shake ,rattle and roll!

lou wanted a jeep, he got a jeep! an old one; doors needed special attention from the driver before closing; something vibrated on the hills; gear changes were painful to
listen to and the spanners came out at lunchtime! (scuse typing, this keyboard has half the letters missing!)

the road out of town which is a toll road(!) is surfaced but 'not as we know it jim', full of potholes and cracks and rolls likes the surrey hills. i began to understand and appreciate the padded ceiling! :) we careered out of ulan bator and into the the countryside. coal lorries passed us, strange affairs with trailers covered with sheets, the coal a mixture of great slabs and dust. there were gers in the distance, horses, dogs, sheep, goats, cows but no camels. the animals wander at will and the traffic slows down for them...unlike they do for pedestrians!

we were headed for a protected area the other side of the mountain that has chinngis' (ghengis)face cut into it. the road gave out and became gravel. we were old hands by now at clinging on, at one missed turn in the only town we passed, our driver, manbra(?) headed across a rutted field rather than turn back! :)

at the monastery we decided to eat lunch first so more bumping to find a flat patch with shade. our guide/cook, andrea (it wasn't but the nearest we could get) said we had an hour before the soup would be ready. so we headed up the nearest hill. small flowers, gentians amongst them, eidelweiss (symbol of love for the mongols), crickets, grasshoppers that half jumped half flew with an odd whirring sound, eagles soared overhead............the stillness, the vista of mountains beyond our valley, conifers below us....beautiful...at the top i sat down and wrote up my diary and lou took photos...each to his own! :)

down for lunch. delicious soup and salad,(i stuck to tea as my stomach had finally rebelled the night before). as we ate we spotted black furry squirrels, magpies, crows and a strange little squirrel like creature that andrea couldn't identify, a bit like a chipmunk i imagine, with a stripy tail. (anyone stateside know?)

then it was trudging up the mountain and the 'natural' museum. this was an ecletic little museum of stuffed animals, skins and collages made out of feathers, flowers and bark. we had to write down 'peacock' for the curator who is building up her range of english labels. on to the rebuilt buddhist monastery set next to the ruin of the original main monastery of the large settlement that was built in the 1730s and razed in 1939 when many of the lamas were killed. colourful restoration and full of paintings and some photos of the place before destruction. people still come and pray to the pictures and hangings and leave money stuck in the frames as well as tying blue streamers onto various parts of the building and surrounding trees.

the setting is magnificent. from the ruins you look out to the distant mountains and down into the wooded valley. such a perfect spot for the contemplative life.

above the ruins there are rock paintings of gods. we only managed the first one. mongolia is a high country and i, for one, was knackered from climbing...and no lunch!

thank you for all the gagnac news...we love it! :)