On Saturday the clouds broke over UB and it was a glorious, hot day. The norm has been thunderstorms and more thunderstorms. Even if it's sunny, you can still hear the thunder rumbling in the distance, preparing itself.
But on Saturday it was clear and safe. Safe for a hike, that is. So I hailed a taxi to the Zaisan Memorial. I nearly wavered at the cost, Two Bucks! The humanity! To go only four miles!
Anyway, cheapskatism aside, I clambered to the top of the memorial (a good 300 steps) and felt, just slightly, like I hadn't exercised in the past six months. Oh wait, I haven't... anyway, the Memorial was built by the Russians to commemorate those who have given their lives in war. It's an immense 360 degree mosaic that could only be classified as Futurist and VERY Soviet. It's a nice example of what a colonizing country will do for its colony: build monuments that have little to do with anything the colonized country has been through.
It was fun watching these three Americans enter into the monument, snap photos of the sights and then sit down to a lunch of Energy Bars. They wondered if they should "go scale that" in reference to a nearby hill. I don't talk to these people. I find an awkward satisfaction in showing off that I'm in Mongolia alone, with nobody else but my own wits to guide me. So I exited the monument in the back, bouldered down the hillside to a nearby valley and set off to go scale a real mountain. I was actually following a loose trail that was mentioned in Lonely Planet's Mongolia guidebook. On the way up, I passed a few resting Mongols sitting on their haunches. "Sain bain uu?" "Sain, sain bain uu." At the top of the ridge, I overtook a family of four Mongolians, who, after a few minutes of cross-cultural chit-chat, I found out were on a family outing to pick nuts and berries. They, however, veered off into a valley as I continued up and up along the ridge. The mom waved me "Bye Bye", which is fairly close to the Mongolian Bye Bye: "Bayartai". Up ahead, through the sweat pouring down from my cheap explorer hat, I could see two backpackers slowly making their way up. They looked like foreigners, but could've easily been a few gung-ho New Mongolians, the kind that were in shape and did things like take hikes just for the fun of it. But I stopped to eat some Dried Fruit (sent to me by the ever-wonderful Abby) and sip some water, and they vanished into the thin pine forest.
The views of UB were panoramic and startling. I hadn't a clue this city of 800,000 sprawled for so many miles. Apparently the sprawl travels in a fat line going from east to west. There is very little north-south sprawl, though that will probably change as more Yuppie Housing is built near the Tuul River and closer to the Bogd Khan Strictly Protected Area (where I was hiking). That's the one thing that is redeeming about UB right now: at least it's still a city of less than a million residents. That, of course, will change in due time.
Starting in September, they are demolishing the entire Children's Park (the one I mentioned earlier with the Carnie Rides and Ghosts of Amusements Park's Past) and rebuilding it from scratch. It will take four (4!) years and cost US$36 million dollars. But, you know, having a Theme Park near downtown is important to Mongols. Never mind what $36 million could be better spent on: Hey, you have the infrastructure for a light-rail system that would solve so much headache...or how about fixing the damn pot-holes everywhere! But, hey, a brand-new funland will certainly make the city more attractive, and the 36 million is coming from foreign aid money, so no sweat off our backs!
Yeah, so back to my story. The hike was what I've been craving for weeks now. I can see the ridge where I was hiking from my balcony window, and for many days I would stare at the mountain and just want to be up there, in them. And so I did. The pesky flies and no-see-ums and fleas were a nuisance, though. I could barely sit on a rocky outcropping for more than a minute before being swarmed. No use in sitting down to read or write, what with all the swatting going on. At least there weren't any mosquitos. Nor did I run across any poison oak (like I did in Manzir Khiid). Nor did I injure myself (though I did collapse on my bed for a few hours after returning, sick to my stomach with exhaustion and dehydration).
***
Currently I'm giving Final Exams to my students. I don't give grades, but I still don't go easy on them when I rank their fluency (from Beginner-Low to Intermediate-High). And when they still insist on speaking Mongolian during the Oral Exam, I have no choice but to dock them.
So this all means that my time here is winding down. In fact, I have exactly two weeks until I'm back in Beijing, trying to find a free seat back to the States.
the countdown begins (or...more accurately...continues...)
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