July 4, Ulaanbaatar

In the morning, Dan and I wanted to go for a run, but it was raining, so we went to breakfast instead. By the time we finished, the rain had stopped, so we grabbed our laundry and walked over to a laundromat.

The first one was supposed to open at 8:00. When we got there, it was solidly closed. We called the number on the door. I asked whether the owner spoke English or Russian. He answered, "Russian."

"Can I drop off laundry?"

"Yes. Come back at 12."

Well... that wasn't going to work.

So we walked over to another laundromat that was supposed to open at 8:30.

Also closed.

So back to the hotel we went, where we met up with our guide, Anuk, and our driver. They kindly drove us back one more time to see if perhaps the laundromat had opened in the meantime.

Still closed. While we walked back to the hotel to get on with our tour, we saw some fun murals on the walls. 

Our first stop was Dashchoilin Monastery, one of the monasteries rebuilt after Mongolia's democratic transition in the early 1990s. Although Buddhism has been practiced here for centuries, most monasteries were destroyed during the communist purges of the 1930s. Dashchoilin stands on the site of one of those historic monasteries and today is once again an active center of Buddhist life.

One of the more interesting things about the complex is that it is laid out like a traditional ger, reflecting Mongolia's nomadic heritage. We went inside one of the temples and listened to the monks chanting for a while before doing the customary clockwise walk around the temple.

Along the way, it became pretty clear that Anuk herself is a practicing Buddhist. She held her hands together in prayer, bowed respectfully, and quietly explained various traditions to us, like the crowd gathered on the left with some plastic boxes, waiting to talk to the monks about their issue. When one is buying a ticket to enter, the worshippers are able to pick one of the sutras (sacred teachings) that fits their issue, and then the monk will talk about the problem and recite the sutras to remedy the issue.

One thing she pointed out was the pair of guardian lions at the entrance. The lion holding a bowl under its paw represents the male. The one holding a cub represents the female. I never knew that.

Then we entered a very large modern temple containing an enormous Buddha, about 30 meters tall.

One thing that caught my attention wasn't the Buddha itself but the educational displays lining the walls. They explained topics such as vision, consciousness, and perception from both the perspectives of modern science and Buddhism. Several other displays compared scientific and Buddhist views of different aspects of the human mind. It was an interesting way of presenting religion - less as something competing with science than as existing alongside it.

Anuk is a little older than Mo and has a very different outlook on some things. We ended up having a really interesting conversation about Buddhism in Mongolia.

She explained that during the Qing Dynasty, roughly 30% of Mongolia's population became Buddhist monks. In part, she said, this suited the Qing rulers because monasteries tended to make the population easier to govern. Eventually, so many young men entered monasteries that concerns arose within Mongolia itself that too much of the country's manpower was being tied up in religious life. 

Despite being religious herself, Anuk has two children, ages five and eight, and has traveled far more than Mo, giving her a more cosmopolitan perspective. Every winter, she spends time elsewhere in Asia, and last year, she took a whirlwind trip through 10 countries. We found ourselves aligning on quite a few things.

Next, we headed to the Chinggis Khaan Museum. The little museum we visited yesterday in Kharkhorin turned out to be only a tiny preview of what awaited us today.

This museum is enormous and most lovingly presented - nine floors covering Mongolia's history from prehistoric times through the Mongol Empire and beyond, though not including much of the Soviet period. English translations would have been helpful, but we had her and Google Translate, and the presentation was truly stunning. 

It is honestly one of the best national history museums we've visited.

Previously, Dan asked, "Who robbed the National Museum?"

Now we had the real answer. Anuk explained that many of Mongolia's finest historical artifacts were transferred here when the museum was created.

Some of the archaeological displays were outstanding.

Several excavated tombs had been reconstructed exactly as they had been found. One in particular showed the entire burial chamber built inside a wooden structure beneath a burial mound, with a stone chamber decorated with murals. The deceased lay there surrounded by servants, horses, weapons, jewelry, and other grave goods exactly as archaeologists uncovered them.

Photography wasn't allowed in many of the rooms, especially those with the smaller treasures, but what we did see was spectacular.

There were beautiful gold ornaments and two fantastic mythical animal sculptures, one of which looked suspiciously like the Little Humpbacked Horse from Russian fairy tales.

On the top floor, after paying a small extra fee, we put on little plastic shoe covers using a machine that automatically wrapped them around our shoes, then entered the ceremonial hall shaped like a giant ger.

Inside stood a magnificent golden statue of Chinggis Khan beneath a huge domed ceiling.

This is where visiting heads of state and other dignitaries are often received.

We managed to sneak in, take a few pictures, and then a large group of reunion attendees arrived, celebrating what looked like the 40th anniversary of graduating from college together.

The people were beautifully dressed, many wearing elegant deels, women carrying flowers and posing around Chinggis Khan's statue.

One museum employee rushed in, trying to pull everyone back and organize everyone into a proper line.

Outside, meanwhile, there was an entire queue of brides waiting to have wedding photographs taken in front of the museum. Anuk laughed and said it's a tradition to take wedding pictures everywhere important.

After battling Ulaanbaatar traffic once again, we arrived in one of the city's ger districts.

These neighborhoods are home to families who moved to the capital from the countryside but cannot yet afford apartments. Each family has its own fenced plot, often with a ger and sometimes a small house built alongside it. Most have electricity, but many still lack running water and central sewage. The one we were in looked like a cardboard house. She had a workshop area and a kitchen with a commercial ice cream freezer.

We were welcomed into our hostess's home, the grandmother. As always, we were seated in the places of honor while she started preparing lunch.

We helped make buuz, Mongolia's steamed meat dumplings. Lunch included buuz, salty milk tea, bread, candies, and a simple carrot salad with mayonnaise.

Very comforting. Little grandchildren were running around, spending the summer with Grandma.

Our hostess also makes traditional Mongolian clothing, deels.

Anuk mentioned that she was thinking about buying herself a new deel because she wanted one for Naadam and had already worn all of hers several times.

So we wandered over to look at them.

They were beautiful - rich fabrics, colorful linings, wonderful craftsmanship.

Neither of us bought one, but it was fun to see.

The grandmother also told us that the city is gradually buying up properties in these ger districts. Families are compensated with apartments in newly built buildings, and over the next decade or two, many of these traditional neighborhoods will likely disappear as Ulaanbaatar continues to modernize.

Our final stop was the Zaisan Memorial.

We climbed what felt like an endless staircase, only to be passed by a local kid absolutely flying downhill on a bicycle.

From the top, there's a fantastic panoramic view over much of Ulaanbaatar.

The monument itself was built during the Soviet period to commemorate Soviet-Mongolian friendship and the joint victory over fascism.

It reminded us a little of a similar Soviet monument we've seen in Georgia.

Standing there, Anuk asked whether we had mixed feelings about the Soviet Union.

That led to one of the more interesting conversations of the day.

Dan said he doesn't think there can really be two opinions. The Soviet regime murdered millions of people, including members of our own families, and that's impossible to see positively.

Anuk looked at it through a different historical lens.

She said that under Qing rule, Mongolia remained poor and underdeveloped, with very little investment in education or infrastructure. The Soviets, despite the enormous human cost and brutal repression, built schools, hospitals, roads, universities, and modern institutions that transformed the country.

Neither perspective erased the other.

On the way to our final stop, we drove past the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan, the residence of Mongolia's last ruler. We looked up the remarkable story of his final wife, Genepil.

She was only nineteen years old and already married when officials selected her to become the wife of the Bogd Khan, who was about fifty-five, blind, and in poor health after the death of his previous wife. She had very little choice in the matter.

About a year later, he died. Some believe he was poisoned by the Soviet authorities, though historians have never established that for certain.

Genepil returned to her village and resumed life with her original husband. That might have been the end of her story. Instead, during Stalin's purges in the late 1930s she was arrested, accused of being a Japanese spy because of her connection to the former monarchy, tortured, and eventually executed.

A sad ending to the story of Mongolia's last queen.

It was simply interesting to hear someone from a different generation and a different country wrestle with the same complicated history.

It was a really, really good tour. We enjoyed talking with Anuk.

After she dropped us back in town, we made one more attempt to visit the National Art Museum.

Still closed. Now until July 5. Maybe next time.

Instead, we went to the Genghis Khan museum to visit the gift shop, which had been closed for lunch the previous time we were there. Nothing particularly special.

Then we picked up our giant bag of freshly washed laundry and headed back to the hotel.

Our air conditioning still wasn't working. We reminded the front desk that if it wasn't fixed by the time we returned after dinner, we'd like another room.

Then we went looking for coffee and dessert. We walked for quite a while, crossed the river, wandered through an interesting neighborhood, and passed all sorts of interesting people...

...and somehow never found a café we actually liked.

Defeated, we returned to Central Tower, grabbed coffee anyway, read for a while, and then headed to a Korean restaurant.

The card machine by the entrance wasn't working, so we went inside and ordered from the waitress instead.

The bibimbap itself was delicious. Dan got wings. We also got beer.

Honestly, it was every bit as good as what we'd have at home, and probably as good as what you'd find in many places in Korea. Really, really good.

Back at the hotel, the air conditioning still wasn't fixed, so we moved rooms.

The new room's air conditioning didn't work either. Fortunately, the room is on the fifth floor.

We opened the window, and that was good enough. Too high for mosquitoes. 

And off to bed.