucks!

 

Today’s main organized event was a farewell dinner and reception at the Hotel Mongolia, another tourist attraction located 15 km from the city center. This hotel and entertainment complex is modeled after 13^th century Kharkhorin and overlooks scenid mountains and the Tuul River. I enjoyed the last evening with all the other people on the tour, its amazing what a bond you develop with people suffering and rejoicing in the memories that we have shared about Mongolia and this expedition to find Chinggis Khan’s tomb.

 

My last stop is the airport (which is where I am right now), I am off to Seoul and then to Mumbai after 14 hour stop in South Korea. I am going to try and check into the transit hotel and also try and getting through immigration and maybe take a city tour of Seoul, or maybe not and sleep for a long time in the Transit hotel….

 

16 Hours in Seoul

 

I managed to check into the Transit Hotel and slept for about 7 hours. Rest of the time I have been reading Two Koreas about the relations of the US with S.Korea and N.Korea after a brief discussion with Ezra, John’s friend from Harvard last night.

 

Just got into Mumbai for two days, off to Hyderabad for couple and then to Ladakh for 6… will resume blogging from Ladakh.

Palaces and State Department Stores

 

Today’s program started off with a visit to the Winter Palace of Bogd Khan between 1893 and 1903 where the nation’s last religious and state leader spent his final days. Now a museum, this is one of the city’s most interesting places. It must be nice to be a king, we saw his summer palace which was built like a monastery and the winter palace which was full of exotic stuffed animals which was pretty sad.

 

The next place we visited was the State Department Store, once upon a time the only store in Communist Mongolia this store is now a shopper’s paradise. This place was about 6 stories of pure souvenir shopping. We spent about 2 hours there which was not enough for most people but more than enough for me.

 

After Lunch at the Chinggis Club which was THE place to go since it had the Chinggis Beer Brewery and a very hearty serving of food, we went to the American Council for Mongolian Studies. This was a non profit organization situated within the University of Mongolia campus. It had a study room and probably the biggest collection of English language books on Mongolia in its library. Most of the people doing some sort of research on Mongolia in the university were members of this council.

 

Our next stop was the Dublin Pub where we discussed the future of Mongolia in terms of political and economic pressure from Russia (which treats Mongolia as its backyard, eg: Yalta treaty – the American agreed to give up the demand of Mongolia as an independent republic if the Russians attached the Japanese in WW2) and China (who the Mongolians hate but are letting them build most of the roads since they have the labor and discipline in their corporations to build them).

 

We visited the Mongolian National Folk Dance and Music Group which included the famous throat singing and traditional songs and dances on a very big stage and a nice auditorium. The Dances and Costumes were magnificent and it was a great experience to see what a professional group in the big city does the same thing we saw in the tourist Ger at Karakhoram.

 

The evening ended with dinner in Marco Polo, reputedly the best pizza in town but the service was so slow, I had to give up the thought of having the pizza and had to be satisfied with just the soup, but overall the really productive day in the city.

Adventures in the dunes

 

We started off after a terrible breakfast of rice and milk which I skipped (had a few granola bars instead) we headed straight for the little patch of dunes. I raced with Migi and then help him built a sand castle and bury himself in the sand, we even saw a row of camels walking around (scouting for tourists I suspect) and some Gers in the middle of the so called ‘desert’.

 

After that we started for UB which was about 260 km, 5 Mongolian hours. I say Mongolian hours because it all depends on the roads and weather. We faced some really crazy dust storms which we couldn’t move at all since we couldn’t see anything. Next thing, there was a bout of heavy rain which made the entire dirt road for a patch of five miles into Mud. We had 2 of our SUVs stuck in the mud and with the lack of experience of our drivers we kept getting more stuck till Migi had to take things in his hand and managed to get them out. The roads were not all that bad after those two episodes but it sure was an adventure.

 

We got into UB around 6.30 pm, went for dinner at this really nice restaurant Silk Route. After that I went out to a couple of discos, made some Mongolian friends who had studied in the US. Got on the internet really late in the night and I am late for breakfast right now so I am off….

Center of the Universe

 

This morning we started from the ‘Empire of the Steppes’ monument on the top of nearby hill overlooking the city and the Orkhon Valley and then proceeded to the ruins of Kharkorin, whose stones were used to build the adjacent Erdene Zuu Monastery beginning  in the 16^th century when Mongolia accepted Vajrayana or Tibetean Buddhism. Within the walled confines of the Monastery, adorned by 108 stupas (Buddhist reliquaries), is a resurgent community of monks who through the imposing were at their prayers as we entered through the imposing gates. Outside we surveyed what remains of Kharkhorin and looked around amid the ruins of what was once the “Center of the Universe.”

 

After lunch at the California Restaurant over some wrestling matches on TV broadcasted from UB we visited the Phallic Statue, allegedly created to stop frisky monks from crossing over the hill over to the village women. We also visited a turtle statue which carries the world on its back on the top of a hill. From there we could see the ruins outlined and an Ovoo with skeletons of horse heads.

 

We reached the Mongol Els, an unusual group of sand dunes along our route. The Ger was called Bayan Gobi and our accommodation for the night was in the tourist camp there. My dinner there consisted for Milk and Rice, Coleslaw and fries with Ketchup!

 

The night ended with two lectures about the Mongols in the East and Mongols in the West from John and this time I had the lecture slides on my computer and managed to take notes on my computer. We saw some very interesting pictures of Bukhara and miniatures from Chenggis-Nama from Mughal India. Overall I have really enjoyed learning about the history of this country while traveling around it.

Nadaam in Kharakoram

 

The atmosphere was of excitement as we reached the location of the events taking place at Nadaam. Part family reunion, part fair and part nomad Olympics, Nadaam (meaning ‘holiday’ or ‘festival’) has its roots in the nomad assemblies and hunting extravaganzas of the Mongol armies.

 

Nadaam is properly known as Eruyn Gurvan Naadam, after the three ‘manly’ sports of wrestling, archery and horse racing (though women participated in the last two events). Winning at Nadaam carries great prestige and financial reward. We saw two events, horse racing and wrestling. We were on the finish line for the horses and in the bleachers for the wrestling. It was very exciting to see the kids (only boys and girls aged between 5 and13 participate in horse racing) who won the race being paraded and given awards to in the wrestling ring. The wrestling match was a lot of fun, the costumes are unique because there is a small underwear (blue or red with embroidery) and a west that is open in the front. The legend is that an Amazonian woman defeated all the men in one year’s Nadaam competition so to keep women out they decided on an open front vest. The winner needs to touch the opponent’s body to the ground in any way possible with his hands.

 

After lunch and a nap we took a drive about 50 km from the camp to the stone monuments of Turkish inscriptions of Kol Tigin and Bilge Kagan. This is also called the Orkhon Turkish monuments, which along with the Tonyukuk steles bear the oldest specimens of the Turkish language. This was during the time of the Gurturk empire, noted in history with a name ‘Turk’ dominated Central Asia between 552-745 AD. On the surface of these grey marble inscriptions, there are 40 lines of Turkish writings, and 13 lines each on south and north sides of the inscription. On the surface of the west side there is inscription in Chinese character by Emperor of Chinese Tang Dynasty praising Kol Tigin’s outstanding personality and the importance of peace. John has promised me the English translation of the inscriptions once we get back home.

 

After we were got back to the camp, we had a late supper followed by late night discussion and jazz music and other oldies music (which was a learning for me) from the 50s and 60s. We sat around John’s ipod speakers and couple of bottles of Chinggis while people talked about their past while I listened.

 

Lost and Found

 

Today started off inauspiciously. First thing I heard when I got up was that there was a huge line for showers and that most likely there wasn’t any hot water. 3 of the 4 people in my Ger decided to skip showers and dressed up before I even got up. I decided to take the chance and found out that the showers were empty and I got hot water!

 

Next we reached for breakfast and there was a long wait for that and finally when we got a table, we did not get any service. They were understaffed and had full occupancy, in fact our drivers had to stay in a camp about 5 km away. So we were delayed from the original departure of 9 to 10 am.

 

One of the drivers that was with us on the first leg Hurlay, a part of the expedition as all the others had to stay back in UB this time so we had a new guy this time. The way Orgil arranged the driving was the we drove in 3s with the same car as the middle and one at the end. The new guy did not get this part and started to take his our detours and speeding ahead of Orgil and so at a point after 2 hours, we lost track of Orgil, who thought we were ahead so he was trying to catch up. Migey on the other hand was very good with the last land cruiser and kept the tail-end just like he was supposed to. When we realized that we couldn’t find Orgil, we decided to drive up to the top of the hill so we get a better view and wait for 40 minutes. Then we went back the road we came, the bumpiest patch of roads we had ever driven for another 40 minutes and when we didn’t find him we came back on that road and resumed the journey to Kararokam with 2 cars. Finally after 3 hours of delay we stopped for lunch in a little mining town where we got some cell phone signal and managed to talked to Orgil who was about an hour away from Karakoram. After that we drove about 3 more hours to get to Karakoram. So pretty much the whole day was lost in the wild goose chase….

 

Karakoram or Kharkorin (as its called today) in Ovorkhangai Aimag, center of the Mongol Empire before the capital was transferred to Tatu or Beijing by Kublai in China. Although the Mongol city is in ruins, the site is dominated today by the majestic Erdene-Zuu Monastery. We are staying in the Anar Ger camp on the banks of Orkhon River.

 

After dinner we had a great live musical performance of traditional Mongolian musicians, singers and contortionist in one of the dining Gers. This camp is also full for Nadaam with tourists from Italy, France, Australia and Netherlands.

 

I managed to take a decent hot shower before going to bed so I don’t have to wait in line tomorrow for it. I am looking forward to the Nadaam events tomorrow of Wrestling, Archery and Horse Riding.

 

 

 

Today was packed with activities around Ulaanbaatar since it was the only day we had in the city before we leave for our second leg of countryside, looking for Chinggis Xaah (x = KH, h =n in Mongolian/Cyrillic).

 

We started with Gandan (Buddhist) Monastery at the western end of UB escorted by a local monk. Gandan survived the communist era, albeit in a greatly reduced state, primarily a museum and showpiece for religions tolerance in a Marxist state. Its traditional Tibetan style architecture reflects the close religious association between the two countries over the centuries. We toured the grand prayer hall and the Janraisig Temple that houses the recently restored 10-meter tall statue of Avolokitsvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion (which happens to be Buddha for my year of birth, the year of the rooster).

 

One of the highlights of our visit will be a visit to the Gandan Monastery Library. Set within the courtyard of the Monastery grounds, this unassuming building contains wonderful examples of sutras, in Tibetan and Mongolian script, beautifully illustrated commentaries on the Buddhist canon and a complete set of ancient surgical tools with illustrated instructions on their use, among other religious and cultural objects that survived the communist era.

 

Our next stop was the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts in downtown UB. This fine museum had a wonderful collection of Mongolian Buddhist and traditional art as well as masterpieces of modern Mongolia, including many works of the great artist Zanabazar (1635-1724). Two of the best works were that of White Tara and Dharma Chakra which were huge with intricate work on silk applicants.

 

We headed to lunch at BD’s Mongolian BBQ which was awesome since I used to go this place all the time in Michigan. I made sure I got a tshirt, the place was exactly the same except they had Kimchi as one of the sides. Other than that, I could hardly tell if I was in US or Mongolia once inside. Next we went to John’s apartment to see what the new apartment/condos being built in UB look like, it was like any furnished apartment in the US with a beautiful kitchen, leather couches and huge beds.

 

After a little break at the hotel where I wrote most of my postcards, we headed for the History Museum of Mongolia. This museum housed an extensive collection from different periods of Mongolian history and we could completely relate to this because of John’s presentation last week. We saw the Bronze era helmets and deer stones. The turk and uigar artifacts and then the detailed look at the Mongolian empire from Chinggis Khan’s era to Bogd Khan’s encouragement of Buddhism in the area. That was followed by the communist era, the rewards for ‘ordinary workmen’ and ‘farmers’. Finally it talked about the new democratic republic of Mongolia and its relation with the rest of the world.

 

The day ended with dinner at a Ukrainian Restaurant, one the best places of Russian food. We had some good Australian Cab and for dinner, I ordered traditional Mushroom soup and veggie pancakes which were super heavy. Back in the hotel, we saw another episode of Firefly and I did some emailing. Look forward to the countryside starting tomorrow, I cant believe I am bored with city life already!

 

 

I like my birthdays to be discreet like the one this time, not a soul on the trip knows my birthday and I am actually scared of telling them my age. I am so young compared to them, less than half their age!

 

After a breakfast of Omelet, just as we were about to start a storm approached throwing off the plan. Instead in the restaurant Ger, John set up a presentation on the history of different civilizations and their influence on Mongolia. It was extremely fascinating and very illuminating to see an aspect of history that the west had completed ignored by calling it the ‘Dark Ages’. The influence of the Persians on the Greeks and Romans, the Turkic kingdoms, spread of Zoroastrianism and its influence on the people in central Asia. The history of the Huns, Ming and Qing dynasties on the eastern part of Mongolia. The silk routes and their protection by the Chinese and finally destruction of the ports by Timur thereby ending the route. I longed to be a historian! John makes it so interesting.

 

Finally it stopped raining and we proceeded to the monument commemorating the 750^th anniversary of the Secret History of Mongols. This is the place where they had the huge Kuritai during the reign of Ogedei and also allegedly the place where the secret history ended. The monument stone also had the different brands of the Mongol dynasty which were typically inscribed on the Mongol coins.

 

Right opposite this is the huge excavation site of the Japanese who think that this place, the Avarga Palace of Chinggis Khan is where he is buried because this is closest to his place of death in north china. Any more travel and the body would have been completely rotten by the time it was put to ground. There wasn’t much to see because all the sites were filled back up, they have a exhibit in August that shows all their findings. Avarga palace is also considered to be the first capital of the Mongol empire.

 

We then began our return journey to UB, and we had John in our car. He was talking about the different practical jokes they played with a make believe character of Khan Bahadur Khan that they used to send spams from to professors that they did not like or conference papers to those that they were presiding over. The drive was pleasant, about 1.5 hours on the dirt road and about 5 on the paved road.

 

Got back around 7.30, after which I went to really nice Indian restaurant, Hazaara by myself to celebrate my birthday. After which I got a 2 hour massage done by the hotel and got back late. This was a very nice birthday, this time in Ulanbataar, Mongolia. I have promised myself that I will be in a different city on every birthday and I have pretty much followed that for the last 6 years.   

My travelogue (as I have come to call this) is going to be fairly short today because I only have 15 minutes of juice left in my laptop (I get to plug in tonight, hopefully) and I am super jittery from an ice cold shower this morning.

 

Yesterday started with breakfast as usual and then we went into the details of all the different excavation, the area and its significance. After that initial lecture we went to the excavation site, walked on the wall that’s surrounding this area (no one knows who built it, no money for carbon dating) and saw these channel like structures, which some say are sacrificial areas, some say heating systems… After that we walked around the whole site, pretty much half of the day went in there. Saw the burial areas where they found the skeletons.

 

Next stop was a trip to a little village of less than 5000 people called Binder, by the Onon river. Stayed at the banks of the Onon and then visited a place where the first big kuritai for Chenggis took place which had about 100000 people. Saw the markers there. This was the only place without a political dispute.

 

After that we drove to the place which some say is the birthplace of Chenggis because of its description in the Secret history of the Mongols (pg 70) by the Onon River. This again is a very disputed place but we made sure to do our three circumvents around it for good luck.

 

Then we headed back to the camp for dinner and a long discussion on international politics, Iran and other very sensitive issues. Of course having John around it really helped because he knows a lot of people and the real sources who are considered authorities in the US, many of them are actually his students of alumni from UofC.

After an early breakfast and freezing showers we left for Avraga, leaving the mountains of the north Khentii (pronounced Hentee) for the plains and steppes of the southern part of the province. We had a long drive to Delgerkhaan which practically took the whole day while we absorbed the never ending wonders of the landscape.

 

Our first stop was the cattle branding of Rashaad Had which was a large stone with all the different cattle brands used by Mongolians. Also the surrounding rocks had inscriptions or graffiti, if you will in Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolia…. and many other languages. It was explained to us that since this was the passing of herds and many travelers to the southern steppes it had served as an important place for many centuries.

 

Next we headed to the Binder Ovoo which was probably the largest Ovoo that we have seen and we have seen a lot of them. An Ovoo is a pyramid shaped pile of rocks with a pole in the center where the blue scarves are tied. They are used by Shamans for rituals, similar to the little temples in India everywhere in the country. We proceeded to take three clockwise circles around it while we tossed our three rocks on it. There were a lot of offerings on the Ovoo of vodka bottles, tugris, food and other things.

 

Our third and the highlight of the journey was the stop at a Mongolian herder’s Ger in the middle of an largely empty land. This family had about 12 horses, 8 of which were tied with a pole and rope from their heads preventing them from eating while the rest were tied in a different area. We learned later that those horses were being trained for races in Nadaam (their annual sporting event in July) hence to prevent over-eating they were tied in such a manner. We proceeded to sit inside the Ger where I took a 7 minute video of the conversation with the Grandfather (a WWII veteran), the daughter with a 5 month year old child on the lap and a 14 year old boy who offered us Airak (cold fermented Mare’s milk) and Tche (hot tea with milk and butter) which are their traditional drinks. We were thrilled to be in a real Ger with the men’s side and women’s side, the little kitchen stove in the middle which also doubles up as the heating furnace in winter, the dried meat hanging on one side, the idols for worship on the other. They were extremely hospitable and talkative.

 

Last we stopped in a little town to fill out the cars and have some lunch. The noodle soup took more than 90 minutes to cook and serve and about 9 to eat. The toilet was quite interesting, a hole and a plank!

 

We also had couple of other stops to see yaks, hawks, cows, goats, sheep, horses and many other animals. The driving was always tricky because the dirt road had all kinds of different paths and marshes. We arrived in the tourist camp by Delgerkhaan about 7 pm and were invited with a customary drink of cold Tche. This is our first experience staying in a Ger, which has 3 beds on three sides; the center has the stove where they were burning horseshit (which surprisingly doesn’t smell!) and a chimney. There is an opening in the center of the ceiling which keeps it lit up and refreshes the air. We also have couple of chairs and a coffee table for hot water. We got electricity for the first couple of hours where I quickly charged my laptop and camera batteries. Overall it’s a very pleasant arrangement.

 

We had a nice supper and our usual conversations till 11 pm over Chinggis vodka, this time about how to market this trip in the US, to what segments will it appeal and giving John and Orgil feedback about the trip so far. My mattress here is very uneven and the ride was rough, my back hurts. I hope I have time for a massage in UB once we get back tomorrow. 

Another very long day on the dirt road, today we traveled from Blue lake area to the site of the expedition base camp. We drove through a series of beautiful valleys and the dirt road was not really a road at all, at times it felt like we were driving through the African safari and creating our own highways. If not for the GPS it would have been quite random, luckily I was looking at Orgil’s previous charted journey and it seemed like he was following the route almost exactly except this one place where he decided to take a detour and on the way asked for directions at a Ger camp!

 

After our breakfast (milk and rice again for me J) and defending ourselves from the attack of the flies (which luckily did not bite) we left after they packed our lunch from the log cabins we set out. Our first stop was a mountain view of the pristine blue lake.

 

After that we stopped our a Kyrgz burial site. These were the people that lived in this area around 9^th Century AD and usually buried their dead in the elaborate sites with stones in a circle formation on the top. That was the initial explanation and then the other use of the term is for anything that they have no idea what it is. So in case of this burial site, since John and Orgil had never seen it, they called it a Kyrgz. So after that they kept pointing out a bunch of things on the way saying ‘That’s a Kyrgz!’

 

Our next stop was a beautiful deer stone from the bronze age 1500 BC, extremely rare. These are basically charcoal paintings which have deer formations and sun and moon formations on them. This one was beautiful.

 

We were caught in a storm after that and the climate took a complete turn, from very hot to very humid. Once we were out of the storm we took a break and had a picnic at the top of the hill. These guys unpacked the lunch and set up a tent restroom area. This was probably the best picnic area I had ever been to, the landscape was lush green and very vast.

 

Then we stopped at a random sign board in the middle of nowhere pointing to the direction of UB and other areas. On the way we saw all the wells that the Russians put up in the middle of nowhere to encourage agriculture. The Russians did some good at least!

We also saw some interesting animals and birds, 2 hump camels who are really short – about half the size to that of the ones in India/Africa, cranes, marmots – rodent like creatures with are white and orange in color.

 

When we finally arrived at the site which was very beautiful because of a fire in march due to a helicopter crash which burned all the pine trees but created great fodder for these lavender, blue and white flowers. The valleys leading up to the site look very beautiful, almost like being in Switzerland. On the final leg one of the land cruisers got stuck in the marsh and Orgil had to use one of those ropes to pull it out. That was an adventure.

 

We finally got to the log cabins and figured out the sleeping arrangement. We got some hot showers and then dinner. During dinner since John was really upset because the expedition was coming to an end since they had run out of money we got the entire scoop on how it had started with Mori Cravitz and the whole pitch to find the burial site of Genghis Khan. His incomplete knowledge of the whole thing combined with the politics of getting such a huge venture started without the support of the Mongolist scholars all around the world and also the red tape in Mongolia, a newly democratic nation where everyone wanted a piece of the action. Finally everything collapsed when the governments changed and investors got tired of funding without results, lack of archeologists and mongolist scholars and misuse of funds by the Mongolian counterpart to John and Orgil. We also went into detail about different theories that the Japanese, Mongolians, Germans, Australians and the Americans held about this area. It’s a huge structure (like a lighthouse) with a wall around it and they have found some graves in there but there is a lot more work to be done and they don’t have any money for it.

 

The rights of excavation will be sold next year and the Mongolians may sell off this land to more lucrative tourism development. We are hoping in years to come, more people will be interested in Mongolian archeology and an international consortium will come together to dig this area out and discover the mysteries of this area. That will make for a more definite history as compared to all the different speculations that exist today.

 

That’s how the day ended, kind of on a grim note because of the end of this Mori Cravitz Chinggis Khan Expedition led by Americans. Tomorrow we will take detailed look at the excavations that they have done in the last 7 years and their findings and theories on this.  

The day started early with Tom up at 5, I tried to sleep till 6 but finally got up. Breakfast at 7 and we were packed and ready to leave for our 5 day camping trip to the Khentii Province which is the birthplace of Chinggis Khan. We had about 4 hours of paved road and then 2 hours of dirt road to look forward to.

 

Our first detour was the Turkish monument of Tonyukuk, a group of steles of the 8^th century Turkish Empire covered with runic inscriptions. It is known that the Turkish people originated from this area of Mongolia and were driven away by the Chinese to present day Turkey. How they crossed thousands of miles is still a mystery.

 

The second time we stopped was to witness the building of this massive statue of Chinggis Khan on horseback which made the cranes used for its construction look tiny not to mention miniature horses and people next to it. This stainless steel statue is in a way a channel through which the Mongolians are finding their Identity. As Tom says its their Statue of Liberty and it is indeed grand.

 

Next we stopped in the city of Bayan-Ovoo to use the restrooms and buy some vegetables for the next few days. Also right outside the city was a small noodle soup place where we stopped for lunch. We saw the construction of a Ger while we were there and since I couldn’t have the mutton noodle soup, I had to made do with sweet milk and rice, yummy!

 

After this we went on the dirt road for about 32 miles which took a very long time for there was no real road, only the one we created by our 3 SUVs. The vastness of this land cannot be captured by a camera, the steppes continue forever and its lush green in most places. It feels like nothing has changed since 12^th century. I can see the tribal nomads of the Chinggis Khan era minding their herds the same way they are doing them right now. In vast rolling lands we would see one singular Ger with horses and herds of goats and sheet like a little patch of civilization in a very big empty landscape.

 

We got to the Blue Lake and Black Heart Mountain by 5 pm last night, a very pristine area with rolling hills and a small lake in the center of the whole landscape. This is where Temujin was declared ‘Chinggis Khan’ for the first time by his tribe and family members. The mountain ranges are supposed to resemble a heart but none of us could identify with that. We were staying in log cabins right by the lake, there are around 10 log cabins with 2 floors and can have about 6 people in one. There are basic facilities of washrooms and electricity so it makes for really nice camping site.

 

We met for dinner at 7 pm last night which was very colorful and full of carrots, I got an extra course of rice when everyone got their meats. It was not exactly fulfilling but enough to last me through the night. After that we had a presentation and lecture by John on this area and the history of the Turkic tribes as well as the differences in succession and ruling strategies of Chinggis Khan. The evening ended with a toast of Chinggis Vodka (and not a shot glass, they have about 3 shot glass amount of vodka)!

Ulaan stands for Red, Bataar for Knight. Yesterday was the first official day of the trip and sure enough it was packed with some very interesting events. I realized when I got up at 5 am that I was still very jetlagged yesterday. Managed to grab some continental breakfast at the hotel (Oh I hate those!) and then came back up and watched some Firefly. Very surprising that Tom likes that’s, I absolutely love that show so it was quite a delight to hear that he has the entire season on his computer.

           

Day started off with a trip to SukhBataar square. Sukh means Axe, so this hero who defeated the Chinese in 1921 has a big statue in the middle of this huge square in front of the Mongolian Parliament building. This building is being remodeled from the original Kremlin looking building to a more Mongolian looking one with a Genghis Khan statue on a huge throne at the center of the building. We spent a bit of time going over the history of this place.

 

After that we took off to the monument, Zaisan Memorial at the top of a hill which was a memorial for the Russian soldiers who died during the battle with Japanese in eastern Mongolia in 1939. This was a historic battle where they defended Mongolia from the Japanese and gave them such a crushing defeat that the Japanese never attacked Russia again. That was the primary reason they hit Pearl Harbor in WW2 instead of the Russians. During that journey we got to see another dust storm and were raised above that when we climbed on top of the hill. The weather changed again from sunny to really windy and we felt droplets of rain.

 

Our next stop was the tourist camp, Chinghis Urguu outside the city, our first experience going off road in our land cruisers. This was fashioned after a traditional Ger camp with many different gers out of which the most fancy one was the dining hall. We saw what the spirit banner looks like with the trident and the horse hair. It was quite in the middle of rolling hills and a very pretty landscape. We met Dr Bazargur who is the leading force in the Genghis Khan Expedition with his strong belief in the history of the tomb and other burial grounds of the Khan’s. We did not speak a word of English but with the translator, he turned out to be a great resource for all kinds of mythological beliefs about the tomb (such as the site of the expedition matches the crate of the moon…sexual positions within the tomb …. Bones that matched young women which were sacrificed…). He gave us a book and a CD to take with us. During this meet we also had our first traditional Mongolian meal which consisted of a cream of mushroom soup and a fired dumpling (which for other had beef, for me it was potatoes).

 

After a brief nap back at the hotel we went to the Xaan (Khan) Bank where we met Pete Morrow, CEO of the bank who is a huge supporter of Mongolian Contemporary Art and his bank has a very big collection of it. Most of the artists are either his friends or people who need his support to stay afloat. His collection was all over the bank so we walked around with him while he talked about all the paintings in detail. Its amazing to see how a group of artists who were forbidden to paint anything besides what the socialists wanted them to could do such an amazing job at abstract art only within 15 years of being free. We saw some very good paintings. We were then taken to a Ger right in front of the bank which was the dining hall for visitors where we had our reception with wine, Pringles and peanuts while he talked to us about the Art Scene in Mongolia, Economic and Political climate in Mongolia and his personal life there. As any other banker would do, his spiel about the future of Mongolia was very rosy and he was very convincing that in the next 40 years Mongolia would be one of the top developed nations like Ireland because of its huge oil and natural resources which remained untapped and its strong democratic government.

 

The day ended with dinner at Verandah with Tom and Charleen and chatting about living in Denver. That could be my next project so all the more information for me. I think I am back in cycle now, I got up by 6.30 am today so its getting better. Today we leave for our 5 day trip to Blue Lake, Khenti Aimeg and Genghis Khan Expedition site.

Incheon airport turned out to be a shopping paradise, my first exposure to Korea and it was pretty shocking. If not for the letters on sign boards and announcements in Korean, I could have easily mistaken this place to be in Europe or the US. Burberry, Hugo Boss, Chanel… you name it. There was hardly any homegrown brands and the airport was huge. First I walked around the entire airport, which took about 2 hours. There is something called the Transit Hotel, which was pretty unique on both sides of the airport. They have 6 hour blocks for which they offer rooms, pretty much like any other Sheraton except it is for travelers who have connecting flights. I think it’s a great concept and should be in the US soon. As I mentioned earlier, I was going to get the foot massage that Devon had told me about. That was amazing, I was asked to change into shorts and a Tee that they had placed on the massage table. The girl doing the massage was pretty athletic, she was all over the place, standing on the table and using her knees and feet and elbows. I could hear all my bones crackling but it felt so good. They even had a shower that I took after it. After that I had lunch at a Korean joint which looked pretty authentic, Tsintao and kimchi rice. I loved it, what a combination beer and kimchi!

 

Met Charleen at the gate before boarding. We were chatting when a man sitting next to me started asking us questions about where in Mongolia are we going, what we planned to do. We found out as we started talking that this guy had moved from Montana to UB 12 years ago, married a Mongolian woman and has a half Mongolian girl child. He owns a drilling company and hasn’t been to the US since then. We talked about certain etiquettes to observe when interacting with Mongolians, such as never touch a kid’s nose, don’t stand on the doorway of a ger, never offer money between two fingers and lots of different omens that they believe in. He gave us a list of restaurants to visit and also a tip that the bar in Bayangol, which is where we were staying, is an infamous hangout for working women who normally go home with Canadian miners who frequently stay there.

 

Flight went pretty smoothly, I think I was very tired from the massage that I slept through the entire 4 hours. The girl next to me was a very pretty nurse from North Carolina who worked for Samaritan Purse and was here on a 5 month assignment to do a preliminary survey on kids with congenital cardio diseases and possibility of bringing them to the US for treatment. I would have chatted with her, had it been another leg. This time I was just willing to give myself up to sleep!

 

Got to UB at 10.30 and then the whole baggage thing had to occur. I did not get my bags for over 30 minutes while I watched this huge group of Koreans with similar tshirts saying ‘Warriors of God’ defiantly throw more than 80 pieces of luggage to their counterparts holding the trolleys. Finally, we got out by around 11 and met Ghorgol (sp!), John and Orgil. Drove  from the airport to the hotel in a land rover on this clear full moon night. The temperature must have been 75 degrees and the wind was very pleasant. The land seemed very barren and lots of neon signs when we entered the city. John explained to us that the city was build along the Tula river with mountains on both sides. Most of the development was to the north of the range but they were expanding to the west bank now. Most of the 4 million population of the country lived around the city and a lot of construction was being done in the last 5 years. Our hotel was in the bang center of downtown and there were a lot of things around it including the president’s resident, an irish pub, Indian restaurant, national library, post office, german beer garden…

 

I am sharing my room with Tom who is from Chicago. He was already here when we got here but fast asleep. We went down to the Bar and chatted till 2 am. Ghorgol was a Mongolian native, with a Mongolian mother and a Cuban/Angolian father. John thinks he looks more Ethiopian, I think he looks more Cuban than anything. He is probably the only person in twenties (around 23) while the rest of the group are about 55 and up. Tom is 65, Charlene 55, John 60, Orgil 50, Gene 67 and Michelle and Steve probably around 65 too. Charlene is a travel agent who does architectural tours in Chicago and cooking tours in Italy, France and Germany. I was asking them how to devil in the white city tour was and if it was worth it. We downed two big mugs of Tigers each and some fries. John has an incredible capacity for beer.

 

The next day, I got up around 8 and started chatting with Tom till around 10. Charlene joined us after that and then Tom left to get his luggage. Tom grew up in Long Island and now lives in Chicago. He does sales for a German lubricant company and handles the Asian division. He has years of traveling experience and has been coming to China and Japan for many years. It’s very interesting to hear his stories about business meetings in old world Japan or his travels in Egypt. I used the ATM machine later that day and forgot my ATM card in the machine. Luckily the machine ate it up and the hotel called me when the guy from the bank came to refill the machine, and I got the card back!

 

John and Orgil came and picked up at around 12 and we went to this place called Veranda which was a really cute place on a rooftop. Had some nice veggie pizza there and chatted about world politics. John has such a wealth of knowledge, its awesome to hear him talk. He spend 5 years in Iran and has studied and taught Persian for over 20. He has a half Iranian daughter who is married to a German guy and lives in Salt Lake City. He speaks fluent Farsi with his granddaughter. Tom on the other hand has a son how is married to a Caribindian/Korean/American woman. The view from this restaurant was an 18^th century Chinese temple so we got some nice pictures there. We also witnessed a dust storm which changes the entire weather in less than 10 minutes and we had to run inside to avoid the dust going into our eyes. It passed very quickly but it was pretty neat to see it.

 

Back in the hotel, I slept for 5 hours. Later last night Tom and I walked to the Irish pub, had a Chinggis and some kimchi and fries for me. July 1^st was Canadian day so they had some celebrating in the hotel bar and we witnessed some awesome fireworks on our way back form the pub. They must have spent a fortune on this, but it was awesome nevertheless. I managed to hit the sack by eleven and by two, I was wide awake. Still managed to sleep till 5 and then started writing this. Our day starts at 9 today, I am hoping to get some time in the afternoon to go to the Korean Embassy to get a visa for a transit tour of Seoul on my way back on 16^th. Have a packed day, will write back later!

 

 

Traveling halfway across the world – Chicago to Seoul (Wed, June 27-June30)

 

Wednesday evening, after the last couple of drinks with my CMH buddies, I headed back to the hotel to finish my last bit of packing. Mark dropped me on last time in his scion, I am going to miss that car!

 

Quickly finished my packing, I should have done a one last walkthrough because I didn’t realize that I was leaving all my fridge magnets!!! Oh what a pity, all that collection. I managed to speak with them once I landed in Mumbai but I don’t know if I will ever seem my souvenirs from all my travels again.

 

Got to the airport at 7 pm just to realize my flight was delayed for 2 hours; that quickly became 7 hours from 7.40 to 2.40 am. I found a neat little place behind the phone booth where I took a nap while listening to some interesting conversations that people in the other booths were engaged in. One of the memorable ones was a girl (I think it was a lady dwarf, or short person to be politically correct) who had come to Chicago for an interview at a shampoo company and was asked all kinds of technical questions about ingredients and I could tell from the conversation that she has been caught off guard and it went pretty bad. Oh yea and I learnt what a pencil skirt is J

 

I got to Newark around 5.30 am and had to make my sis and Puneet rush to the airport to exchange the bags, they had to take all my stuff which was the last of my Chicago clothes and give me the bag they had prepared as gifts for people in India. From there, I went to Terminal B to Virgin Airways counter.

 

That went pretty smooth, couple of phone conversations with people before leaving the country. Suspended my Boingo and Tmobile services and I was off on my first 8 hour flight across the Atlantic to London Heathrow. I got slightly duped since the girl at the VA counter said I have an aisle and it wasn’t really, it was a middle seat! Fortunately for me it turned out to be a nice seat, the girl next to me was a British chick living in east Village who worked for a medical publishing firm. We had some interesting conversations about our air travels, different airlines, Richard Branson’s failed railroad venture with Virgin. The entertainment system is really awesome with over 20 new moves to pick from, 25 different sitcom episodes and some fun multiplayer games with people on the plane like Tetris, Trivia and Chess. Time passed pretty quickly.

 

In Heathrow, probably the biggest airport ever…I walked forever since I misread my ticket (British chick was my accomplice at that) to say terminal 2 which required a shuttle and about 1 mile of walking to realize I needed to be in terminal 3 where I had landed anyways so I had to go back the entire way. Luckily 2 hours passed real quick and I also managed to grab a Chai from Starbucks, since it just hit me that I wouldn’t be able to have that any more after this flight.

 

This time I had a window seat but the girl next to me was a big Icelander who slept through the entire flight (probably took a sleeping pill) and was nodding all over and stank up the place with her breath! The personal monitor was really crappy so watching anything was almost impossible. I did play some trivia and watch the Indian channel V programs that were the only half way decent thing playing. Started on my ‘Treasure of Khan’ book which is about 500 pages of not so well written action packed Dirk Pitt adventure but it talks about the places I am going to and its pretty fast paced so it reads quickly.

 

Somehow the time passed and I was in Mumbai airport after 8 hours. I didn’t drink much on either airlines, one glass of Tempranillo (Sp?) on the second flight. Food wasn’t anything to write home about but it didn’t give me a heartburn which was awesome. I didn’t eat a lot because I heard some horror stories of food poisoning in VA flights before. Mumbai airport wasn’t too bad, got my bag in time, got through customs without any problems, mom-dad were there to pick me up in the new Civic which had the same cool digital dial that Niketa’s car has, it was good to see something familiar!

 

The roads have been expanded quite a bit around the airport, it was good to see a good 2 lane highway equivalent size of road. Got home, had some nice lunch, got about 3 hours of sleep before my cousins came by with my uncle-aunt. Had a nice time chatting with them and then I was ready for my next set of flights. Got to the airport by 12.30 am (after 12 hours in Mumbai) for my 3.30 Korean Air flight to Seoul. Everything went smoothly except that I gave the wrong delta skymiles number (yes both VA and KA will give me delta miles J ) to the guy on the KA counter. I will have to get that corrected when I land in Seoul in the next hour.

 

The air crew is very good looking in Korean and extremely nice. I learnt one word in Korean, Su Bao or Thankyou. I might have forgotten already and killing the word already so after the first time I didn’t use it any more. I think we have to shut our computers now, but one thing I wanted to remember was ‘Rain’ which is a Korean band and they are really awesome. We saw some live performances on the big screen in the flight and they are going to be performing in Atlanta sometime this year (I want to make it to that one). Unfortunate that they don’t have a personal monitor on this flight but there is much more leg space and ofcourse its half empty so I get two seats on this one. Food has been very good and so is the service. I like this airline already! I have another 4 hour journey after a layover of 5 hours in Seoul. I am going to look for a good massage place here (Devon said there is a great foot massage place on the airport) and plan for my day trip on my back way when my layover is close to 12 hours.

 

The mix of people is interesting from Mumbai-Seoul. Most Indians I suspect are going to the US via pacific to California. Rest are business travelers and some Korean tourists. Passing over yellow river right now, looking forward to Icheon airport and taste of the Korean flavor.