Holy Crap… I’m in Ulaanbaatar!!!
I’m at it again! Greetings and salutations from Mongolia in the central Asian steppe!
After roughly 38 hours of flights and layovers I finally arrived in Ulaanbaatar, the capitol of Mongolia, extremely tired. The ride from the airport took a little over an hour in Ulaanbaatars notorious traffic, but I made it to my hostel, checked in and headed to the main square, Sükhbaatar Sq, just a couple of blocks away to wander around with what was left of the afternoon. I didn’t want to go to sleep too early. Better to get on a normal schedule no matter how much it hurts. Right before coming to Sükhbaatar I passed by the National Museum of Mongolia and figured why not start with some history. It was a fairly small museum, but covered some of the basics. Despite several very distinct historical periods, it becomes crystal clear from the start that Chinggis Khan (that’s how they spell it here) is hands down Mongolias favorite son.
After the National Museum I walked around Sükhbaatar Sq. where the Mongolian Parliament building looks over downtown. Sükhbaatar Sq. is named after the Mongolian general who declared independence from China in 1921 and has a statue of him in the middle. Chinggis Khan gets the honor of being on the parliament building though.
On the way back from Sükhbaatar I stumbled on a free little concert outside the National Museum of traditional Mongolian music. Cool! After that, dinner at a really good vegan restaurant right across the street from my hostel, then, finally, I crashed, hard!
I spent most of my first official day here trying to hook up with my rental car place to work out some of the logistics for when I venture out of Ulaanbaatar in a few days. I need permits for a couple of the places I’m planning to visit, but I can’t apply for them myself. I have to have a Mongolian apply on my behalf. Why? I have no idea. Luckily the owner of the rental car business can do that. After taking care of that business I visited the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan, the last king of Mongolia.
The Bogd Khan was installed as king after Mongolia won its independence from China in 1911, with a lot of help from the Russians. During the Russian revolution the Chinese occupied Mongolia again briefly, before being beaten back by Sükhbaatar and the communists who then took over the government. The Bogd Khan was kept as a ceremonial figurehead, however.
Next up, the Choijin Lama temple museum, the home of the Bogd Khans brother, who just happened to be a monk and the state oracle. First I had to make my way past this camel caravan.
The temple was quite a beautiful place despite the stark contrast of the skyscrapers and city noise all around it. When the communists took over they went on a rampage/purge of all religious sites in the country starting in 1937. Somewhat miraculously and mysteriously, they decided not to demolish the Winter Palace or Choijin Lama Temple.
Gandan Monastery was pretty much destroyed by the communists along with most of the other religious sites around the country in 1937, but it was quickly put back together when US vice president Wallace wanted to see a working monastery during his visit in 1944. So Gandan became the show monastery for visiting foreign dignitaries to cover up the official purges and was thus spared, sort of.
The best part of Gandan monastery is the giant Buddha statue inside the main temple. I wasn’t expecting it and it’s so tall that I actually didn’t even notice it for the first few minutes I was in there!
Right across the street from Gandan Monastery is the small but atmospheric Badma Ega Datsan temple, where locals go to get a blessing ceremony.
The southern part of Mongolia is taken up mostly by the Gobi desert where some of the most significant dinosaur discoveries ever have been found. So of course they have a dinosaur museum. It was surprisingly small, but it still packed a punch. My inner eight year old was pleased.
The Tarbosaurus Bataar skeleton above was made famous when it was sold at auction in Texas in 2012. How? I’m not sure, but Mongolia eventually won a long court battle and it was repatriated back home where it belongs.
Mongolias first spiritual leader in the 17th and early 18th centuries was Zanabazar, a direct descendent of Chinggis Khan. He studied Buddhism in Tibet, but when he returned to Mongolia he started a sort of artistic renaissance. He even designed the soyombo (the symbol on the Mongolian flag). Many of his works are found in temples and monasteries throughout the country and there’s a museum dedicated to him here in Ulaanbaatar. They don’t allow pictures, but you know me, I managed to get a couple anyway.
Deer stones are remnants from the bronze age. No one knows for sure what the significance of them is, but they’re thought to be memorials to the dead. The one below, I believe, is a modern replica, but I can’t wait to see some of them out in the wild soon. There are supposedly around 500 of them scattered around the country.
Hopefully, you don’t have monastery/temple fatigue yet because there’s one more, Dashchoilon Monastery. This 19th century monastery was destroyed in 1937 and has been partially rebuilt as concrete gers (Mongolian yurts). There’s a string of prayer beads at the Buddha’s feet in the main temple that was donated by Japanese monks. Each “bead” weighs 100lbs!
Eventually it was time to do some shopping for camping supplies (more on that later) so I headed to the State Dept Store. It’s basically just a high rise shopping mall, but it was pretty impressive. A giant concentration of Western consumerism in central Asia! The whole first floor is one great big grocery store where for the first time in Holy Crap Adventures history I had to buy about a months worth of food in one go. Out front and just across the street from the State Dept Store is this seemingly out of place Beatles monument. The only explanation I could find was that it was commissioned by a local musician who was reminiscing about playing guitar secretly with his friends to illegally smuggled Beatles records during the communist era.
The southern part of Ulaanbaatar is known as Zaisan. Getting there required braving the public bus system. Actually, It really wasn’t that bad. I’ve experienced worse. Anyway, my goal was the Zaisan memorial, but first I had to walk by the lovely Buddha park. This Buddha was put here specifically to protect and watch over Ulaanbaatar.
A little further down the street and then up about a million stairs to the top of a hill sits the Zaisan Memorial. It was originally built by the Soviets to commemorate soldiers and heroes from various wars. It’s just covered with socialist realism and Soviet imagery, including partial busts of Lenin and Stalin. It’s one of very few surviving communist monuments in the world.
Behind the memorial are beautiful green hills and a small ovoo (a Buddhist monument). It’s the pile of rocks with a few flags on top.
The best part of visiting Zaisan, though, was the almost birds eye view of Ulaanbaatar.
Well, my time in Ulaanbaatar is sort of at an end. I’ll be passing through here a few times over the next two months while I explore the rest of the country. This will be by far the most remote and isolated I’ve ever been on any of my trips. The population of this great big country is a little over three million people (not much) and over half of them live in Ulaanbaatar, making this one of the most sparsely populated countries on earth. I’ll be tent camping alone most of the time for this first month, driving around in a rented Toyota Landcruiser which comes with camping gear, tools for fixing whatever car trouble I might have along the way, and lots of toys for getting myself unstuck from the mud. Hopefully I won’t need them, but wish me luck anyway.
After picking up my wheels and gear I took a drive way out to the west end of Ulaanbaatar to the city’s “other” dinosaur museum, which as you can tell in the pic above, just happens to be in a shopping mall. Of course! There are a few big skeletons in the middle of the Hunnu Mall and there’s also a small museum on the ground floor. Apparently, these are the actual bones too, not plaster casts of them. Same as the Central Dinosaur Museum. Cool!
Finally, I’ll leave you for now with my newly discovered energy drink. Thank you State Dept Store! It’s surprisingly sweet given it’s namesake.
Until the next post…