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The chaos theory of Mongolia

I returned to Mongolia 15 years ago after an absence of 13 years, save for the occasional 2-week leave from work, and that time I spent a semester and a half at a local university drinking endless cups of brown, watery 150 Tugrik instant MaCcoffee at the café strangely, or perhaps egotistically, named "In my memory", writing the first and so far the only book that got us into trouble with the local intelligence who apparently had little else to do than to pore through the ramblings of teenagers to catch the tell-tale signs of drug dealery. But I digress. When you visit a country for a short period, be it home or not, you hardly have time to immerse yourself in the spirit of the country and the city and feel the nitty gritty and dirty shiny of it all. So after 13 years, it took me a while to readjust and finally understand what the hometown of my childhood had become.  The most striking, ubiquitous, and inescapable feature was and still, unfortunately, is the traffic. In 2008,...
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Photos from a recent trip

So we took a trip up to UB in August for a Channel News Asia documentary called "Homeward Journeys", due to air sometime in December'08 or January'09. It's the first time in many years that I have been back home during the summer(ish) season.  Here's a somewhat disorganized post with some photos.

Chinggis Khaan International Airport I still can't get over the fact that they renamed the airport from Buyant Ukhaa to Chinggis Khaan International Airport. I liked the old name. Many things remain the same, while many others have changed. 40 Myangat District

Photo on the right is of the playground from my childhood. The residents have boarded up the road entrances to this area, as a private company had somehow gotten a construction license to build here and planned to demolish the playground. They had put up the construction fences during the night while the residents slept. When the residents woke up  in the morning and saw the fences, they immediately grouped together to bring the entire iron fence structure down and use them to block the road entrances. This area is prime real estate in the heart of the city, about 100 metres from the Russian embassy to the left, and another 100 to the north from the State Department store.  The city centre is running out of space. Kids are running out of playgrounds.

Wedding Couple in front of the Parliament HouseAnother interesting incident while on the trip, a wedding photo session on the steps of the Parliament House. While normally you are not allowed to go up those stairs, the guards let the wedding couple up for a photo session. The same guards who a few minutes earlier told us that taking photos of the Chinggis statue from too close a range (still from behind the barricade) is not allowed. I asked them if we could stand a little further back and zoom in for photos. One of the guards said "yes, I suppose so".

Tarbosaurus Fossil at the Natural History MuseumAnd this on the left is something I would recommend to everyone visiting Ulaanbaatar city. The Natural History Museum. Worth the entrance fee of MNT2,500 (I think) just for the complete Tarbosaurus fossil only. There are various other things as well, but this section of the museum has always been my favourite since childhood. The downside is, there are usually no narrators available, which is a bummer if you don't speak Mongolian. They do have English plates for most of the exhibits.

Some other random photos at the Square, Dashchoilin Monastery and near the Turtle Rock. Blue sky and evening sunset beauty, sadly thanks to our increasing pollution in UB. Kid and Pigeons at the Dashchoilin Monastery
Ger Land of the Blue Sky
Sunset Sukhbaatar Statue
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