Welcome to Mongolia

Chinggis Khaan Welcomes the Sheldon Family

Arriving in Mongolia after three and a half weeks in China was liberating. We departed the airplane and easily walked through customs, no additional papers required, no body temperature sensor to walk through, no digital camera for which to pose, and it felt good. A free country!! My email and Facebook have been restored. I have contact with the rest of the world again. I guess the old addage "You don't know what you've got until it's gone" is really true.

The light dusting of snow on the mountains that suround Ulaanbaator reminded us all of home. Who knew that something as simple as snow dusted mountains could make my heart ache for home.

View from our hotel room

Since Robert was in Ulaanbaator as a guest of Ivanhoe Mines we had a nice young guide meet us at the airport and drive us to the hotel. Sana an 27 year old, umpteenth generation, Mongolian who within minutes was making wise cracks that at first went right past me until I wisened up. Sarcastic humor is usually non-existent with language barriers but Sana had it mastered.

We were estatic to hear that we had two down days in Ulaanbattor before Robert, Taylor and Ryan headed to the mine and Cameron and I set off on our own adventure. Two down days, what gift, since we were still recovering from our tortureous Tibetan trip.

Let me back up to Beijing to set the context for Mongolian Cashmere. In Beijing, at the fammed Silk Market, there was cashmere from Mongolia everywhere. I tried to walk away from buying because I wanted to say that I really "bought mine in Mongolia", not Beijing. However, everytime I said no the sales gal lowered the price. I walked out with a nice navy blue wrap cashmere sweater for $30.00! Feeling really proud of my bargaining tactics I told myself that if cashmere was this easy to come by in Beijing at such a steal it would FOR SURE be the same if not better in Mongolia.

NOT SO my friend, not so. Mongolia is really, really, proud of their cashmere! The dollar was not that weak against the Mongolian Tughrik either. As I told my sister-in-law on a recent phone call "Shannon, I could buy better looking cashmere for less at JCrew." Not only was it overpriced in my opinion, the styles were out of date and nothing special. If only I could go back to Beijing and buy more $30 cashmere sweaters.

Once I got over my pout I decided to embrace Mongolia and learn about the country's history at the museum. Chinggis Khaan is their biggest historical icon and is revered today as if he was still rulling the Mongol Empire he conquored so long ago. It is quite facinating to think that no one ever to date has conqured lands, united people, and rulled an empire as large as his at the age of 27.

My favorite part though was learning about Mongolia in the 1900's till present with it's slip into Communism and its entrance into freedom and democracy. I am always amazed at how people think Communism could be good. Then I asked a question to my family over dinner at a great Mongolian BBQ restaurant, by the way. "Do you think the Mongols knew what was coming when they asked the Bolsheviks for help in overthrowing the Chinese who occupied Mongolia at the time?" Do you think they would have still aked for help if they knew they would become the second Communist country? As a family friend likes to say "Communism is a good idea, it just doesn't work." Guess the Mongols thought it was a good idea too and later found that it doesn't work the way it's idealized.

You know a museum does a good job of teaching history when all three boys, upon leaving, announce unsolicited, "that place was really cool."