Last Mongolia Blog

Finally, a last victory celebration and then a night in the yurt...

This was the main dining hall.  The people performing are doing traditional throat singing.  I'm not sure if it qualifies as music, but it was very interesting.

Three girls doing traditional acrobatic / gymnastic poses.  Crazy!!!

So cute!

Oh yeah, the moment we were waiting for, but didn't know about.  We called him Mongolian Elvis, but he was pretty current with his song selection.

Oh yeah, the Europeans couldn't help themselves.  Can you blame them?

While trying to get a picture of the sunset (ended up being behind the clouds), I caught the performers posing for some other tourists.  The woman on the right has a stack of 6 or so bowls on her head.

The star of the show, a much publicized roasted lamb.

Yummy, with the blood sausage on the right and laced with plenty of tasty fat (the white stuff was all pure lard).

Dusk at yurt 111.

Start of the sunrise, looking across the main dining hall on the left.

One of my favorites.

Took this on the way to the Xilinhot airport.  This was a very different looking rock formation than what we saw most of the time.  Beautiful, though.

Get out of the way cows!

Get out of the way, front-end-loader-with-a-motorcycle-in-the-bucket!

You can see from the shadows that this guy had his hat oriented for pure style, rather than functionality.  I think he pulls it off.

This is what happens when you get to the airport at 8am, a few hours before your flight.  Yep, that's a lock on the door.

Ah, Beijing.  It's really a stark contrast when not an hour away on the plane was crisp, clean, clear air.

After a brutal and muddy day one, Matthew and I were slightly dreading getting back on our aluminium horses.  Again we didn't have to race until after 2pm so we headed out on the town.  Thankfully, our shoes had dried overnight!

Shot from hotel room, I was loving the blue sky!!!

I noticed a side street that looked interesting, which ended up being some sort of food distribution center.  Here's the cheese shop.

The bulk delivery truck.  From here things were unloaded and taken to several different store fronts along the street.

Don't drop the fish!  There's no 5 second rule in China.

Yeah!  There's a quote on the hood:  "OlD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE".  Yes, the "L" in old wasn't capitalized, which we felt took away from the message a bit.  The pink works though, right?

Apparently the maker of the hanky didn't noticed the "N" on the skulls' forehead, or how to make an American flag either.

These were some cool saddles in a shop we found.  Man, the horses must be bitter little creatures!

Overlooking some housing, I was sobered by the tarp held down by miscellaneous scraps.  This was someones home.

Thankfully, D-Y-N-O-M-I-T-E rode by to cheer me up.  Shortly before seeing this woman, my friend was grabbed and kissed by an older gentleman.

Back on the trail and feeling good!

Our first yurt sighting.  Note the sheep, horses, etc.  Spirits were high as the weather was great and the aches from the day before were fading out.

My friend with the local wildlife.

Yes, we were following the car path.

See the red dot on the left?  That's our trail marker.

Another panoramic: some of the farm houses.  The road was worse than the dirt path though!

Finally arrived at the finish line.  Neither one of us wanted to get back in any saddle, so we opted out of the celebratory camel rides.

Yurt city: home, sweet home for the night.

Some bone jewelry.  I decided to pass as they appeared to be common goat knuckles and I think Rebecca would have preferred something a little more sophisticated.

Hail to the king, baby.  Go Hokies!

Love this shot.

Caught a family posing for a picture of their own.

Outside of yurt 111, our room.

We thought we would be sharing with four other people, this was a huge relief.

Yes, I took this to prove that sometimes it's perfectly OK to pee in the shower.

That is a bar of soap, shampoo and conditioner.  Why would anyone need any more than a bar of soap no bigger than two Chiclets?

So, that brings us up to the finale of our race days.  In the next post I'll share the celebration and the journey home...



Mongolia Day 2

Race Day 1.  We opted for the short course for the following reasons:  our priority was site seeing, we didn't know what we were signing up for, and (most importantly) neither of trained for it at all.

Morning from the hotel room, note the beautiful sky!  We decided that since we couldn't get our bike rentals until 10am, we would hit the town.

One of the main cross sections in Xiwuqi.  Where are all the ayis sweeping 24/7?  Yep, we're not in Suzhou anymore.

My friend, Matthew, at work.  C'mon man, you're in MONGOLIA!!!

Another little shot of a great backdrop, there were certainly some neat spots in this town.

Another nice little spot.  Note the dark cloud over the camel statue (normally this would be either a fu dog or a lion in China).

In case you were wondering where the clothing processes store was.

Hard to see in this shot, but in the hardware store you can pick up airplane propellers (far left of the large window, standing up)...

Hey, that's the mannequin piz from Brussels!  Cute little gimmick in the bathroom supply store.  Yes, that's actually water spraying out of the statue.

Maybe this is taking it a little too far?

That's Matthew showing off how close he can get to a sheep slaughter on the side walk.  There were 5 or 6 freaked out sheep in the truck still on the left.

What's a Wang agent do?

After collecting our bikes, here's my friend in front of a temple getting asked for pictures, how much his bike cost, etc.  You know, the usual.

Playing some bones, real bones.

On our 6 km ride out to the start line, we had to stop to catch our breath (not a good start).  Little did we know that the ridge line over his shoulder would be a murderous start to the race right after the rain that fell at the gun shot.  One of the Europeans had said "wow, you guys look relaxed".  We took that to be European for "you look like a bunch of tourists who have no idea what's about to happen to you".  They were right.

Huh?  An Irish guy in a kilt?  Also, that little red spot on his leg was a Chinese flag.  Not sure commentary is needed.

Catching a smoke while waiting to start.

Very Chinese:  "So what that 200 people are trying to watch the horse dancing (without horses)?  Our picture is more important than all of you combined".

Oh, so that's what my Chinese medium size shirt should look like on.  Sadly, this is too close for comfort so Reid will get mine when I arrive home.

A little storm rolling in on the left.

Tired, dirty, but undefeated after cresting the hill.  At this point I considered chucking the bike and walking back.  We later found out that only about 50 or 55 people out of 79 starters finished the short course that day.

We were walking uphill at this point.  A woman doing the long course passed us and said "what's wrong with your bikes?"  My friend replied "the fat guy trying to make it go."  Mine too Matthew, mine too.

Danger!

Finally at the end, we left our bikes in the fountain to try to wash off the 10 lbs. of mud.  Best decision we made all day as this required no effort on our part.

After we finished the first day, we were both in pretty bad shape.  Funny thing was that we both hit the shower in our rooms and immediately passed out on the bed for 30 minutes.  We grabbed dinner (same food as breakfast and lunch, yummy) and tried to find something to keep us awake, opting for a walk to the corner market for a cold beer.  Ironically, neither of us packed alternate shoes, so we both were walking down the street in hotel slippers. 

We brought a small group into the store with us because they were curious about what we were going to buy.  This was actually helpful as one of the onlookers opened our beers for us on the corner of a shelf.  Passed out at about 6:30pm and woke up the the phone ringing at 7am.  I can't remember the last time I slept 12 1/2 hours!