Our tourist day

Well, It's the next day, and I want to try and get a little more caught up on the updates.  Saturday was a tourist day for us.  No meetings, just some great sightseeing.  We woke at our hotel in Suhbaatar around 7:30 having slept in and taken our time getting ready.  After breakfast with Mr. T. and Mr. S., we went outside and just admired the view for a short while.

See the red line?  That's "The" red line.  Liz is
one foot in Russia, one in Mongolia.

We were joined for a few minutes by Ms SUVDAA, the Governor's Chief of Staff, again and one of her staff.  She apologized that she had intended to join us for the morning's tour of the province but was called away to some election meetings.  We would be joined by her staff person to make sure we were comfortable.  We climbed back in the vehicle and began our journey to the Northeast towards Altanbulag on the Russian border.  On our way while driving past a large plain, it was shared with us, that on this plain is where a man named Genghis Khan won his first battle to unite the Mongols, feeling that united they could be an sizable force in the world.  Well, he was right, after that battle, and many years of warfare, he created the largest empire the world had ever known..


We continued on our drive northeast and pulled into Altanbulag, winding our way through the streets past parked cars and people walking to the border, we pulled up to the first gate and parked our car.  As we got out, we were escorted past the first checkpoint and into the border station.  We were met there by another border guard who took us around the rest of the checkpoints and up to the border itself.  We joked a little about the ease of "getting into Russia" but just 25 or so years ago, this would have been truly impossible, and the it would have been crawling with border guards.  As it was, there were many, and there were still strong double fences, and many guard towers.










We took a picture back on the Mongolian side, from left to right, that's Mr. TUVSHIN, Liz, Nate, and Mr SAGAI.  We climbed back into the car, and headed west this time, back through Suhbaatar, around the city, and then we headed north along a dirt, snow covered road.  Today was all about us just being tourists, and the scenery was amazing.  Frankly much of the drive there, when there weren't any buildings around, reminded me of the Berkshires after a snowstorm in December.  We kept heading steadily up, and steadily north until we arrived at a tiny little spot to pull off, with steps headed up the side of the mountain (which we seemed, over the course of the last hour to have already ascended much of.)  We got out and starting trekking through the snow, to the top.  When we reached the top, there was a small picnic area and some walkways out onto the most prominent outcroppings.  It was spectacular.

The Selenge River in the foreground, the mountains of Russian in the distance.

We then headed back to UB with a few short stops on the way.  We stopped at a Sacred Tree, which is a holy site in the Buddhist religion.  Pilgrims and passerbys alike come to the tree to make an offering, wishes and prayers.

The number of blue silk ribbons were staggering,
each one representing a wish or prayer.

The "wall" around the outer edge is made of packages
of tobacco left in offering.

 















The trees around the outside were also covered in ribbons as well illustrating the magnitude of people who had ventured well off the paved road, across a long, very rough dirt road to come to this place.

We hopped back in the car and settled in for our long ride back to UB.  a few hours into the trip we spied several combines harvesting a field of grain.  We pulled over, got out and took some pictures, and stopped to talk with the farmer for a few minutes.  In this field of wheat there were two Chinese combines working, both rented by the farmer.  The yields, the best I can work out with my unit conversions, are around 1250 lbs/acre.

Right next to the wheat field was a field of sunflowers being harvested with an old Russian combine, take a look at my facebook page to see the video of that machine in action.










This was a great day, and a great capstone to our trip north.  We slept very in preparation for our Luncheon the next day, joining with the Mongolian Fellows, US Ambassador Piper Campbell and some of her staff for the Eisenhower Day of Fellowship.  But more on that next time.