The Global Guy

It’s so cool to watch the changing of the seasons around here. In the past two weeks, the countryside and the city have both gone from a depressing brown to a vibrant green. We’ve been getting a little bit of rain, and that’s been the driving factor for the change. We haven’t seen snow for over a month now, so I’m convinced that summer is truly here. This is the first spring I’ve seen in a couple of years. It’s nice to watch the trees and flowers blooming, but it brings back a nemesis I hadn’t had to deal with in quite a while…seasonal allergies! I’ve spent the past week with a stopped up nose carrying tissues around everywhere I go. It’s a pain, and the wost part is that I don’t have access to the simple pills that would take care of it. It gives me a huge appreciation for our medical system back home.

The other day we got to experience an annual rite of spring in Ulaan Baator For up to five days, sections of the city will have their hot water turned off while crews perform maintenance on the pipes under the streets. About a week ago, all heating was turned off in the city for the summer, and we’d been told that that meant that they were getting ready to do the water work. Luckily enough of our group lives in different neighborhoods so that we can go over to each other’s apartments to take showers.

As a good bye to the winter, the local brewery sponsored a 10 mile hike thru the countryside last weekend. About 96 locals and ex-pats gathered for the 2nd annual Khan-Brau challenge. It took us about 5 hours to finish with a very leisurely pace thru the woods, as we hiked to the Manziin Kiir monastery on one of the city’s sacred mountain peaks. It was great to get back to the outdoors again! Babak had injured his knee the week before, so he couldn’t go. I met up with a group of Australian volunteers, and we started off. Most of them chose to take a conservative pace, but Josie and I decided that we wanted some exercise, so we headed off up the hills. We ended up having the trail mostly to ourselves, and were treated to some fantastic views of valleys and streams. When we finally got to the monastery, there was free beer and food, along with medals for everyone!

Actually, they can. From the urban settings of Ulaan Baatar, myself and 6 other friends headed out to Khustai Nuruu Reserve last weekend. This reserve is about 65 miles west of UB, and the main draw of the park is the presence of Takhi horses.

These horses are distantly related to modern horses, but are actually genetically different. They’re completely wild, and legally protected from being domesticated. The Takhi are native exclusively to Mongolia, and live in the open plains, and semi-desert of the Mongolian landscape, living off grasses, leaves, barks and buds. They are typically about four feet in height to the shoulder, with distinctively large heads, pale colouring, and dark, erect, zebra-like manes. In the winter they are an unusual beige colour, which blends into their steppe environment, with a white back, which fades to a darker colour in the summer as the snow on the mountain tops melts. They are still an endangered species, and prior to re-introduction programs none had been seen in the wild since 1968, though a significant number still survived in zoos all over the world. Breeding in captivity has made it possible for reintroduction of the species into Mongolia to take place.

We spent the weekend driving and hiking around the park checking out all the different types of wildlife. As a bonus, we had one of the owners of the Chingiss Brewery on the trip with us, so we had plenty of beer to go around.

Besides the horses we saw a lot of other wildlife, the most notable being the marmot. These look like large prairie dogs, and are hunted by the nomadic Mongolians for food. They can do this for only the late spring and early fall season..during the hottest part of the summer, the marmots tend to get infected with the bubonic plague! Yep, the same thing that wiped out half of Europe is still alive and well down here.

On our way out we stopped at a historic site where we saw examples of Turkic man stones. These are thousand old gravestones that were left by the Turkic (not Turkish) people of central Asia during their migrations ages ago. They’re not marked at all, and unless you knew exactly where to go to find them, you would miss them completely.

The social life here has been pretty good. For the past three weeks all the bars have closed at 10:00 pm in an attempt to contain SARS. Instead of going out and exploring (or even going to bed early and catching up on sleep) we had to stay inside and entertain ourselves. Finally this past weekend we were able to stay out as late as we wanted, and wow…we took advantage of it.

Friday nights here usually start around 6:30 or so at the British Embassy. They’ve got a bar called "The Steppe Inne" that all the ex-pats congregate at. We usually have a few beers and then various groups tend to go out and get dinner and then maybe head out to a dance club.

Sunday afternoons are for Cricket…I’ve never played this game before, but it’s been a lot of fun. I can’t see getting attached to it in the states, but here its a great way to spend a Sunday evening.

Tuesdays are for the Hash House Harriers…it’s a drinking group with a running problem. Babak has done this for years in various countries, but it’s my first exposure to the group, and I’ve got to say its fantastic! It’s a great excuse to get out to the mountains on the outskirts of the city and go hiking for a few hours. Afterwards we’ll usually have some food provided by one of the local restaurants, and then go out and have some beers. Babak has got the most outspoken personality of the group, and has taken over the religious adviser role. He and I are going out to set the hash next weekend in the hills near the Zaisan memorial.

The Zaisan memorial is a huge Soviet style monument built to honor Soviet war dead. Its big, garish, and offers one of the best views of the city from the top. Apparently when the Soviets were providing over half the income for the Mongolians there was an eternal flame at the top, but due to budget cuts its become more of an occasional flame….usually only when a Russian dignitary visits.