Mongolia Part 1 - The Trans Mongolian Railway

Picking up the Trans Mongolian at Erlian on the Chinese side of the border, I overnighted by train to Sainshand in Mongolia.

Sainshand lies in the Gobi desert. I spent a day with a nomadic family, learning how they live and move according to the seasons, along with their free roaming camel, sheep and horse herds. I tried fermented camel milk yogurt, camel milk cheese and, after some persuasion, airag, an alcoholic drink made from mare’s milk. The former are quite sour tasting. The latter, very popular with locals, does the job.

At nearby Dornogovi are Buddhist temples and shrines standing in the midst of the desert. 
Atop a mountain only men are allowed to climb is a Buddhist shrine where wishes are said to be granted. The wish cannot be about money or illness. My wish was that Bosley, Jet and Ray (best friends past and deeply missed) are in Paradise. Seconds later 3 crows appeared gliding on the hot updraft wind in circles above the shrine.

Elsewhere, the female is celebrated in shrines with (intentionally) boob-like domes.

Another overnighter brought me into the capital Ulaanbaatar where it was possible to get breakfast and a shower before heading out to a Ger camp in the Khustai National Park by bus.

Along the way, and forty minutes out of town, the imposing 40 m high stainless-steel statue of Ghengis Khan astride a stallion is a must see. Like the Alexander in Skopje, the great steel stallion has been castrated and penectomised. I have developed a theory that such mutilation is done not merely to avoid offending more modern religious sensibilities, with what would be magnificently stupendous genitalia, but because such realism might detract from the virility of the great men astride their steeds.

Khustai National Park is not only an incredibly beautiful elevated steppe landscape, it is where the Prezwewalski horse (the last living wild horse …NB, American mustangs are ferals, not wild) is repopulating after near extinction. There are around 60 breeding harems at the present time. They are beautiful but only viewable from a distance via telescope.