Finally, home after some 24 hrs of travelling. My luggage didn’t make it to the SAS flight to Stockholm but I will probably get it today. Three weeks of preparation and then I’m off to Belize!
Sunset at Mongolica Resort where the New Years party took place. Close to Tuul river, apparently.
This weekend I went to Hustai national park, located about 100 km southeast (I think) of UB. I saw plenty of Thaki horse (Equus ferus przewalski), Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) and plenty of domestic horses, goats and sheep. The Thaki and Red Deer are hanging around together in the winter (as seen in one of the pictures on Flickr). The landscape was really impressive, as seen in this picture.
Ticket to Belize (Belize City) booked for the 5th of February! Total travel time with transfers in London and Miami is 33 hours, something to look forward to, or not. What I do look forward to is a warmer climate, my nose has expressed concerns regarding the current air temperature in UB and it is just getting colder every day (-22C today according to Yahoo).
Today I booked my flight back to Sweden - 15th January. This time I will be flying with Mongolian Airlines via Moscow instead of the Beijing. I will be home for 2-3 weeks before leaving for Belize where I will work as a Development Officer at Ya’axché Conservation Trust for at least six months (also volunteering).
I am sure my lungs will appreciate the better air quality in Belize. The air in this city is getting pretty ridiculous, some days it is like breathing directly from the exhaust pipe of a 1950’s truck (literally). On the other hand, there is malaria and plenty of poisonous things in Belize. Anyway, I think I prefer nasty stuff of biological origin - smoke from dirty coal combustion, not so much.
A happy dog, just after receiving a bone (it looked like a deer foot) from its owner.
The great majority of the buildings in Dadal were built with logs and many followed a soviet style design with red stars above the windows. Stray dogs were also pretty common in Dadal (common in UB as well). Some dogs had a piece of cloth tied around their neck which indicated that they had an owner (as seen in some of the pictures). Dogs without cloth (i.e. stray dogs) were apparently in the risk zone of being euthanised.
Cows are pretty abundant in Dadal, well, to be fair, they’re pretty abundant in Mongolia as a whole. You see them everywhere when walking through the village. Horses are also roaming freely, not so much in Dadal, but outside. One popular dish this time of year is horse stomach. The appearance and smell kept me from trying it. Apparently it takes time to get used to and I don’t feel like I really need to get used to eating horse stomach at this point. Horse meat however is really good! I’m having it for lunch a couple of times each week.
I got back from Dadal yesterday night. Dadal is located about 600 km north east of UB, near the Russian border. The living conditions were pretty basic, people live in small, one-room houses built of logs. Insulation is pretty absent so I went to bed with +35C in the room and woke up with about +10C. Apart from the Spartan living conditions, the trip was really enjoyable. Clean air, nice people and a beautiful landscape. I didn’t see too many exciting animals though, mainly ravens, magpies and a fox (V. vulpes).
I have uploaded 55 images to Flickr (set), I intend to put some more pictures on the blog later (from Flickr) along with some description. The picture above is from a short day trip to the countryside outside of Dadal. Dadal is also the birthplace of Genghis Khan.
Tomorrow I will go to WWF’s field office in Dadal for a couple of days, which apparently is a rather small village in the middle of nowhere. Hopefully there will be plenty of good opportunities to take some nice pictures and see some nature, and most importantly, breathe some clean air. The temperature is no problem, -10C at most during daytime so far, the air pollution (mainly from burning of coal) however is just crazy.
Today I went to a conference about sustainability in the agricultural sector in Mongolia, pretty interesting. It has been snowing pretty much for the last 24hrs, it’s not very cold however, above zero. Tomorrow, I will go back to the same place for a second day of presentations. It is very interesting to meet people who have been working in the area of sustainable land-use for many years, and not just in Mongolia. Two more pictures on Flickr.
So i bought a pack of egg noodles yesterday. I’m not an expert on noodle production but I’m pretty sure formaldehyde is not a common ingredient. I assume this means that they didn’t add it to these noodles but… it’s like buying a can of soup stating ‘without cyanide’ or ‘low on ‘mercury’. Not sure if I want to eat this…
