Terelj National Park: Day 2

Today we mostly went for walks and took it easy.

The wasp that was living in our ger.


The somewhat flooded forest.


Check-out the growth pattern of the trees on the mountain!

And then... More pony riding!!! Wait until you see mine!

On the road again!




Yak!




Baby yak!













Yes, I know... poor pony! Didn't seem to mind though!

Terelj National Park

Today Emily, Graham, Kaye, Kristin and I went to Terelj National Park for a over-nighter. But, before actually getting there, we did see some stuff!

Cows...


...at a gas station!


A cave!


Turtle rock!


Another Buddhist temple.


The bridge to the temple.


View from the temple.

When we arrived at the national park, it was raining quite hard, so we were confined to our ger for the first few hours.

Happy cow processed "cheese".


Inside our ger.

However, the rain did clear up, making for a beautiful day. We did lots of exploration or the national park. The easiest way to describe it is a Mongolian campsite, where Mongolian families go on vacation. There was even a nice big river running right beside the campsite, but it was a little cold for swimming.

Assisted river crossing.

And finally, horseback riding!!!

Boarding the horses.


Graham on his pony... I mean "horse".


Kaye on hers.



Kristin being... happy...


Kaye laughing at Kristin!


Out of the way sheep!!!


Less sheep now!

More UB Randomness!

Just some stuff (I can't really divulge what I did today.... at least not yet!!!)

The dogs that live near our guesthouse.


Save a tree; eat a beaver.


The Japanese girl whose name I can't remember (too many names in so little time...)!


The burned-down government building.


The wrestling building.

Gandam Monastery, the Temple Museum and the Traditional Song & Dance Show

Big day today! It started off with a proper visit to Gandam Monastery (since I had only walked explored the temple grounds previously). I must say that it is a very impressive place, but a little more touristy than I thought it would be....

The main temple.

Again, with birds.


And, again.


The giant statue housed inside (they wanted to charge us unreasonable
amounts of money for photos, so we took some on the sly!)


Lion statue with bad teeth.


Another building.


Pigeon feeding 101.


Graham being really happy about his beer and lunch!


Brochettes, mmmmm.....

After Gandam and lunch, we headed to a Buddhist temple museum that was full of very strange things... Again, pictures were taken on the sly, so there are not many to be had!

View of the temple museum with a strange background!


Some kind of angry Buddhist deity.


Again.


A cow god?


Cute little building.


Some artistic representation of horses.


A mural of some sort.


Chinggis Khan on the mountainside.

After the temple monastery, we headed to the traditional song and dance show. It was amazing! Simply wonderful! There were many dance pieces, which were very lively, an orchestra and even some Mongolian throat singing. A definite must if you are in Mongolia!!!

The dancers are a little blurry since I didn't want to use the flash.


The orchestra.


Even the curtain was nice!