Sylvia's Journal

I met up with my colleague Maggie who flew in from Dulles. Last time we flew together to Manila I was in a wheelchair – this time I was on foot like most other travelers and back to normalcy. We joined hundreds of other travelers to Ulaanbaatar (I can now spell the name correctly) in a plane that was bigger than the one who took me from the US to Korea. I can’t help but wonder what everyone is going to do in Mongolia. There were only a handful of people who looked like they came from Europe or the US, no Africans, the rest all from the region, at least originally. I can’t quite figure out what Mongolians look like but will do so today I presume.

The neon signs one sees when entering a city at night are Cyrillic, at least appear so to the untrained eye. Our taxi driver couldn’t tell me more as his English was limited to Hello. So I googled it and found this fascinating story at wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_script
In the entrance to the hotel the pillars and walls were decorated with traditional script that looked more like vertical Arabic and Kufic. From this you can tell that there has been a lot of galloping in all directions to and from Mongolia.

The large neon sign at the airport welcomes one to the Ghinggis Khaan [sic] International Airport, in script I can read. We name our airports to recent statesmen in the US (Kennedy, Logan, Dulles, Reagan) but here the only true hero seems to be Mr. Khan. As I waited in the lobby for our check in I leaved a tourist brochure to see if we could see anything of this country other than the capital city. There are day tours to Mr. Khan’s legacy tomb, national parks and cultural events showing nomad life. All at considerable costs.

Entrance into the country was easy as pie – no visa required, fast moving lines, free wireless and clean toilets. The women’s bathroom included a tiny pedestal sink decorated with cartoon characters to allow children as small as Faro to wash their hands without being hoisted up by their moms. I have never seen anything like this anywhere in my travels, a public health message aimed at Mongolia’s youngest citizens?

My view from the room reminds me of Russian I last visited 40 years ago when it was still the USSR: large square buildings and empty wide avenues. But right across the street, in a rundown backyard of a medium rise apartment building is a yurt – I am really in Mongolia. The city lies in a shallow bowl surrounded by green hills devoid of trees, probably all hacked up for heating in the winter I suppose, and not replanted. I imagine it can get very cold here, we are very far north.