Sunday, 24 July.  Another very early morning flight, made more tiring by us being several hours from the airport.  Nice sunrise though.  Once in Ulaanbaatar we visited a manufacturer of horsehead fiddles, the Mongolian equivalent of guitars.  We were surprised at the variety of fiddles made.  Small factory, but very interesting.  They really gave us a lot of time in their shop.

The afternoon was used to visit the local department store.  The souvenir floor was popular.  Lots of cold weather clothing.  There was a large assortment of outdoor recreational equipment.  Tourists were a wide mix of Europeans.  I noticed no other Americans.

A Russian monument celebrating those who fought against Germany.

Sunday, 23 July.  Visited a Yak farm.  Milked a yak badly.  Lots of hair.  I was more aggressive than others with the yaks, which I think the locals appreciated.  After others tried the milking bit (with more success than I), we proceeded to don gloves and pick up cow pies, which the locals use was fuel in the winter.  One of us decided that photographing the action was more important than participating; we quietly disagreed.  During the Q&A I asked if any farms were handled be a single person, vice a couple.  Our guide said, yes, but only by a man.  I asked him to confirm this with the family and the wife rapidly disagreed.  Single farms are almost always run by a woman.  Ha ha.

We then visited the local town with a hospital that looked unsafe in structure and cleanliness, so I stayed outside.  Finally we paid a visit to the town’s entrepreneur. He produced small ice cream cones which were wrapped in plastic and delivered to local stores.  We were assigned a certain number of cones and tasked to deliver them.  It was fun, but weird.  Our thirty cones cost about $2.  Total.  The economies of scale.  The man also made bread using an early-age (manually pushed) assembly line to bake.  His house was marvelous, with a host of plaques and medals documenting a past full of civil service.  He was perhaps the only person we met who had a concept of national politics.

Saturday, 22 July

Took a long boat ride across the lake to visit a reindeer encampment, which exists solely as a tourist stop.  The major herd is back in the wilderness.  Our group pretty much bought out the family’s collection of souvenirs.  The reindeer were both beautiful and peaceful.  Had some reindeer milk.  Not the best milk I’ve had.

We stopped at a significant promontory on the way back.  It’s a key destination for natives, having some kind of significant importance.  I took the opportunity to go wading.  Cold.

In the afternoon we went horseback riding.  The climb onto and off of the saddle for several geriatrics was more difficult than I’d imagined.  Nice ride in the woods.  Saddle was not comfortable.

Friday, 21 July.  Flew in the very early morning to northwest Mongolia, close to the Russian border.  Very small airport.  We loaded into three very sturdy vans, each with a foreboding snorkel exhaust, meant to be used when traversing deep water.  Turns out we never needed them.

A long drive began with a very nice, very new road.  But we soon went off onto a rutted side road which was the type of travel we experienced for much of our remaining stay.  Drove around a beautiful salt lake to a very ancient cemetery.  We visited perhaps the cleanest outhouse in Mongolia in a totally barren landscape.

After passing through a very small town we bounced and bumped for several miles over (through?) monster ruts to our lakeside ger camp.  Breathtaking blues.  Cattle and horses lazily strolling along the lake.  Made a short climb to a beautiful lookout spot.