Temple of Heaven Park

I decided to come to Xi'an on my way to Tibet after all. I just got in from Beijing this morning and am planning on spending two nights here before heading to Lhasa.

In the meantime, here are a few photos from the Temple of Heaven park in Beijing that I didn't have a chance to post before I left yesterday.

The Great Wall and More of Beijing

Yesterday I went out and saw a bit more of Beijing. This first batch of pictures is from the Llama temple.




And here are a couple pictures from around Beijing.




Today I finally got out to see the Great Wall. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest so I'm not happy with most of my pictures, although that didn't stop me from taking a whole bunch. Here are a few of the best. The middle shot is an HDR although with far less effects than the last one.

Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City

The sun came out today so I did a bit of sightseeing. Most of my time was spent in the forbidden city but I also walked through Tienanmen square on my way there.



The Forbidden City itself is enourmous. Here's a sampling of the pictures I took.

Ulaan Baatar To Beijing

I took a few (very few) pictures on the way from Ulaan Bataar to Beijing, so here are a few as a kind of transition post between Mongolia and China.

This first picture from the train station in Ulaan Baatar is an experiment with High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, something I've wanted to try for a while. The results are a bit noisy, probably because the exposures were taken without a tripod. I plan to play around with HDR some more so look for more of this type of thing in the future.



In the morning we came down through a very dramatic valley on the way into Beijing. These shots are from the short time I was standing by an open window with my camera.




No pictures of Beijing itself yet. The weather has been awful and I haven't really been in the mood for sightseeing yet anyway.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing next. I would like to stop in Xi'an on my way to Tibet to break the journey up and to take the opportunity to see the Terracotta warriors while I've got the chance. However, tickets to Lhasa are somewhat difficult to arrange, and the semi-mandatory TTB permits are apparently nearly impossible to get right now. Since I have someone in Beijing who can get the ticket for me without requiring the permit first it may make sense for me to just skip Xi'an and head straight for Lhasa.

Amarbayasgalant Monestary, and a Mongolia Wrap Up.

The last day of the trip was a visit to the remote Amarbayasgalant Khiid in the northern part of the country. We were supposed to spend another night on the road but finished up early enough to make it back to Ulaan Baatar after visiting the monastery.



Although I've now been in UB for a few days I haven't taken any more pictures. Since I leave for Beijing first thing tomorrow morning that's pretty much it for Mongolia. For a change, here's an actual wrap up (Mongolia: The Good, The Bad, and the Unusual).

Mongolia: The Good
The incredible hospitality of the Mongolian people. It is still amazing to me that you can drive up to almost any Ger in the country and find a place to sleep with no hassle and little money. Likewise many people will offer a meal without expecting (or accepting) payment in return.

The scenery. My pictures don't do it justice.

Mongolia: The Bad
The Mongolian cuisine. Whatever you may hear to the contrary, Yak fat should never be used as a flavoring to liven up otherwise bland food.

Mongolia: The Unusual
Dead animal parts lying around all over the country. You can't walk 10 feet through a field without stumbling across a horse's hoof, a piece of backbone, or a skull.

Vodka bottles scattered around the minor holy sites. At first glance this appeared to be garbage and therefore somewhat disrespectful, but it seems the custom is that a container used to bring an offering must be left with the offering. Awfully convenient if the offering is the last couple drops of vodka in the bottle.

The Spectacular Blue Waters of Khovsgol Lake

Continuing where I left off, we spent the next two nights at Khatgal to visit Khovsgol lake, Mongolia's most visited scenic attraction. Khovsgol was amazingly beautiful and I wish I'd had more time there. Most of our full day there was spent on a horseback ride a short way up the western shore of the lake.



We were delayed half a day leaving Khovsgol because the van needed some serious work. This was OK as it gave us a couple hours to walk around Khatgal but meant we only made it as far as Mörön which was less than half the distance we had planned to cover that day. I think Mörön is the dustiest city I've ever visited which was rough on the lungs but made for intense colors at sunset.



The next day was a long long day in the van (the longest day of this trip in fact) as we wanted to make up for lost time so that we would still have a chance to see Amarbayasgalant Monastery on the way back to UB. Here are a few pictures from stops we made along the way.

Back From Western Mongolia

I just returned to Ulaan Baatar last night from my trip out west. Most of the trip was relatively easy, although we had a couple long days in the van at the end.

I have a few days in Ulaan Baatar before I leave for Beijing on Thursday. I'm going to break the return trip up into several posts between now and then. This first post covers the trip from Olgii up to the day we arrived in Khatgal on the shore of Khovsgal lake in the far northern part of the country. I don't have too much to say about any individual day's drive so I'm just dumping these together with even less comment than usual. Note that the Khovd mentioned in the captions is a different Khovd from the one I visited on the way out - for some reason Mongolia tends to have many towns of the same name.

October 13'th: Olgii to Khovd


October 14'th: Khovd to Naranbulag


October 15'th: Naranbulag to Songino


October 16'th: Songino to Tsagaan Uul


October 17'th: Tsagaan Uul to Khatgal


The most unusual thing about this part of our trip was some of the accommodation. At the end of every day we arrived in some town and drove around until our driver found a place for us to stay. We stayed one night in a restaurant (actually in the eating area) and another night on the floor in someones living room. The other two nights were slightly more normal, with stays in some unused gers that families were willing to rent out to us for the night.