Wednesday, September 26, 2007

We Made it to Mongolia!



After 30+ hours on the train (really, you stop counting after hour 24 or so...), we have finally arrived in Ulaanbaatar. We were met at the train by minni Mongol aav, or my Mongolian father, Zorigtbaatar and his nephew Angar. I was immediately very chatty, as I'd had many, many hours of Mongolian language practice with a five-year old named Suvdaa (tranlates to "Pearl") on the train. Below are some pictures of Suvdaa throwing (!) and Suvdaa and John playing cards. Suvdaa actually required us to play store with the cards, using them as money for us to buy items she had in her bag.

You can see a bit of our coupe in the background; it was a deluxe, 2-person coupe with a shared "shower" (basically just a room with a sink). Not too bad but we were very happy to exit the train this afternoon.

I'll blog more tomorrow about our accomodations, first impressions of Ulaanbaatar this time, etc. It's 7pm now and I'm ready for bed. :)


6 comments:

didi_international said...

Great to hear! I have been thinking about you and hoping all is well!
Can't wait to see and hear more about your journey!
Many hugs!
DI

Anonymous said...

Awww, she's such a cutie! Hmm.. Mongolia looks like the southwestern US? Odd. What's the defining characteristic of their landscape? -Ashish

Jules said...

Yeah, Whoo HOO! Cheers! I am glad you are there after such a very long (grueling) trip. Suvdaa is so cute. Will you see her again? It is neat that she played with you! Ulaan Batar looks like a desert, at least that one picture did. I hope you got some sleep! Thanks for your blog! I am always interested to read what you write!

Anonymous said...

Thank you for blogging about your travels. It is a real thrill to read about your adventures this way. You and John are two impressive people!

Rachel said...

Thanks Di! Hope all's well at Daemen.
Ashish, it's basically slightly mountainous in the north, steppe through most of the central part of the country, and desert to the south.
Jules, I don't think we'll see Suvdaa again- but we've got hilarious footage of her making funny sounds and laughing at herself, which I hope to figure out how to post here soon-- so she'll remain with us on video, at least!
Amy, glad you're enjoying it! It's fun to be able to share such an adventure with people in real time. :)

migisi said...

Okay, so suddenly I'm getting blogger in what looks like Italian? I'm in Kenya and I have no idea what kind of server I'm connected to... Anyway, LOL, I wish I were in Mongolia with you! Love the ger. I wish I didn't feel self conscious about taking photos of the Turkana people here- they have some excellent beads.