Thursday, May 14, 2009
Arkhangai
Arkhangai
5-11-2009
Traveling in this country is always an adventure. You can never know what to expect. A friend who lives in Arkangai came to visit my town and I decided to head back with her. We planned to take the post office car to a town called harhorin (the ancient capital of Mongolia) and then I would catch a ride, either on the bus or in a car, to Arkhangai. I had heard from many people that Arkhangai is beautiful and probably one of the more beautiful provinces of Mongolia, so I really wanted to see it before I leave. The day before we were supposed to leave, we got word of bad weather and wind storms coming the following day. All the schools were cancelled and the post office car decided not to leave that day. All buses and cars were not leaving the aimag that day, so we decided we’d wait a day and go when we could. The next day was absolutely beautiful and the wind storms never came…. So, we boarded the bus headed for Ulaanbaatar when we could and planned to get off at Sansar, the lunch stop. From there, we would (hopefully) catch the bus that is coming from Ulaanbaatar headed for Arkhangai. To our surprise, the bus stopped somewhere just short of where we wanted to get off. The way that traveling goes in Mongolia and knowing limited language; this would have been kind of nerve wracking if I were riding by myself. My friend and I prepared ourselves to be riding all the way to UB, just in case something went wrong. As usual, everything was fine and we got off the bus at Sansar. We sat in a guanz (small Mongolian restaurant) for about an hour and waited for the Arkhangai bus to come. The one thing about this trip is if the buses had passed each other, we would have been stuck at this lunch stop. We probably could find a ride from there, but it wouldn’t be very fun. Usually when I am at this lunch stop, there are many buses and cars stopped and many people around. Being there when nobody was around felt like the beginning of a horror movie; two female travelers waiting for a bus at a deserted rest stop in the middle of nowhere. We were sitting and talking, keeping our eyes out for our bus when a women came up to us asking where we were going. We told her and she told us that the bus was here, but it was parked on the other end of the strip of guanzes. We got up and headed for where she said, to our surprise to find the bus rolling up at exactly that moment, headed straight for us. We found the bus driver and asked for a ride. He tried to overcharge my friend a little bit who was headed for a town very close to where we were, and after a little arguing, he gave in. It is moments like this that I am glad I know Mongolian. Right as we were finishing up our discussion with the driver, a man walked up and asked in perfect English if we needed some help. We said no thank you, but proceeded to talk to this man. It doesn’t seem very often that we meet an older man who knows English, and especially not fluently. Turns out he studied in Russia for a while and then came back to Mongolia. After everyone finished up their lunch, we all boarded the bus, which surprisingly wasn’t full. My friend got off in harhorin and I proceeded to Arkhangai.
Arkhangai is absolutely beautiful! There are huge rock mountains, tons of trees and rolling (soon to be) green hills. The weather was great and everything was really beginning to take on the lush green color of the Mongolian summer. My town will not get so green because we are on the edge of the desert and don’t have much grass. There is a small stream of water coming from the freshly melting mountain snow running through the middle of the town. I now know of two parks in Mongolia; one in Darkhan, and one in Tsetsterleg (the province center of Arkhangai). The one in Arkhangai has way more trees. In Tsetserleg, I met up with a friend, dropped off my stuff and took a little walk around the town. I walked to the big Buddha on the hill and checked out what kinds of stores they have in town. We had dinner at the western style restaurant; a place I would eat 3 more times before I left Arkhangai. During the summer Arkhangai gets a lot of tourism and is equipped with large stores and lots of western things like tuna, American face washes and lotions, and an expensive guesthouse with western food. The following day, I got a ride out to my friend’s soum (a small village). I’ll explain how you get rides in Mongolia: you go to where the cars and drivers hang out, find a car going to where you want to go, give them your phone number and tell them where you live, and ask an approximate time. This time is never correct and you can expect to wait up to 3 or 5 hours for a driver. They will leave when their car is full and they are ready. To my surprise, the driver said he’d come at 3 and he came at 3:30. amazing! I headed to my friend’s soum and asked him what I should tell the driver if he doesn’t know where he lives. He told me, “that won’t be a problem”. He was correct. We stopped on the way to help a guy who’d crashed his motorcycle. He was slightly hurt and his bike wasn’t working so well, so one of the people in the car took his bike and he got in the car. Turns out, we were just over the hill from our destination. We dropped the biker off and proceeded to another hashaa, where we the women next to me told me is where my friend lived. This village is so small, they have 3 small stores, everyone knows everyone, and of course; everyone knows where the American lives. In this town, my friend and I walked around and hung out with some cows when walking to the rock formations that are at a distance from the village. It was beautiful and green everywhere. It felt like the longer I was in Arkhangai, the more green it got. After some time in this village, I headed back to the province center, met up with another friend and headed out to his village. His town was set up a lot different than the previous and had a certain quaint vibe to it. It was surrounded by large mountains, creating a beautiful skyline at sunset. The following day was a full day of traveling for me. I got a ride back to the city center, and from there found a car that would take me to harhorin (which is in Uvurkhungai). To my absolute surprise, this driver was ready to leave even before I was ready. Usually when a driver says he is leaving ‘now’, this means he is leaving ‘now’ when his car is full. I was eating lunch when he called me and asked to wait just a minute. When I walked back to my friend’s apartment to get my things, he was already there, waiting with a full car. This is unheard of! I put my things in the car and got in, observing the back of the truck piled with sheep skins and a wolf skin on the top (probably for good luck). Turns out, I was with a family who was really nice. We were caravanning with one other car carrying only a few people. We made a stop at a stream to help a man with his car and continued on. When you are getting off before the final destination of the car, many drivers will drop you off at the edge of town but this driver asked me where I wanted to get dropped off. I had him drop me off at the market, where I met a friend and found a car headed for my town that evening. Maybe two hours later, I was in a car headed home. With the amount of traveling I did on this trip, it was amazing how lucky I got with timely (and sober) drivers, not too packed cars, and really nice people wanting to help me out. I have never experienced such timely drivers in my town… maybe it’s from the tourism.
5-11-2009
Traveling in this country is always an adventure. You can never know what to expect. A friend who lives in Arkangai came to visit my town and I decided to head back with her. We planned to take the post office car to a town called harhorin (the ancient capital of Mongolia) and then I would catch a ride, either on the bus or in a car, to Arkhangai. I had heard from many people that Arkhangai is beautiful and probably one of the more beautiful provinces of Mongolia, so I really wanted to see it before I leave. The day before we were supposed to leave, we got word of bad weather and wind storms coming the following day. All the schools were cancelled and the post office car decided not to leave that day. All buses and cars were not leaving the aimag that day, so we decided we’d wait a day and go when we could. The next day was absolutely beautiful and the wind storms never came…. So, we boarded the bus headed for Ulaanbaatar when we could and planned to get off at Sansar, the lunch stop. From there, we would (hopefully) catch the bus that is coming from Ulaanbaatar headed for Arkhangai. To our surprise, the bus stopped somewhere just short of where we wanted to get off. The way that traveling goes in Mongolia and knowing limited language; this would have been kind of nerve wracking if I were riding by myself. My friend and I prepared ourselves to be riding all the way to UB, just in case something went wrong. As usual, everything was fine and we got off the bus at Sansar. We sat in a guanz (small Mongolian restaurant) for about an hour and waited for the Arkhangai bus to come. The one thing about this trip is if the buses had passed each other, we would have been stuck at this lunch stop. We probably could find a ride from there, but it wouldn’t be very fun. Usually when I am at this lunch stop, there are many buses and cars stopped and many people around. Being there when nobody was around felt like the beginning of a horror movie; two female travelers waiting for a bus at a deserted rest stop in the middle of nowhere. We were sitting and talking, keeping our eyes out for our bus when a women came up to us asking where we were going. We told her and she told us that the bus was here, but it was parked on the other end of the strip of guanzes. We got up and headed for where she said, to our surprise to find the bus rolling up at exactly that moment, headed straight for us. We found the bus driver and asked for a ride. He tried to overcharge my friend a little bit who was headed for a town very close to where we were, and after a little arguing, he gave in. It is moments like this that I am glad I know Mongolian. Right as we were finishing up our discussion with the driver, a man walked up and asked in perfect English if we needed some help. We said no thank you, but proceeded to talk to this man. It doesn’t seem very often that we meet an older man who knows English, and especially not fluently. Turns out he studied in Russia for a while and then came back to Mongolia. After everyone finished up their lunch, we all boarded the bus, which surprisingly wasn’t full. My friend got off in harhorin and I proceeded to Arkhangai.
Arkhangai is absolutely beautiful! There are huge rock mountains, tons of trees and rolling (soon to be) green hills. The weather was great and everything was really beginning to take on the lush green color of the Mongolian summer. My town will not get so green because we are on the edge of the desert and don’t have much grass. There is a small stream of water coming from the freshly melting mountain snow running through the middle of the town. I now know of two parks in Mongolia; one in Darkhan, and one in Tsetsterleg (the province center of Arkhangai). The one in Arkhangai has way more trees. In Tsetserleg, I met up with a friend, dropped off my stuff and took a little walk around the town. I walked to the big Buddha on the hill and checked out what kinds of stores they have in town. We had dinner at the western style restaurant; a place I would eat 3 more times before I left Arkhangai. During the summer Arkhangai gets a lot of tourism and is equipped with large stores and lots of western things like tuna, American face washes and lotions, and an expensive guesthouse with western food. The following day, I got a ride out to my friend’s soum (a small village). I’ll explain how you get rides in Mongolia: you go to where the cars and drivers hang out, find a car going to where you want to go, give them your phone number and tell them where you live, and ask an approximate time. This time is never correct and you can expect to wait up to 3 or 5 hours for a driver. They will leave when their car is full and they are ready. To my surprise, the driver said he’d come at 3 and he came at 3:30. amazing! I headed to my friend’s soum and asked him what I should tell the driver if he doesn’t know where he lives. He told me, “that won’t be a problem”. He was correct. We stopped on the way to help a guy who’d crashed his motorcycle. He was slightly hurt and his bike wasn’t working so well, so one of the people in the car took his bike and he got in the car. Turns out, we were just over the hill from our destination. We dropped the biker off and proceeded to another hashaa, where we the women next to me told me is where my friend lived. This village is so small, they have 3 small stores, everyone knows everyone, and of course; everyone knows where the American lives. In this town, my friend and I walked around and hung out with some cows when walking to the rock formations that are at a distance from the village. It was beautiful and green everywhere. It felt like the longer I was in Arkhangai, the more green it got. After some time in this village, I headed back to the province center, met up with another friend and headed out to his village. His town was set up a lot different than the previous and had a certain quaint vibe to it. It was surrounded by large mountains, creating a beautiful skyline at sunset. The following day was a full day of traveling for me. I got a ride back to the city center, and from there found a car that would take me to harhorin (which is in Uvurkhungai). To my absolute surprise, this driver was ready to leave even before I was ready. Usually when a driver says he is leaving ‘now’, this means he is leaving ‘now’ when his car is full. I was eating lunch when he called me and asked to wait just a minute. When I walked back to my friend’s apartment to get my things, he was already there, waiting with a full car. This is unheard of! I put my things in the car and got in, observing the back of the truck piled with sheep skins and a wolf skin on the top (probably for good luck). Turns out, I was with a family who was really nice. We were caravanning with one other car carrying only a few people. We made a stop at a stream to help a man with his car and continued on. When you are getting off before the final destination of the car, many drivers will drop you off at the edge of town but this driver asked me where I wanted to get dropped off. I had him drop me off at the market, where I met a friend and found a car headed for my town that evening. Maybe two hours later, I was in a car headed home. With the amount of traveling I did on this trip, it was amazing how lucky I got with timely (and sober) drivers, not too packed cars, and really nice people wanting to help me out. I have never experienced such timely drivers in my town… maybe it’s from the tourism.
Hovd and Bayan Ulgii
4-30-2009
It is crazy to think about how quickly my time here in Mongolia is coming to an end. I’m not going to lie, I did think about staying an extra year. Now that I have officially decided to head to the states, there are three topics that enter the mind:
What do you want to do before you leave?
How do you feel about your time here?
What do you want to do when you get back to America?
These are 3 huge questions with very intricate answers.
What do you want to do before you leave?
Outside of my work, I have decided to make more of an effort to see more of the country. I got on a bus headed for the western aimags and found myself 43 hours later in Hovd. At the beginning of the bus ride, I didn’t lead people on to the fact that I speak Mongolian, but it ended up coming out anyway. They all think it’s cute. There is an interesting dynamic when you are stuffed into a small bus for the long-hall. Whether you speak or not, there are interactions between each person… sometimes going undetected. The women next to me found a nice pillow on my shoulder and I found a nice pillow against the window. The first night, I was pretty dang cold, but the second night was not bad at all. I slept the majority of the way and got really tired of countryside people who aren’t used to seeing foreigners ignoring me or having trouble understanding me. Sometimes, it feels like people just don’t try. The first leg of the trip went through my aimag and was the same scenery I’ve seen a million times. The next was through Bayankhongor, which is pretty brown with a few mountains. The 3 part is through Gov Altai, which is basically when I came too and was really beginning to appreciate the scenery. The snow-capped Altai mountains were absolutely beautiful. The last part of the trip is through Hovd, headed for the aimag center. I got there pretty early in the morning, met up with a friend, and went back to sleep. I spent a couple days in Hovd, somewhat recovering from the long trip and relaxing. Hovd is absolutely beautiful and it was funny how happy it made me to see things like the melting river turning into moving water, huge and real mountains (as opposed to the hills we have in my town), and trees (even if they didn’t have leaves on them. Also, the west has a lot more diversity than my town, in their Mongolians and their foreigners. I went through a time last year where I literally craved any amount of diversity in my life. Had I been out west, this may have been different.
From Hovd, I gathered a few friends and we all headed out to Bayan-Ulgii. This is the furthest western province in Mongolia. Due to the Kazakh presence, it almost feels like another country. The city reminds me somewhat of the Middle East, the way it is set up with the stone walls and street alleys. In the stores, some people wanted to speak Kazakh instead of Mongolian, and I once again felt slightly intimidated when walking in to grab something. Some of the store owners were happy to see that me and my friends spoke Mongolian and were willing to converse with us in Mongolian. During the summer, Bayan-Ulgii gets a lot of tourists coming through to see the famous Eagle Hunters and Kazakh embroidery. I think the store owners were surprised to find a group of five foreigners; 2 of which speak Kazakh and the rest who speak Mongolian. In our time in Bayan-Ulgii, we walked around the city, threw around a football with a bunch of people in the market, walked on the river (it was still frozen), checked out the museum and bought cool Kazakh embroidered bags and purses. It is really interesting to see the mix of cultures out there; it is like nothing else in Mongolia.
After Bayan-Ulgii, we headed back to Hovd. I hung around for a couple days, and then got on the bus to head back to my town. I decided to make a quick stop in Bayankhongor to see the town and a friend before going back to Uvurkhungai. Though shorter, the bus ride from Hovd to Bayankhongor was much worse than the previous trip. I was on the “hot seat” on the bus. This means I was sitting on top of the engine or the radiator (or something), causing me to extremely hot and uncomfortable the entire ride. Me and two boys shared the hot seat, and switched it up who sat at the hottest part, but for the most part the entire ride was awful. I was dropped off on the edge of Bayankhongor and called my friend to figure out where I was. Bayankhongor is a town similar to my town, but with a little bit less infrastructure. Their claims to fame are really nice benches and trash cans, a western style restaurant, and a Dinosaur Park. Apparently, there used to be tons of Dinosaur bones but people have since picked them all up. I spent two nights in Bayankhongor before heading back home. The final leg of my ride was pretty short and rather nice, since I got a ride with a family in a Land Rover. Once back in my town it was nice to home, in my ger. I realized that I really like lighting fires and that I wanted to spend a lot of time with my Mongolian Family before I leave.
It is crazy to think about how quickly my time here in Mongolia is coming to an end. I’m not going to lie, I did think about staying an extra year. Now that I have officially decided to head to the states, there are three topics that enter the mind:
What do you want to do before you leave?
How do you feel about your time here?
What do you want to do when you get back to America?
These are 3 huge questions with very intricate answers.
What do you want to do before you leave?
Outside of my work, I have decided to make more of an effort to see more of the country. I got on a bus headed for the western aimags and found myself 43 hours later in Hovd. At the beginning of the bus ride, I didn’t lead people on to the fact that I speak Mongolian, but it ended up coming out anyway. They all think it’s cute. There is an interesting dynamic when you are stuffed into a small bus for the long-hall. Whether you speak or not, there are interactions between each person… sometimes going undetected. The women next to me found a nice pillow on my shoulder and I found a nice pillow against the window. The first night, I was pretty dang cold, but the second night was not bad at all. I slept the majority of the way and got really tired of countryside people who aren’t used to seeing foreigners ignoring me or having trouble understanding me. Sometimes, it feels like people just don’t try. The first leg of the trip went through my aimag and was the same scenery I’ve seen a million times. The next was through Bayankhongor, which is pretty brown with a few mountains. The 3 part is through Gov Altai, which is basically when I came too and was really beginning to appreciate the scenery. The snow-capped Altai mountains were absolutely beautiful. The last part of the trip is through Hovd, headed for the aimag center. I got there pretty early in the morning, met up with a friend, and went back to sleep. I spent a couple days in Hovd, somewhat recovering from the long trip and relaxing. Hovd is absolutely beautiful and it was funny how happy it made me to see things like the melting river turning into moving water, huge and real mountains (as opposed to the hills we have in my town), and trees (even if they didn’t have leaves on them. Also, the west has a lot more diversity than my town, in their Mongolians and their foreigners. I went through a time last year where I literally craved any amount of diversity in my life. Had I been out west, this may have been different.
From Hovd, I gathered a few friends and we all headed out to Bayan-Ulgii. This is the furthest western province in Mongolia. Due to the Kazakh presence, it almost feels like another country. The city reminds me somewhat of the Middle East, the way it is set up with the stone walls and street alleys. In the stores, some people wanted to speak Kazakh instead of Mongolian, and I once again felt slightly intimidated when walking in to grab something. Some of the store owners were happy to see that me and my friends spoke Mongolian and were willing to converse with us in Mongolian. During the summer, Bayan-Ulgii gets a lot of tourists coming through to see the famous Eagle Hunters and Kazakh embroidery. I think the store owners were surprised to find a group of five foreigners; 2 of which speak Kazakh and the rest who speak Mongolian. In our time in Bayan-Ulgii, we walked around the city, threw around a football with a bunch of people in the market, walked on the river (it was still frozen), checked out the museum and bought cool Kazakh embroidered bags and purses. It is really interesting to see the mix of cultures out there; it is like nothing else in Mongolia.
After Bayan-Ulgii, we headed back to Hovd. I hung around for a couple days, and then got on the bus to head back to my town. I decided to make a quick stop in Bayankhongor to see the town and a friend before going back to Uvurkhungai. Though shorter, the bus ride from Hovd to Bayankhongor was much worse than the previous trip. I was on the “hot seat” on the bus. This means I was sitting on top of the engine or the radiator (or something), causing me to extremely hot and uncomfortable the entire ride. Me and two boys shared the hot seat, and switched it up who sat at the hottest part, but for the most part the entire ride was awful. I was dropped off on the edge of Bayankhongor and called my friend to figure out where I was. Bayankhongor is a town similar to my town, but with a little bit less infrastructure. Their claims to fame are really nice benches and trash cans, a western style restaurant, and a Dinosaur Park. Apparently, there used to be tons of Dinosaur bones but people have since picked them all up. I spent two nights in Bayankhongor before heading back home. The final leg of my ride was pretty short and rather nice, since I got a ride with a family in a Land Rover. Once back in my town it was nice to home, in my ger. I realized that I really like lighting fires and that I wanted to spend a lot of time with my Mongolian Family before I leave.
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