Back from Mongolia and Full of Impressions

I am back in DC now since a week and I am finally over my jet lag. It was quite bad this time. In addition to the 12 hour time difference between Washington and Ulaanbaatar, my trip back took over 30 hours because of the shooting on LAX last Friday. Although it was at another terminal, it happened around the time when I landed so we ended up being locked up in the customs area for over four hours, and after that the flights was really delayed. Which was nothing, of course, compared to the actual shooting – so terrible!! I don’t understand how anyone can do something like that? And it happens so often here… The flight between Seoul and Los Angeles was really nice though, because the sky was clear and I could watch the stars closely through the airplane window. And while I had breakfast, I watched the sunrise from up in the air. I often just sit through my flights like I am on a bus or a train, but when you think about it (and take the time to look) it is really quite amazing to be up there in the sky!

I still have my Mongolia trip in my thoughts. It was so different from anything I expected. As I wrote earlier, Ulaanbaatar felt a lot more globalized than I had pictured it and much more dynamic. Maybe in part because of all the construction that was going on, but also because of the people with their clothes and their gadgets, the busy streets and all the traffic. A family friend just commented here a few days ago that Ulaanbaatar used to be the most remote place anyone could ever think of, but it certainly didn’t feel like that now. Perhaps the most illustrative comment came from a Mongolian man in his 60s at a branch organization in the cashmere sector, who said that their best markets were in Europe, and although they should sell more cashmere to Russia, the U.S. was not a potential market “because Americans have no sense of fashion!” While nothing new, a month ago I would not have expected to hear this observation from a Mongolian, not the least because of how far away the U.S. is. But the world is getting smaller and countries are rapidly changing, as visible in Ulaanbaatar.

And then the contrasts between urban and rural Mongolia: the vast, stunning pastoral landscape and barely any sign of people for miles and miles and miles outside the cities. The transformation of the traditional lifestyle into something completely new with the herders who maintain their nomadic lifestyle but equipped with solar panels, satellite dishes, cell-phones and TVs. Some of their kids chose herding as a profession but some go university and get into high-educated professions. I met one herder who had four kids who had followed in his path and become herders, two who were in university, and one who worked as a doctor. A well-developed system of boarding schools for herders’ children makes the step from a nomadic childhood to university or medical school easier than it may seem.

A fascinating country – I recommend anyone to visit!

From Ulaanbaatar to the pastures//Mongolian Airline’s soft cashmere blankets (they fly in style!)//Front seat for the sunrise, though watching the stars from that altitude was even better!

Snapshots from Ulaanbaatar

Sunday was a quiet day. I mostly walked around in Ulaanbaatar and did some souvenir shopping at the State Department Store and at the Gobi Cashmere Outlet Store. As oppose to State Department Stores in capitals around the Former Soviet Union (i.e. the ЦУМ), Ulaanbaatar’s Sate Department Store was completely modernized and looked like any department store in the EU or the U.S. It even had a food court on the top floor with stalls offering dishes from traditional Mongolian cuisine to burgers, past, pizza, and sushi. The main difference with this food court compared with the ones in the U.S. was that the food was served on proper plates rather than on paper plates!

It was nice to have a day off, although I spent the evening catching up on reading; reports on dzud disaster management and public expenditures, so real page turners! Here are some photos from Ulaanbaator. Again, it is a very pleasant, rapidly growing city, though road safety doesn’t seem to be a priority in current city planning and my colleagues have found my hesitation to cross roads here rather entertaining. But better safe than sorry!

Genghis Khan Square//The Government House with the Genghis Kahn statue//The State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet//Bell//Kids swinging at the foot of the Suhbaatar statue//Gateway to Pedestrian Street

Another Day on Mongolia’s Pastures

Yesterday was our last day out in the field. We were further up north that the day before, close to the Russian border and near the city of Darchan, and for some reason the snow hadn’t passed there so the pastures were still green. Or greenish at least. Regardless, it facilitated our work since we were partly out there to get a sense of the quality of the pastures. Another reason was of course to talk to herders, which is my favorite part of my job, and we met three herding families of different income levels that last day. Two of them lived in ghers, the type of mobile huts that herders traditionally live in, so I was able to get a good look inside of them. They are very cozy and comfortable, and surprisingly warm despite the cold weather, but it must be a hard life to live in these ghers without water and limited access to wood when temperatures can drop to -40°C (though it can be noted that one of the herders that we met said that the winter was the easy season for herders). At the same time, there is something appealing about a lifestyle that aims to keep stuff to a minimum. Limited living space and the need to move the entire household multiple times per year make too much stuff a burden (traditionally, Mongolian herders move their livestock every season, but these days, the moves are normally limited to summer and winter pastures). The gher were well-equipped – most herders have a TV now, connected to a satellite dish outside the gher and running on solar panels – but otherwise, there were few things that weren’t intended for food preparation. All families that we met served us traditional snacks and tea. Most snacks were various forms of dairy products, some of them quite sour cheeses, and the tea was boiled with milk and salt. All of it was different from anything I’ve ever had before but quite tasty. We also drank fermented mares’ milk in one home, but just a sip since it can be tough on the stomach for someone who isn’t used to it. We were told that Genghis Khan drank this before he went into battle! So we had an interesting last day out in rural Mongolia, before heading back to Ulaanbaatar.

Mongolia Dressed in Snow

I’m blogging from a small hotel room in Mongolia’s second largest city, Darkhan. For the past two days, my colleagues and I have been traveling around the North Central part of Mongolia, talking to herders, crop producers, and local agricultural institutions. It’s been interesting as always, though a little challenging to look at pastures and crop land with all the snow. Tomorrow is our last day in Mongolia’s rural areas, before going back to Ulaanbaatar, and we will meet with more herders. Livestock is the traditional agricultural sector here in Mongolia, and nomadic herders have historically been the backbone of the country. Although Mongolia is rapidly urbanizing, a substantial share of Mongolia’s population are still traditional, nomadic herding households. I hope to be invited in into a traditional gher and I’ve been thoroughly briefed in gher customs such as not to step on the wood in the door post and to walk to the right in the gher, which is women’s side. In the meantime, here are some pictures of Mongolia’s spectacular landscape:

In Ocean City!

Our first day in Ocean City, MD! We arrived late yesterday evening and since we were all tired after a long work week and the drive, we just stayed in and watched a movie (Zero Dark Thirty – interesting but thought the real story was more fascinating). After breakfast on the balcony, we spent the day on the beach. The sky was completely blue, the water was perfect, there was not too much people, and I had a very good book with me. Life can be really good sometimes! Here are a few pics, the first two are of the view from our balcony:

All Packed for the Beach

I’m packing again, this time for a weekend at the beach. I’m going to our nearest beach resort, Ocean City, with Swedish Monika and her husband. We decided to make the most out of summer and not get into fall routine just yet. I asked Monika what to pack and she suggested a bikini and books. This will be a great weekend!!

Road Trip Afterthoughts and Highlights in the South

I’m back in Washington DC since a few days and I’m still processing all the impressions that I have from our road trip. I look through my photos over and over again, trying to remember the sentiment I got from each particular place. Swedish Monika said that I seemed to have had really high expectations before the trip and she asked me if it had met my expectations. The answer is both yes and no. Some places were better or more impressive than I had expected, and some places did not meet my expectations at all. I think I thought we would see more small towns where life goes on at its own pace. But instead, it was so empty everywhere, with places just abandoned or, frankly, quite dead. Also, after we left Savannah, it was like the U.S.’s brand symbols gradually disappeared. We no longer saw the typical fast food chains and retailers. They where probably there, but not everywhere in the way they are in other parts of the U.S. It was in fact a bit difficult at times to find a place to eat, and we could drive for hours before we came across a diner that was open. (In Alabama, the diner where we had lunch was combined with the local gas station.) And it wasn’t because there were no people and just nature, like when we drove through the West last year, we did drive through communities but there simply was very little going on there in terms of commerce. Instead, there were churches in abundance, sometimes lined up one after the other, and with enormous parking lots in front of them.

Another interesting thing that struck me was the celebration of the Confederacy. Everywhere we went, the main tourist attractions would be linked to the Confederate Government, Confederate leader Jefferson Davis (or President Davis in the South), Confederate General Lee, or another important figure in the fight against the North. In Natchez, the Union (North’s) Army’s stationing in the town was referred to as the occupation. And even in Montgomery, there was little nuanced celebration of the Confederate monuments, even though famous locations for the  Civil Rights Movement were also pointed out with equal pride. But in most places, there didn’t seem to be any Civil Rights events to point to, only monuments from the Confederacy. Maybe it symbolizes something else down in the South, but for an outsider, the Confederacy’s stance on slavery overshadows everything that might have been a source of pride.

 

Since we stayed and ate in so many different places, I thought I’d post a list of all the places I could recommend for someone who’d do a similar trip. The rest, you have to explore yourself!

 

Beaches: 

Outer Banks, North Carolina

Tybee Island, Georgia

 

Towns and Cities:

Beaufort

Charleston

New Orleans

 

Hotels: 

The Cedar’s Inn, Beaufort, North Carolina

Thyme Away B&B, LaGrange, Georgia

Grand Hotel, Natchez, Mississippi

Bluegreen La Pension, New Orleans, Louisiana

 

Eating and Drinking: 

Tautogs Restaurant, Virginia Beach, Virginia

The Provision Company, Southport, South Carolina

Toucan Cafe, Savannah’s outskirts Georgia

The Rookery, Macon, Georgia

Walnut Hills, Vicksburg, Mississippi

The Donut Hole Breakfast Deli, La Place, Louisiana

French 75, New Orleans, Louisiana

Arnaud’s, New Orleans, Louisiana

The Camellia Grill, New Orleans, Louisiana

Café Giovanni, New Orleans, Louisiana

Stanley, New Orleans, Louisiana

 

Stanley in New Orleans, where I had one of my best burgers ever. 

Finally Reaching New Orleans!

The last stop on our road trip was New Orleans. I had, of course, heard a lot about it, but I had no idea what to expect. And regardless, whatever I would have imagined would not have been even close to what the city is. It’s something completely different. I didn’t even feel like I was in the U.S. anymore. Not just the architecture (Southern French/Spanish) is different from what is found elsewhere in the U.S., but also the atmosphere. We stayed mostly in the French Quarters, but even other areas, such as the Garden District, had a completely different feel to it than any other place I have been to in the U.S. While the tourists have taken over certain institutions in the city, like Café du Monde (one of the cafes that serve the famous beignet pastries), the French Market, and the passenger river boats (we took a tour on a steam boat since it was a childhood dream of mine), the city seems to have preserved its identity and uniqueness well. The Port of New Orleans is also one of the second in the U.S. in terms of volume and manages a majority of the U.S. grain exports among other goods, so tourism is definitely not the only sector that drives the economy. We were lucky to sit at the same breakfast table our first day as two local ladies who gave us the dos and don’ts of tourism in the city, which was very helpful. The food was excellent (mainly Creole, Cajun, and South European, but we also had lunch at really good West African cafe one day), and the were restaurants really nice, often in bistro style. And there was great live music in most bars every evening. If going to the U.S., New Orleans is definitely a must-see! Even after three days, I wanted to stay longer.

Mississippi

One of the main highlights for me on this road trip was the Mississippi River. I think everyone has these books that somehow affected their lives profoundly, and the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were definitely such books for me. They were some of the first books that made me want to be out on adventures: to travel and explore places, which of course is a sentiment that still steers my life. Because of Huck and Tom, the river itself has always been a symbol for for freedom and adventures (and I know that the former is a bit ironic given Jim’s role and the existence of slavery in the books, but keep in mind that I read them as an 8-year old Swedish girl in the 80s). So I was very excited when I saw Mississippi River for the first time little outside Vicksburg. It’s really impressive! It’s actually the world’s fourth or fifth largest river (depending on how it’s counted) and brings out a third of the U.S. fresh water outflows, from 32 American states and even from Canada. In many places, there are no bridget because of how the water flows, so it’s very powerful and yet, it looks very calm.

We passed through Vicksburg and had lunch at the Inn Walnut Hills and then stayed over night in Natchez further south (at the town’s Grand Hotel actually because it was so cheap). Vicksburg was one of these sleepy towns that seemed to almost empty. Once upon a time, it had been a major trade center along the river, and apparently the first Coca Cola was bottled here, but there was little left now except a few antique stores along Washington Street. Walnut Hills served great Southern Comfort Food, though. Natchez was more alive and seemed to be more than just a destination for tourists. We had a great dinner at Cotton Alley Cafe on Main Street and a drink down in the old harbor. In the morning, we went for a walk around town and did a tour of the impressive Rosalie Mansion, before getting back on the road again.

Montgomery, Alabama

There wasn’t really room in my last post for all the photos that I took those two days, so here is a few from Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery has a central place in the history of the South: first as the original capital of the Confederacy in the 1860s, before it moved to Richmond, Virginia, and then as the setting for much of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s. Montgomery was where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for white passengers, which set off the Bus Boycott and eventually put an end to different forms of institutional segregation. Martin Luther King was at the time a minister in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and led the Movement from there. It was extremely hot that day but we took a few hours to walk around and see some of the places where these events took place.