I'm not sure what day this gets posted, as there's no internet in the Gobi Desert. Yesterday, Tuesday, we spent the morning sightseeing in Ulaanbaatar and then we caught a flight to the desert.
Mongolians revere Chinggis Khaan, the founder of the Mongol empire in the 12th century. Statues of him are very common -- this one, in an alcove of the national parliament building, is about as large as Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
Also revered is the general Suhbaatar, who in 1921 chased out the Russians and Chinese And founded modern day Mongolia. As it turns out, the Russians poisoned him the next year and forced Mongolia to adopt socialism and become a satellite state of the USSR. In 1990, a year before the Soviet Union collapsed, a peaceful uprising here overthrew the socialist system and established Mongolia as a parliamentary republic.
This is a Buddhist country and we toured the Gandan Monastery where we see another enormous statue of the Buddha (as we've seen in China, Tibet and Thailand). They love to make them huge! This pic doesn't really convey how enormous he is, but check out the size of his feet!
That afternoon we board Air Mongolia for a flight to Dalanzadgad, gateway to the Gobi.
A fleet of Land Rovers drives us an hour and a half across the desert
to the Three Camels Lodge -- a series of gers, where we'll hunker down for the next two nights.
Duck when you enter!
They're actually pretty nice inside, though you have to have someone come light the stove at regular intervals to get some heat. (It's cold here!)
Desert as far as the eye can see. More in the next post!
Posted with Blogsy
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