Monday, August 17, 2009

Mongolia Pics, Part 1

Well, when I haven't been busy hiking, golfing, volleyballing, or trying to find a new place to live (anyone know a good spot on the eastside for about $700 a month?), I've been going through the Mongolia pics, and here is set 1.

Formatting ist still kind of an issue, but I think you'll get the point.... I spent quite a bit trying to fix it, and the top part just didn't want to cooperate.

Pics from a sunest over the Gobi deset, a little cloudy, but still spectacular!


Sunrise at the airport before we left.



Wild Yaks (at least we think they were yaks) we saw while hiking in the Gobi national park.






Hiking in the Gobi National Park, really awesome rock scenery.





In the national park we just got to hike wherever we felt like, so we saw a rock and went for it!


Moonrise over the Gobi.

Gobi wasteland. I was amazed at how little there really was out there. The round structures you see are called "Ger's", and it is the traditional housing for the nomadic people. They used to put it on a camel, but nowadays it's more often on a truck....






Nomadic children at a nomadic family that we visited.





This is the Ger camp that we stayed at in the Gobi Desert called the 3 Camels Lodge. It was actually much nicer than I expected, and fairly comfortable.



A traditional ger with a "tradiational" means for receiving a cable signal.....


This is the fossil that I found at the "Flaming Cliffs", which is one of the most rich areas in the world for dinasour fossil. This turned out to be a birds' foot imprint from the early cretaceous.




The Flaming Cliffs. First place where dinosaur eggs were discovered. It amazes me that there were no excavations going on, nor where there any ropes or any restraints at all. We literaly got off the bus and just went wandering around!!


Yup, I'm at the Ger camp.


Vastness of some of the dunes in the Gobi.


Yup, wild camels!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Still working on pics

But I had to put to put this up....who finds a glacier out in the Gobi frickin' desert??!!


Monday, August 3, 2009

Scenic shots of Mongolia

While I'm still working on all the pics of Mongolia (there's only 1200 of them!), I did put together some scenic shots, where I use the "stitch" mode of my camera, I take several pictures and then stitch them digitally together. So here they are....enjoy!



The Gorkhi-Terelj Naitional park, and hour outside of Ulaan Bataar.

Gorkhi-Terelj National park, with the Ger Camp that we stayed at. Also, the rocks behind the camp we climbed that afternoon and got caught in a thunderstorm!



The Nadaam festival opening ceremonies. Nadaam is their national festival where people from all the provinces come to Ulaan Bataar and compete for national glory!




Ulaan Bataar city scape from the war memorial.





The flaming cliffs in Mongolia, where all the dinosaur eggs and fossils have been found.




This the Gobi Desert Sand Dunes, in all the vastness and oblivion that there is....