(not the shoes though)

Roger, for not knowing what to do with the BIG hotel room they gave the passengers who are stuck in Ulanbaatar…

Or

Me, for thinking about how to take weird pictures.

Here is Roger who cannot decide whether to enjoy the living area or the dining area or just cool off in his bed….

He almost went downstairs to request the hotel concierge if they can delay the flight further…

… but Mongolia is not quite ready to leave us! Ulanbaatar is having weather issues. Our plane is stuck in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. We are delayed for at least 12 hours as of now…

Having seen how the nomads live in the desert, we are convinced this is no big deal.

Turkish Airlines is taking good care of us so far. This is in the bus where they are taking us to the hotel they have arranged to put us up in…

Today is Mother’s and Children’s day in Mongolia. Which is a public holiday and the whole city was in festive mood. We ourselves celebrated this day by taking our wonderful guide Sara and her whole family out for dinner at their place of choice – an Indian restaurant!!!

Her husband Batnasan is somewhat of a local celebrity. He is famous for his paintings. I showed him Sharmila’s paintings. He had painted two water paintings for Roger and me and gifted us. Wonderful person. We could not understand each other’s language but I had a great time with him.

We also enjoyed meeting her sons Galbadrakh and Amartaivan (who I hope to run in some American university one day when he fulfills his dream of studying in America) and her very quiet daughter Hanna.

The best was undoubtedly the youngest child – Johnny who kept us entertained the whole evening with his impeccable English (surprising for a kid who goes to a Mongol medium school – he learns all his English from Youtube and TV) and his knowledge of Periodic Tables and Geographical facts.

One of the best ways we could have signed off our stay in Mongolia…

Now, let’s hope tomorrow morning all flights are on time and all that…

Our last place to visit was Terelj National Park. With a very different landscape from Ulanbaatar area, it offer quite some greenery and a lot of rock formation. The most curious one we visited is called the Turtle Rock. You can see why.

This thing is huge. About eight story tall, it is mostly granite in composition.

Apparently, these days they are showing up unannounced in sunglasses and Skechers shoes 🙂

Went out to check outhe humongous statue of Chinggis Khan near Tuul river east of Ulanbaatar. It is an imposing structure of about 130 feet of stainless steel.

We are back in the city of Ulan Baatar. Went out of the city to check out a few places often visited by tourists. One of the common activities apparently is to have an eagle or vulture perch on your hand!

We had a great time with our gracious hosts. Learnt a lot of things about their lives. And what a tough life they lead. To give you a rough idea, the lady has to get up early in the morning to milk the cattle. Amongst camels alone, she has to milk 30 of them. Morning and evening!

They do all this shepherding, milking and all that – thru intensely high temperatures and intensely low temperatures, sometimes with howling winds. With no holidays. Every single day of the week.

One thing I noticed is that every ger has a car (I guess there is no other way to get supplies from the city). And that they all send their young kids to schools (which is often many, many miles away).

This is a very hard place to live in.

But I would be lying if I did not tell you how much this place has charmed me.

I got to motorbike!

In the Gobi desert, no less!!

I asked our host if I could try out the motorcycle he used for shepherding the cattle. He immediately jumped to it, cleaned up the seat and invited me in.

As many of you know, motorbiking is one of my latest passions. But to get to ride a off-road bike in the king-of-all-off-roads – Gobi desert… I head never even dreamt of it!

Took the bike for a ride in the dry, arid, vast nothingness.

Apparently, I kept going straight for so long that Roger wondered (I heard that in the video he took of me and showed me later) “Does he know how to take a turn”? Not sure what he was worried of? It was not like I was going to run into a tree or something 🙂

Best experience ever for me!! This ranks way up there with running the original marathon in Greece on the route of Phidipiddes!