MONGOLIA - FIRST IMPRESSIONS

4 July 2008, Ulaan Bator

Mongolia is the 19th largest country in the world and only has 2.7 Million people. About 1,5 Million of the population live in Ulaanbator = UB. Most people live in gers/yurts which is a white, round tent and can have about 6 single beds inside it. They come in different sizes. It operates as a lounge, dining and sleeping room.

In UB, people mainly live in flats or small houses, but many of the houses have a ger in the court yard. Our hostel has a ger in their court yard and it is really cool.

There is 98 % literacy in Mongolia. The main religion in Buddhism. You also have Christians, a few Muslims (the Kazakhs) and a number practicing Shamanism (mainly in the North).

Mongolia is very rich on resources, but unfortunately it has not benefited the country. 70% of the food eaten in Mongolia is imported from China! The USA have been giving monetary aid to Mongolia but are now threatening to withdraw the aid, because they feel Mongolia is trading too much with China!
The main problem here (as in many other countries) is corruption. The aid that arrives, does not arrive to the people. It is swallowed by officials in the government. If the Mongolians wanted to extract their resources they would see an explosion of foreign countries coming in and reaping the benefits, because Mongolia do not have the machinery. There are already several foreign mining companies who are profiting from gold and other minerals over here, but the Mongolians see no benefit to themselves. The traditional Mongolian is a nomad and if you had this major influx of companies starting an agricultural revolution or extraction of other resources, you would also see a fall or a disappearance of the nomads. This is how they have lived for thousand years. What is right or wrong? Many people in UB leave after high school to study in India, Korea or Japan. They don't see any opportunities in Mongolia so they leave. Then you have the traditional Mongolian nomad who wants to stay a nomad.

Mongolia has been ruled by the Russians and the Chinese.
It seems that the Mongolians are more fond of the Russians and have a clear dislike to the Chinese. With Russia coming into power in 1936, the Mongolians had free access to education in Moscow and felt they had more opportunities. The Buddhist religion was practiced behind doors as the Russians destroyed various temples and monasteries and thousands of monks were killed. In 1990 Mongolia got Democratic election, and guess what, all the Communist parties were voted back in. 1990 was an important year for the Mongolians. They started practicing the Buddhist religion openly again and sent lots of young men to Tibet and China be re-educated on Buddhism. Most of the old scriptures were in Tibetan and had not been translated into Mongolian.

It is an interesting time to be in Mongolia due to the political situation.
We had a very interesting conversation with the fellow-travellers, who are staying in our hostel. There is a Scottish/English guy and his Canadian girlfriend, who are travelling for 8 months and have travelled all through the Baltic countries, through to Russia to Mongolia. They have been stuck in Mongolia for 3 weeks - not by choice, but they are trying to get visas for China and India. They said that we were extremely lucky to get our Visas hassle-free in Singapore. The Chinese have really tightened up! In their 3 weeks' stay, they have learnt a lot about the country and they have been enlightening us.

We are starting our 12 days journey tomorrow going through Central and North Mongolia and will be back in UB on 16th July. I am very excited.