Mongolia, Yes, Mongolia

After being in Boston for an about 36 hours I decided to leave my wife to settle us into incredible large postal stamp sized apartment we are now calling home (or at least for the next 10 months or so) so that I could go to Mongolia, Yes, Mongolia.

I had a business trip to meet with the CEO and Sr. VP at MIAT Mongolian Airlines (www.miat.com) whom we had hosted in London earlier in the year. So a group of nine from our Singapore office and two Americans headed to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Our company actually has an office there with 4 employees; the two senior people there had invited us to spend part of the weekend so they could show us their country.

So I left Boston on September 6, 2007 to make my way to Mongolia but first I had to go to Salt Lake City, then to San Francisco, continuing on to Seoul, South Korea (where I spent the night and a day) and finally arriving in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia at 9pm Saturday, September 8, 2007.

While in Seoul, I decided to stay at the W Walkerhill Seoul, which was nice but on the other side of Seoul from the airport (which I did not know until I got to the hotel). It took me 2 hours from the airport to get there due to traffic. But the next day before my flight to Mongolia I wasted some time at a place called Technomart, which is a 10 – 12 story building that houses everything electronics. The place had everything from TVs, digital cameras, mp3 players, to air conditioners, washers/dyers and computers. It was interesting to see that much stuff in one place but there were no real deals to be had so, contrary to normal practice for me, I bought nothing but did manage to waste some serious time.

So, MIAT Mongolian Airlines. If you are thinking they are not big you would be correct. However, they did have new 737-800 aircraft, and the food/service was better than most US airlines. The airport on arrival in Mongolia on the other hand was pretty beat down. We landed on the roughest landing strip I had ever been on. In fact, the day we had the meeting with the CEO, he had to leave early due to a plane blowing a tire on take off and had an issue landing in Moscow.

On Sunday, September 9, Ganbar, our host and co-worker, took us to the country side to see what people like about Mongolia. We went to Terelj National Park, a park that is situated at 80Km. north east of Ulaan Baatar. It is very popular with the locals and on the weekends with foreigners. It took us nearly two hours to drive from the capital due to the roads. The park sits at about 5300 feet and looks like you are in the Rockies and is about 1.2 million acres. (The country is big, really big.)

In the park we saw The Turtle Rock or what the locals called Melkhi Khad. It is an interesting rock formation that looks like a turtle, as you can see by the photo. Also, there are locals offering horse and camel (of the two hump variety) rides.

Afterward we had a traditional Mongolian feast at Ger (traditional home) Camp. This is a place that has about 20 Gers and a central restaurant. They prepared a meal which was awesome and included lamb, beef, vegetables, and more. However, it did not have horse, a very typical dish. Oh well, maybe next time. We did have the other typical item, which is Grand Khaan Vodka. It is very good stuff. If you live in Denver there is an importer there that has the following website: www.grandkhaan.com

Overall it was a great trip to country with some beautiful mountains and a lot of nice people. I talked to the VP about going back next summer, which would be fun. It would be great to go back and do some hiking and visiting other parts of Mongolia. Then conclude it with a train ride from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing through a portion of the Gobi desert. Let me know if anyone is interested.