Ger

Ok so today is my last day in Darkhan (before I come back there :-)
So a last subject about ger.
That's the traditional mongolian house.

you have different kind. You have the one in the city that are not moving anymore.

Most of the time they are in the yard of the people and sometimes they have an house next to it.
Very often this is poor people living in the ger areas. They came from the countryside to find a job in the city, but well this is quite difficult...

Then you have the one in the countryside. And the people move around 4 times a year.
Nowadays they use trucks to move them, but before it was with horses or camels or yaks.

And this is how they build the ger.
I think it can be done very quickly like in 1 or 2 hours.
Of course for all type of ger you have no toilet or running water inside. This is all outside

Then you have the ger for the tourist (mongolian or foreigner)
This ger are also not moving.
The difference is that you have many of them in one place.

Inside a ger you have the furnitures and the bed around.
In the middle you have the fire, to cook and to heat

Then you have the roof, open or not it depends on the temperature.

And when you count these wooden things you can know how big the ger is. There are different size.
Depending on the family, because everybody  is living together.

And this are gers in the wildness, there is enough space.
So the coming next weeks I will sleep in such gers, let's see how I look like after!!

See you in a couple of weeks!!!

Bye Bye

Since I am leaving soon I have some bye bye dinner.
This one was in texas and look at my plate: chicken, chicken and chicken!!!
And a very big (and so sweet) chocolate milkshake!!

And this time I said bye bye to Batjargal (left) and Hak the korean.
But I should see Hak again.

Look at the nice picture!!!
Hak wear the traditional mongolian beret, or is it french traditional :-) ???

I have also received some presents.
This one are from the school:
A beautiful red cashmere pullover and a wallet with a traditional mongolian woman.
And this are the woman teachers from left to right:
Saraa, me, Bayarkhuu and Dudu

And on this one Bayarkhuu is replaced by Itke

You see mongolian cashmere from Gobi, very warm for the winter time!

Then I had a bye bye birthday!
This is the sister of Boogii

And Boogii the lady of the day!!

 And me with a big schnitzel!!!
Yes we find everything here :-)

And this was also a bye bye to Yoshinori, my Japanese teacher here
And again we had some food!!!
Very nice too :-)

And this is my train ticket for UB. 8 hours, instead of 3,5 hours with the bus. But since mongolian road are quite dangerous I prefer to take the train, this will be an experience!!!
So thursday I am leaving , see you in a few weeks!!!

Last views of Darkhan

Since I am leaving very soon, these are the last views of Darkhan.

The mountains surrounding the city

the small colorful houses near the university

The parc when the weather is nice, full of people

and yes for the first time the fountains are working!!!!

And all the children have skaters, cars, bicycle, balls and everything possible
And all that in music please :-)

Day trip to Dulaankhan mountain

Today I was invited by Zenee and his wife Byambaa to a day trip to the Dulaankhan mountain

Mongolia is actually full of mountains, from small to quite big (more than 4000 meters)

So we went this morning by car to the mountain, 90 km away from Darkhan.
The weather was not so good but at least it was not snowing :-)

People go there because there is some thermal water that we drink that is supposed to be good for the stomach

In there there is a Buddha carved in the stone next to the water

And we had our glasses!!!
I think that this water is full of minerals because it has quite a strong taste!!

This mountain is in Selenge aimag, which is a quite green place in Mongolia

And this is the mountain full of small rocks.
What is also nice is that there the grass is smelling very very good!!!

And there is a small museum hold by an old man. We can not take pictures but he is making wood carving and also have a lot of dead animals stuffed (I don't know how to say :-))
I was the attraction there, some mongolian tourist were explaining me everything as well as the old man (but he was explaining in mongolian so well …)

And nearby there is a praying tree, this is for the shamanism.

And here a picture of all of us!!

After that we had lunch. But in the car because it was to cold and too windy outside …
Mongolian weather changing every 5 minutes …
So it was meat meat meat and some vegetables :-)

And this is me in the steppe in the middle of nowhere

And me again (oh yeah) near to a river. There are not so many in Mongolia, so nice to take pictures of them!!!

And this is an Ovoo, for shamanism again.
You turn around it 3 times and you also put 3 stones
But some people also leave some artificial leg ….

And after that we went to see some camels.
They are belonging to someone but are free to go where they want

From a distance they were not really disturb by us

But as soon as you get loser they start to move

This is still not so warm season but they are starting to loose their winter fur and their amp is starting growing, easier to ride after!!
Now I am waiting to see what the water is doing :-)

My dress

I have decided to have a mongolian dress, because I really love their design here!

This is ready dresses or top that you can buy everywhere

the colors and the shapes are just too beautiful, but this is a bit difficult for a foreigner to wear (this is what I think…)

So I have done my own design with the help of the designer class at the university (I told you that they teach everything possible!!!)
After the design, the second step was too choose the colors.
For that you just go in the market and select what you want.
As you see there is everything possible!

I have decided to have a black and blue design

This is my main design with some mongolian patterns

And at the end this is the result. next to me is the designer/maker of my dress.
Not bad!!
And since this is 2 pieces I can combine!!
Well I have to find better shoes now, but I will buy it in Japan because my suitcase is just full full full!!!