Round-trip to Beijing

As my three-month visa to Mongolia expired on 1 July, I had to go to the Mongolian Embassy in Beijing and apply for a new visa for my last weeks here. In the early morning of 30 June I boarded the train for a 30 hour long trip to Beijing. The first language I heard was ... Swedish! It appeared that there were two more Swedes in my carriage and a large group of Norwegian elderly people, of whom the oldest was 89. There was also a young Norwegian lad among the travellers. Mongolians were in a clear minority: there were only three of them, all in my coupe.

The not so exciting-looking town of Sainshand.

An example of the very beautiful Mongolian script (which is extensively used in Inner Mongolia, which is a part of China).

The Norwegians all seemed extremely fit and the ladies did their morning exercise neatly lined up in the corridor in the morning. The Chinese staff stared at them but the two Mongolians ladies joined in. As for myself, I was just looking out the window, inhaling the diesel fumes and admiring the changing landscape.



This blog is about Mongolia, not about China, so I will just mention that all went well on my visa expedition, but I had to queue for a total of six hours outside the embassy.

I had chosen to fly back but due to inadvertency from my side I got booked on a flight that took off at 1.05 am and landed at 3.25 am. I still haven't recovered from that totally sleepless night.

A pensive Chinese lady who certainly has seen many things change during her lifetime.

Colors

I have not "enhanced colors" to improve the pictures below.

Sunset, picture taken from my window.

Terelj national park yesterday.

I said some time ago that UB isn't a green city. Well, now that summer is here and we have some rain from time to time, there are some very green areas. One example is this pedestrian walk that runs in the middle of the western part of Peace Avenue, one of the main streets in UB.

And these are some of the costumes used by the Tumen Ekh ensemble. For more colors and information their web site: Tumen Ekh











I'm off to Beijing early tomorrow morning, so don't be surprised if I don't post anything for a week of so. I will check my e-mail, but I'm not sure if I can blog.

Close-ups

Went to Terelj National Park today to film for the TV show with the Mongolian song. It was a great opportunity to get into close encounter with some animals.

This is a young animal. He has just lost his thick winter fur, so he is a little bald looking, poor thing.

On the way back we passed some stalls were airag was sold (the white liquid in the reused soft drink bottles). Airag is one of the national drinks, it's fermented mare's milk. I tried it only once, unfortunately when I was a little ill, and I didn't like it then. I will have a sip again some time and see if I have changed my mind. 

Camouflage

There are so many blowballs flying around that sometimes it looks as though it's snowing. In some places they form a thin cover, it looks slightly unreal.

I nearly stumbled over this well-camouflaged dog today.












Since all the three pictures above are in the same tonality, I will save the more colorful ones for another day in order not to disturb the harmony :-)

A room with a view

One of Odnoo's relatives invited us for lunch today. She lives in a ger on the outskirts of UB, with a stunningly beautiful view in stunningly beautiful surroundings. Of course living in a ger means living without some of the things we usually take for granted, such as running water. Water has to be fetched and brought uphill. Walking without any load at all was difficult enough, I can tell you ...

Every time I visit a ger I'm impressed by the way the people living there organise all their belongings to fit into only two or three pieces of furniture. And they cook delicious meals on just one hotplate. But very often these days people have (semi-automatic) washing machines, TVs and computers in their gers. It's just a compact way of living.

Sunday afternoon walk.

The ger we visited.
















The view.

You can never guess what there is in the bottle - it's Mongolian wine!! I didn't even know it existed. It was a dry type of dessert wine, very tasty, and it went well with the dried berries (delicious!) you can see on the table. Unfortunately it didn't say on the bottle which fruit it was made from, and no one knew.

The red thermos contains milk tea. Also on the table there are small fried dumplings (and tomatoes and cookies). The main course was a soup with dried meat and rice.

There are not only gers in the ger districts but also houses such as these.

Here lives someone with a sense of beauty.

Water being brought uphill.

Music

We have had big internet problems lately, I suppose due to the rain, so I have been a little out of touch the last couple of days. Now everything seems to be sorted out.

As I woke up this morning I heard some nice music from outside my window: there was a boy playing the horse-headed fiddle.

The children in the orphanage were playing outdoors in the sandpit the other day. They seemed to enjoy themselves immensely (and they became very dirty), but for some reason my camera only caught thoughtful faces:

A few days ago I got a very unexpected question indeed: would I like to learn a traditional Mongolian song and sing it together with another foreigner and a folk ensemble on television? Sometimes I'm just too spontaneous - I said yes. The filming started today and will take quite a lot of time the coming days. The song is difficult - this may end up embarrassing.

Baby marmot and giant radish

Sorry, I don't have a picture of a cute little baby marmot, but there is a special word in Mongolian for the baby animal in question, мөндөл (möndöl), and I just had to tell you that! There are special words for one year old camels, two year old ones, and mother camel. Not to mention all the words for horses of different ages and colors. To get a glimpse of a country's culture through the vocabulary of its language is fascinating.

Mongolians also use proverbs a lot, for instance:

Anger makes the body suffer

The mountain makes the horse suffer

Sweets isn't food

Gold isn't clothes

The heavy rain has finally stopped. Most roads and sidewalks were transformed into lakes and rivers. The picture, taken from inside a car, gives you just a faint idea of what it was like.

These carrot-looking vegetables aren't carrots at all but radishes. Odnoo was utterly surprised when I got my camera out and wanted to take a picture. This giant kind is very common here, she informed