Eagles, Buuz, and a Gigantic Horse Statue: a Day Trip around Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Posted: November 8th, 2013 | Author: ctbideas | Filed under: ATW Updates | No Comments »One of things I most wanted Rick to visit was the giant Chinggis Khan statue. So, to that end, we booked an inexpensive day tour through our guesthouse. At 9am, we met our driver. He spoke no English. "Well," Rick remarked, "I guess he won’t be giving us a detailed tour."
We first arrived at this giant gold Buddha statue. Rick and I walked around it a bit, but there’s really not much to do around a giant gold statue besides look at it and there’s only so long I have the patience to look at giant gold statues. So we walked back to the car.
Our next stop was the Zaisan memorial. This is a memorial to Soviet-Mongolian relations and consists of a giant 360-degree mosaic mural set high up on a mountain. The view of Ulaanbaatar was breathtaking. Clambering down the backside of the hill, hidden, we found a large ovoo overlooking a cliff. This is a sacred pile of stones. Tradition has it that if you walk around three times in a clockwise direction, each time tossing a stone on top of it, it will bring good luck to any journey. With the sort of journey we’re on, it couldn’t hurt, right?
One of the scenes from the mural inside.
Rick traversing down the back of the monument.
The ovoo.
On our way to the Chinggis Khan Statue, our driver, a young late-twenties early-thirties man pulled over to the side of the road to pick up a pretty lady friend around our age. Sort of random, but she was nice so we shrugged our shoulders and let it be. Then, he pulled over again to the side of the road, this time next to a gathering of animals. Three eagles and two vultures hunched under the sun on their wooden perches. Two camels looked over at us with lazy long-lashed eyes. And a little boy with his pet donkey rode back and forth, as if showing off his skills. Not sure what was happening, we snapped pictures and eventually gathered enough courage to stroke the eagle’s feathers.
The Chinggis Khan Equestrian Statue is the largest equestrian statue in the world. In person, it is very impressive, rising up over a rather deserted stretch of land, shining silver under the sunlight. If you want to enter it, it costs 7,000MNT admission. There are two directions you can head once inside. Up, and you can take an elevator, then traverse a narrow staircase all the way up to the top of the horse’s head for a breathtaking view. Down, and there’s an interesting small museum of Chinggis Khan and Mongolian history with a great collection of that era’s weaponry and armor.
The statue.
The view from the top of the horse’s head.
We had lunch in a nomad’s ger. I think, since it was just the two of us, sitting alone in the ger, it was more awkward than it usually is. We drank some liquid tasting like watery milk and munched on dried cheese curds, sweet & sour & incredibly hard. The buuz was served with crisp sweet pickles, delicious and filling.
The dried cheese curds.
The buuz and pickles.
Our next stop was Terelj National Park where we hiked around for a bit. Our driver and his lady friend also wandered around on their own, so it felt as if we were on a double-date with strangers, an odd sort of situation.
That’s our driver and his friend on the bottom left.
We thought we were heading back, but as the Prius we rode in navigated increasingly bumpy unpaved roads and the trees grew thicker (yes, I know, an off-roading Prius) we found our final stop would be at a monastery. The interesting thing about this monastery is that there is a steep road leading up to it and Buddhist sayings written & illustrated on banners line the whole right side of it. We made it mostly up the hill, but, tired, we decided to head back to the car, interrupting our driver and his friend mid-card game.
Rick and I both fell asleep on the drive back, the darkness of night falling over us. Soon, we awoke and stumbled out of the car, waving goodbye to our driver and heading back upstairs to our guesthouse.
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