8 Days & 7 Nights In Mongolia

I left for Mongolia on a Monday evening. I flew to Beijing first. I was planning on staying at a room in the Beijing airport b/c I had an 8 hour layover there. Well, long story short I couldn't stay in that room b/c I had to pick up my luggage and go through customs in Beijing. So...I tried to stay in a room by the hour in the terminal where I'd be checking in for the flight to Ulaanbataar. However, there was no room in the inn. So, I spent my layover on some chairs in the Beijing airport. I was glad that I had my suitcase so I could pull out a coat for a blanket and another coat to use for my pillow. I was cold! It's already cold in Northern China and Mongolia - especially since I'm used to the weather along the equator.
I met up with Jonna - my travel buddy - in the lounge on Tuesday morning. Mike is a solitaire member with Singapore Airlines so that makes me automatically a solitaire member. That helped Jonna and I along the trip when we had too heavy of baggage and when we needed a lounge on our layovers. It would've been nice to have access to the lounge on my 8 hour layover but then I may have been too pampered.

Here we are on arrival in Ulaanbataar at the Ghinggis Khan Int'l Airport.



Adorable Mongolian girl




Here's some photos from the Mercury market where my friend Jill shops.






Ghinggis Khan (pronounced Chinggis Han in Mongolia) is revered in Mongolia for his leadership. Here's some photos from a visit to his newly completed statue made of stainless steel. We actually walked up into the horse he's riding on.









There's even shopping in Mongolia! It's not Wal-Mart by far but there's local markets that are so colorful and interesting...we loved this one called the Zakh.







This market was enormous! Mongolians from the country dressed up in their traditional dress for their trip to town to stock up on their needs. You could find everything from hog heads to furniture for your Ger (Mongolian house).




Here's Jonna and me shopping for Cashmere and Wool items. These are the only clothes made in Mongolia for export. No surprise there!



Once you get outside of the city limits of Ulaanbatar there aren't many paved roads. We were lucky to have my friend Jill Andersen to drive us all over the rocky roads. Land Cruisers really are amazing cars. We drove through rivers, up and down mountains, etc. One day we missed our turn and were lost out on the Mongolian steppe for a couple of hours. Then we hit traffic back in town and got hit by another car. Jill assured us that this was just another typical day in Mongolia.

Here's the scene of the accident:



Here's the Landcruiser with a flat tire from off-roading:




We stayed for 2 nights at a Ger camp alongside the Tuul River. Here's a photo of the outside of our Ger:



Here's the inside of the Ger...3 beds and a stove in the middle to keep us warm.




We came prepared with supplies for s'mores...we had Russian chocolate, marshmallows and Nilla Wafers. They tasted so good we had them for breakfast! (We liked them much better than the mutton.)






We rode horses while at the Ger camp. Mongolian horses are on the small side. We ran them as much as we wanted...galloping a Mongolian horse at full speed on the Mongolian steppe is a memory I'll never forget!

This is one of our amazing horsemen:





We hiked up the mountains nearby:





You never know what you'll find once you get to the top of the mountain:



Here are many other unbelievable sights that we would see as we were out driving on the Mongolian steppe:

Interesting Animals:

Yaks!!!





Interesting People:






I like this shot of this lady fixing her Ger:



Terelj: This is me making my way across a rickety bridge to hike up to a Buddhist/Tibetan monastery. We said our prayers the Tibetan way by spinning each one of these in a clockwise direction...don't think I did it correctly b/c this is the day we got completely lost in the middle of Outer Mongolia and we got in the car accident!:)




This is me in Terelj in my stylin' new hat that Jonna knitted me for my b-day! Who would've ever thought that I'd spend my 38th b-day in Mongolia???


What an amazing, inspiring, informative, invigorating trip. I actually chose this trip to Mongolia over a trip to Rome with Mike if you can believe it? He's in Rome this week while the kids are out of school which was partly the reason I didn't go. Also, I figured I'd get back to Italy someday but what were the chances that I'd make it to Outer Mongolia again?

Now that I know what Mongolia is like I'd like to take the family there to stay in a Ger and experience a piece of that life. I'm really glad that I got to go while Jill was there and get a personal tour. That made it all the more special. The LDS church is doing really well in Mongolia. There are 9,000 members which is a lot considering there are only 3 million people in Mongolia. The members there are sweet and it was truly inspiring to experience their faithful spirits. They are all pioneers since the church has been there just 15 years.