"More Mongolia" by MoeB52

After flying back from the Gobi to Ulaan Baatar we drove to the site of Genghis Kahn's 13th century city, Kara Korum . The road we took was once part of The Old Silk Road .. and let me tell you it was some wild road ...At the time we went part of it was under construction so we spent more time off road than on . It took us about 7 hrs in a jeep , Russian of course . The views along the way were incredible . .

Before we entered Kara Korum we stop off at this hill over looking the once famous city . This turtle was carved out of rock many , many years ago . There are two of them at each end of the boundries of the site . As for the ancient city of Khan .. there is not much left .. if any .

The one site to see in Kara Korum is The Erdene Zhu Monastary which is active once again since the fall of Communism .This sect of Buddism has very close ties to Tibet .

We spent a few hours exploring the monastary and then headed out on the road again to meet up with a nomadic family who raised horses .

When you travel in Mongolia you will come across these very interesting piles of rock along the side of the road . Many of the are also covered with skulls and bones of dead animals . They also have some sort of pole sticking out of the top draped with blue material . The blue is to represent the sky . Well every time we passed one of these our driver would stop and we would have to find 3 stones and place them on the pile and then walk around it a certain amount of times . I believe these mounds are called ovoos ..I asked our guide and he told me that it was an ancient tradition that even predated Buddism!!

Not only is Mongolia famous for it's vast open spaces but also for it's legendary horsemen . So..on the road back to UB we stopped and spent the day with a nomadic family who raised horses. Horses in Mongolia are smaller than what we are use to in the States ... the saddles were another story.. wooden and not very comfortable but it was one of the high lights of our trip. It was amazing to see how these people actually live . No running water and no electricity .. buts lots of warm hospitality and believe it or not great food ..that is ..so long as you like muttton and hand made noodles .

Pictured here is the patriarch of the family and his daughter . He was about 70 yrs of age, very spry and did not look his age at all ..his secret .. fermented mares milk!! And no .. you do not bathe in it ..you drink it ....Not only did I try the stuff ..I even milked the mare myself and got the recipe first hand .. Not some thing you want to try at home ..

One thing that made our trip so fantastic was our guide ,Hogar and our driver .. who we called George . These guys were the best and lots of fun . In fact Hogar is one of the heads of higher education in UB !
. The inspiration for the trip to Mongolia was from a documentry I saw with Julia Roberts . It was aired on PBS . Julia spent 2 weeks in Mongolia with a nomadic family ..
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