Terelj

Some 60 kms northwest of Ulaanbaatar, on one of the rare paved roads of the country, is Gorkhi-Terelj National Park. The Soviet-era concrete blocks and new construction projects of the city soon turn into shacks and fenced-in gers (yurts). Then, before long, the scenery becomes rolling steppe land.

Note the rock in the background - Turtle Rock. This is the most famous site of the national park.

At the end of the road the land of herder camps and settlements begins.

One of the ridges.

                                    A spectral yak.

                                                         The mountains of the moon?

A Taste of Russia

I have been in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar for almost a week now. Most of my time has been spent on bureaucratic wrangling. After all my papers were in order, I attempted to procure a double-entry Russian visa. This was a truly masochistic experience. Ultimately,  I was denied for the reason that my passport does not have two completely blank pages side by side. Revising my travel plans and moving on to the next embassy, that of Kazakhstan, has not led to a change in fortunes. This embassy has moved to a dusty side street in the southern edge of the city. It was only through a heroic burst of energy that I managed to uncover its general whereabouts. I stood at the gate this morning until a woman came out to tell me that the consul was missing. 'Tomorrow, 10 am,' she said.

Mongolia was the second communist country in the world, after the USSR, and for the greater part of the 20th century it served as a Soviet satellite state. Here are some views of a Russian church, located in what I've been told is the Russian part of town:

The Trans-Mongolian Express

From Hohhot to Ulaanbaatar, I took the Trans-Mongolian Express. Including the 12 hour border stop, the trip took a total of 36 hours. Sadly, I slept through the Gobi Desert (it was pitch-dark anyways), but woke in time to take a few pictures of the hinterlands beyond the capital. Among the sites from the window: a modern nomad encampment, sheep, dried grasses, and telephone poles.

Incidentally, the Trans-Mongolian, after Ulaanbaatar, links up with the famous Trans-Siberian Railway.

At the China-Mongolia Border: Erlian

I am a great fan of Asian border towns, so I was glad to spend a long day in Erlian, China (aka. Erenhot). Why the 12 hour layover? There were no excuses for 10 of these hours, but the other 2 were justified by the changing of the bogies (wheel assemblies) from the Chinese standard gauge to the Russian and Mongolian broad gauge ones. I am a mechanical simpleton, so the most that I can say (with the help of Wikipedia) is that gauge is the width between the rails.

When I woke up, my compartment was parked in this brick warehouse. It was here that the bogie operation in question was performed.


Here are some specimens of bogies (wheel assemblies). I can not say whether these are for Chinese track or Mongolian track.

Ever heard of yellow dust? In Korea, the term for this is 'hwang-sa.' Yellow dust is a horrible plague of particulates that infects the air of cities including Beijing, Pyeongyang, Seoul, and even Pusan. Usually, yellow dust strikes in spring (now!), and it is said to come from the still-expanding Gobi Desert. Erlian is at the edge of the Gobi, and the town is engaging in an ongoing tree-planting campaign. These two fellows were digging holes. The days are already hot in Erlian, but they weren't complaining.

Some of the results of their labors...

This strange pipe (tapped into an old well?) caught my attention.

Xanadu Re-Revisited

I'm plagiarizing Metallica here with the titles of the last two postings (remember 'Garage Days Re-Revisited'?!). That said, I am decidedly not plagiarizing the Canadian band Rush, who wrote a song called Xanadu.
In this post I've included some extra photos from a trip last week. For a bit of an explanation check out the travel article (below), which may disappear later, depending on my luck as an article-peddler.


One of the main streets of Duolun, the city that now stands about 25 km from the ruins of Shangdu (Xanadu).


There's a sizable Hui Muslim community in Duolun, including this woman selling fried bread.


Someone's backyard.


The guild hall.

Xanadu Revisited

Once Xanadu, Now Duolun

The Urban Ghost Towns of Hohhot

Urban development in China continues at a furious pace. Visitors and residents in Beijing and Shanghai are all too familiar with the razing of old neighborhoods, some with considerable heritage and historical value. What comes next is usually another set of high rise apartment buildings. This process of hyper-rapid development is taking place in just about every city in the country.

In my wanderings around Hohhot, provincial capital of Inner Mongolia (China), I've come across some half-demolished neighborhoods in and around the older section of the city. What makes the situation all the more surreal is that among the brick heaps and toppling walls are a smattering of hobbles that are still lived in.