TravelStream™ news feed for member pipbeard on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/pipbeard en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:04:42 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pipbeard/1/1227423720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pipbeard/1/1227423720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pipbeard/1/1227423720/tpod.html Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:04:42 -0500 Mongolia

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UlaanBaatar, Mongolia

Hello

This is probably going to be my last blog from Mongolia as I have only three and a half weeks left here. I leave Mongolia just before Christmas for a months holiday before returning to Edinburgh University for the start of February. I have spent a really wonderful year here in Mongolia, it has been amazing fun and I will be so very sad to leave.

Winter is setting in in Mongolia now. Our daytime temperature rarely reaches above freezing, and at night time it drops to -20. As I walk to work in the mornings it is usually between -10 and -15, which makes your cheekbones ache!! Its always very dry and cloudless with loads of blue sky. Ulaanbaatar and most towns in Mongolia have centralised heating systems to pump hot water to radiators in all the apartment blocks. This works beautifully and my flat and office at work are both lovely and warm, however, there is no way of altering the heating system. You cannot turn it up or down or on or off. The heating in apartment blocks comes on on 15 Sept every year, but in government offices it isn't turned on until 15 Oct. And it was very very cold by 15 Oct - I was in my office working at my computer with gloves and a hat and three layers of clothes on! It's a lot easier now the heating is on! It is much more difficult for people who are living in the ger districts on the outskirts of the city. They live in traditional ger tents and so have to rely on wood or coal-burning stoves for heating. The size of these ger districts increases every year as more and more people leave the rural areas of Mongolia to come to Ulaanbaatar to look for better paid jobs, so the number of fires increases every winter, and consequently the pollution increases. There is now a pall of yellow smog hanging over the city - it is exacerbated by the hills that surround UB, and prevent the pollution from dispersing.

My work is continuing well, and getting busier and busier as my time comes to a close here. Our brucellosis study is almost completed and we are about to send our results to the UK for analysis - our thanks to Judy Stack and colleagues at VLA, UK who have helped us put this piece of work together. At the moment in Mongolia brucellosis diagnosis in animals involves using four different diagnostic tests. We have carried out a comparison of these four tests on over a thousand animals to see if we can identify the best test, and therefore avoid having to use all four.

Mongolia has also recently sadly had another outbreak of sheeppox/goatpox. This disease affects sheep and goats and causes horrible lesions all over the skin. It can kill affected animals, especially young ones. Mongolia had an outbreak in 1975 but then nothing until 2006, and now another outbreak. I have been working with the vets at the State Central Vet Lab to optimise our diagnostic tests for sheeppox/goatpox and to see if we can find clues as to the source of this latest outbreak.

One of the best changes to happen recently is being given the use of a car and driver to get to and from work. I used to catch the bus, but in winter more and more people want to catch the bus, so they get more and more crowded, so it was becoming impossible to fit on to the bus. And if you did make it on you were so squashed you weren't able to breath! Happily, the lab have been able to provide me with one of their drivers so I don't have to do the bus trip anymore! Utzi is my driver, and his car is a 4WD people carrier called a Delica. Being driven to and from work is a real luxury and saves me about an hour a day. I would much rather spend this time at work doing something useful than standing at a bus stop!

Last weekend our laboratory participated in the Agricultural Institutes Sports Weekend. Ten laboratories / institutes / universities / pharmaceutical companies participated, and we played three sports - table tennis, volleyball and basketball. Its an annual competition and taken very seriously. On Friday we played table tennis but I begged to be excused from this due to my complete lack of ability! On Saturday we played volleyball and despite my shocking lack of talent and experience I was drafted into the team. I managed not to embarrass myself but only just - I have never played volleyball before! Our team lost two games and won one, so didn't make it to the semi finals but it was heaps of fun - volleyball is a great game! I highly recommend it! All the teams were well supported so there was a real party atmosphere too. On Sunday was the basketball, and we fared better - we managed to win all our pool games and so made it to the semi final but were beaten in a good close game. I must admit I was a foot taller than all the other players so had a distinct advantage. I was also exhausted, though! I haven't done much (any!) exercise while in Mongolia so was well out of shape!

I recently gave a lecture to the final year Mongolian veterinary students at the national vet school. I really enjoyed the chance to meet this group of students, they were very enthusiastic and eager to learn. I lectured on some sheep and goat viral diseases that they are likely to encounter when they graduate - ovine pulmonary adenomatosis, maedi-visna virus, and sheeppox/goatpox. It was the first time I have lectured with a translator - it was a strange experience! The lecture goes a lot slower, but it gives you more time to think about what you are going to say next! I found the language barrier made interacting with the students during the lecture more difficult, though.

I went to a very interesting lecture about the trade in Mongolian wildlife last month. It was put on by the Mongolian branch of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WSC). They have been touring the markets in UB looking for illegal wildlife trade and have sadly found a great deal. The majority of the trade is destined for the Chinese traditional medicines market. The species most at risk are snow leopard, grey wolf, brown bears, saker falcons and the dalmatian pelican. The Mongolian authorities have laws in place to prevent illegal hunting and trading of wildlife, and are working with groups like the WSC to implement these laws as effectively as possible. Mongolia has some of the most beautiful and some of the most endangered wildlife in the world, so it was terribly sad to see pictures of pieces of brown bear on sale in markets. I found the most important message of the presentation was don't use traditional Chinese medicines.

As I come to the end of my time in Mongolia I am a fair amount of reviewing and assessing of my work here. It has made me think about the things I am going to miss most about Mongolia - the enthusiastic and friendly people, the beautiful countryside, the bitterly cold and dry mornings, the fresh food markets with smiley vendors, lovely soft Mongolian cashmere products, I'll miss it all!





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UlaanBaatar, Mongolia

Hello

This is blog number 11 and I only have two and a half months left in Mongolia now! Its been a while since the last blog but a lot has been happening.

First I'd better bring you up to date with the political situation I mentioned in the last blog. After some months of negociations the situation has been resolved, and there is now a national unity government ruling Mongolia. I believe the Mongolian Revolutionary Party has more seats in the government than the Mongolian Democratic Party, but the two parties are sharing power. I think everyone is delighted that a peaceful resolution has been reached. Later this month we have local elections, and this will be the next test of Mongolia's demoncracy. Campaiging for this has already begun with posters and election vans out on the streets!

Another recent success for Mongolia has been the Olympics. Mongolia had by far its best ever Olympics, winning two golds (wrestling and boxing) and two silvers (boxing and shooting). The wrestling gold was the highlight as wrestling is hugely important in Mongolia - it is one of the three manly sports and has a very big following. Only a few days after the win, the wrestler was appearing on posters around the city. He is definitely hero number one in Mongolia at the moment! I really enjoyed the Olympics because we are in the same time zone as Beijing, so I could watch the evening track and field events live in the evening, and because the TV coverage was excellent. I had a choice between 16 Chinese, Mongolia and Russian channels, each usually showing a different sport. And all the channels really concentrated on the sport with very little if any interviews with competitors or their family and friends, thank goodness. I do think its very silly asking someone how they feel when they have just won a gold medal. How do you think they feel?! Happily I got none of that, I just got to watch loads of different sports, uninterupted, and it was lovely! None of the commentary was in English but it didn't seem to matter.

I have also been on another trip into the countryside. In the middle of August I travelled north to visit the Darhan and Selenge regional veterinary laboratories. Darhan is about 3 hours north of UB and is the second largest city in Mongolia. It is a mining town but much nicer than you would expect! The veterinary laboratory is new, it was only begun last year so isn't in full working order yet. It was very interesting to have some input into the setting up of a lab. As well as inspecting the lab, we had been asked by the authorities to visit to a herding family about 2 hours east of Darhan, from where three members of the family had recently been hospitalised with brucellosis. Brucellosis is caught from cattle, sheep or goats and is a particular problem in Mongolia. We were asked to drive out to inspect the flock of sheep and goats of the affected herding family. At that moment the animals were near Sharingol which is a great big open pit coal mine with an associated little town. It was quite strange driving through the beautiful Mongolian countryside for 2 hours, passing only the occasional car or ger, and suddenly coming over the top of the hill and seeing the mine in front of you! We picked up the local vet from Sharingol, drove on to the farm and took some samples from a selection of animals. We tested the samples straight away in the family's ger using a simple lab test and found three sheep were positive. So it looks likely that this family had been infected from their flock. The investigation is ongoing.

After the work in and around Darhan we travelled north to Sukhbaatar town, the capital of Selenge province. The regional laboratory here was undergoing some serious renovations and was just a shell with all its equipment in storage. Sukhbaatar town is very near the Russian border and gets particularly cold in winter. We had a look at the boiler of the laboratory which looked like a serious piece of kit! It is kept going for 7 months of the year, day and night, and burns 250 tons of coal during this time. After inspecting the laboratory we travelled about another 5km north to the Russian border. There is a "buffer zone" between the two countries where no one is allowed to go, but we could look over that into Russia. It was a beautiful spot, with two big rivers merging and the trans-Mongolia railway weaving along their banks. Really pretty.

At the end of August I visited the UK for three weeks. I had some meetings to attend, some project proposal ideas to investigate, and also a brucellosis conference to go to. As I mentioned before brucellosis is one of Mongolia's biggest problems at the moment, so I used some of my Wellcome Trust grant to attend the International Brucellosis Conference in Egham (near London). It was an excellent conference and I learnt a lot that was very relevant to the Mongolian situation. Luckily, seven Mongolian scientists were sponsored by a Swiss development charity to attend the conference too, resulting in a good sized Mongolian delegation which was excellent. The conference focused our attention on some areas of brucellosis control that could be improved in Mongolia, and we are hoping to draw up a new brucellosis eradication campaign plan soon. As a follow up to the conference we recently had a group of 27 scientists attend a weekend workshop in the Mongolian countryside, about 4 hours drive from UB, to discuss how to control brucellosis in Mongolia. Brucellosis is more common in Mongolian people than anywhere else in the whole world, so it is a situation which requires some action.

When I returned to Mongolia in early September I had a lovely visit from Julia, Ali and Adi who I used to work with at Imperial College London. I really enjoyed showing them round UB, and getting them to experience urban Mongolian life such as the joys of local bus rides and how to avoid open man holes in the street! They spent a very happy four days horse riding round the steppes and forests near UB with a group called Stepperiders. This is a Mongolian family company and by all accounts excellent.

My work continues to go very well. I am past the "setting up" stage with a couple of diagnostic methods - cell culture and immunohistochemistry - and are now using these techniques in a practical way. We have also made great strides in pathology. Recently the Wildlife Conservation Society, who have a permanent office here in Mongolia, sponsored a US pathologist, Harley, to come to our laboratory and train the regional veterinarians to do a top class post mortem. We had about 20 vets from the regional veterinary laboratories come to UB and Harley gave them some great lectures on pathology and diseases which affect both wildlife and domestic animals, then we had a practical session involving a sheep post mortem. The vets really enjoyed it and have promised to do more post mortems and send their samples in to us at the central lab for analysis.

The weather is getting colder very quickly now! It is below freezing most nights and jolly cold as I walk to work at 8am. I am wearing thermals and gloves already! And its only going to get colder! The trees are busily changing colour from green to orange and it just gorgeous.

I do hope all is well with everyone,

Pip



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UlaanBaatar, Mongolia

Welcome to blog number 10! I am now six months through my placement here in Mongolia and enjoying the summer sunshine. It is gorgeously warm pretty much every day here in Ulaanbaatar now, a total contrast to the frigid conditions that met me on my arrival here in February! Apparently UB has the most varied climate of any capital in the world, from -30 in winter to +40 in summer. It has been averaging over 30 degrees all this week with heaps of sunshine, and my tan is improving day by day!

I have spent the six weeks since I wrote the last blog working in the laboratory on some new diagnostic tests, and while I find them really exciting I appreciate that not everyone reading this blog shares my enthusiasm, so I'll merely mention that we have been trialling a number of new diagnostic tests for brucellosis to work out which is the most appropriate to be used in Mongolian's brucellosis eradication campaign. We have also been optimising some polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based tests, and developing the cell culture laboratory further. I have also been trying to secure funding for long term improvements to the diagnostic veterinary pathology in Mongolia, as it is easily the weakest link in the diagnostic chain here.

I have had a few days out in the countryside around Ulaanbaatar, which looks totally different during summer. Mongolia had a significant amount of rain in June and consequently pastures are green and lush all around the country. Its good news for herders and tourists! I had a very mellow day out in Terelj National Park last month, visiting a beautiful Buddhist monastery in the morning and then spending the afternoon snoozing beside a stream with horses grazing nearby and eagles soaring up above. And just last week I spent a day at a little ger camp near a river about 2 hours drive from UB. I was invited by a friend from work - Batchimeg - who lives nearby. It was very peaceful and relaxing with wonderful views from the top of a nearby hill.

There have been some fairly significant political developments here in Mongolia recently. Some of you may have read or heard about them on the news. On July 1, three days after the national elections that I mentioned in my last blog, it was announced that the Mongolian Revolutionary Party (MRP) had won a clear majority of seats in the parliament and would be asked to form the next government. Unfortunately the Mongolian Democratic Party (MDP), the other large political party in the country, believed the MRP had committed electoral fraud in order to gain power. They encouraged their supporters to demonstrate in the centre of the capital. The demonstrations got out of hand and led to an all night riot in which five people were killed, hundreds injured, and the MRP building was burnt to the ground. The Mongolian Art Gallery is next door to the MRP building and sadly this was also attacked and set on fire and many irreplaceable artworks destroyed. This kind of political violence is unprecedented in Mongolia, and a state of emergency was declared for four days to allow control to be regained. A 10pm to 8am curfew was put in place and other restrictions imposed.

Most Mongolian I have spoken to are deeply embarrassed about the violence and say that they believe you should be able to demonstrate but definitely not burn buildings and attack people. Since the one night of violence there has been no trouble at all, however there are concerns over the welfare of 200 people still being held in custody over incidents related to the night of violence. And the political situation has not been resolved. While the MRP gained a clear majority in the parliament it did not gain enough seats to reach a quorum, and it therefore needs the MDP to attend the new parliament. However the MDP is refusing to take part until its allegations of vote rigging are addressed. Consequently Mongolia does not have a government at the moment. Negotiations have been going on for over a month now but no compromise has been reached.

So it has turned out to be a very interesting time to be living in Mongolia!

But enough of the serious political stuff. The Olympics have started and I have no fewer than 16 television channels all showing Olympic action! Unfortunately none of the channels are in English. I have Chinese, Russian or Mongolian commentary, but it doesn't seem to matter much, you can still follow the action! Mongolia's sporting strengths lie in archery, wrestling, and shooting, so the Mongolian channels are slightly biased towards these sports. It's very educational for me as I don't follow these sports at all!

I hope you enjoy the photos and are all having a happy summertime!
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UlaanBaatar, Mongolia

Hello!

This is the ninth blog I have written, and I have been in Mongolia for over four months, one third of my time has gone!

In the past month I have made another assessment visit to regional veterinary laboratories, this time travelling to the west of the country. I went to Kharkhorin, the site of Chingghis Khans old capital of Mongolia (now destroyed), then Arvairkheer, Bayanhongor, Altai, Uliastai, Tsetserleg and back to UB. It was a big clockwise circle taking me through the top part of the Gobi desert in the south and then up into the mountains of the northern half of Mongolia.

I visited five veterinary laboratories in the regional capitals, and was impressed by them all. These laboratories have a system of accreditation which has helped to emphasise the important aspects of a diagnostic laboratory and achieve some standardisation between the labs. All the labs were short of veterinary pathological equipment and expertise and this is one area I would like to address in the time I have remaining here.

Probably my most exciting moment on the trip was in Bayanhongor where I had the opportunity of undertaking a post mortem of a dog suspected of having rabies. These trips involve a lot of talking and looking but not much doing, so I was delighted when the laboratory staff asked me to do the post mortem. I duly obliged! The definitive diagnosis hasn't been made yet as there are still samples I took during the post mortem to be analysed, but I suspect it was distemper rather than rabies.

Mongolia has been having a decent amount of rain this year, so the countryside was beautifully green as we travelled around. There are lots of little lambs and calves and kids, and also up in the mountains some yak. I hadn't ever seen a yak before, they look like very hairy cows. The little yak calves are particularly cute!

For some of the nights on the trip we stayed at tourist ger camps in some really super countryside. One in particular was near the White Lake in Arvanghai. This is a famous beauty spot in Mongolia and for good reason - it was stunning scenery around there. Its still early in the tourist season in Mongolia so the four of us (my driver and Segi and Yura, my scientific advisors and translators) were the only inhabitants of a 70 person ger camp nestled under the mountains near the lake. One of the best things about ger camps is the little attendant who comes into the ger at about 6.30 in the morning to light the fire for you, making it lovely and cosy about 10 minutes later!

I think the best time we had during the trip was the picnic the Altai veterinary lab took us on. It a Friday afternoon when they drove us up into the hills above Altai for a traditional Mongolia Horhod meal. The view from the picnic spot was fabulous, the weather was perfect, you could see for miles, there were eagles soaring above us, and a few gers dotted around the surrounding hillside. The horhod was made by starting a fire and putting smooth round stones in it. After about half an hour when the stones are very very hot they are placed into a big cooking pot with lots of meat and potatoes and onions, and then heated for about an hour. It smelt divine, and I took a lot of photos!

We had an unexpected encounter on the road from Uliastai to the White Lake. We met a cyclist, which is quite unusual in the countryside. This guy came from France, and was undertaking a Paris to Ulaanbaatar journey. He was doing it because he wanted to, not for any sponsorship or anything, he said he just enjoyed meeting people. He had come through Europe, Russia and then down into Mongolia, total journey 14 000 miles. Amazing.

I also solved a puzzle! I had been wondering why all the steep hillside roads in the countryside of Mongolia had rocks littering them. I realised on this trip that a lot of the heavily laden trucks are unable to make it up the hills in one go. So they get some of the way up before grinding to a halt, and just before they stop the drivers assistant jumps out and shoves some big rocks behind the wheels to stop the truck rolling back down to the bottom. Then everyone and everything has a rest before setting off again up the hill, leaving the rocks behind!

The ten day trip was a lot of fun and very successful. My thanks go to Segi my translator, Yura my advisor, and our driver and his excellent Land Cruiser. I highly recommend Land Cruisers for Mongolian countryside roads!

As some of you may have heard Mongolia held its national elections yesterday (29th June). Its only the fifth time Mongolia has held multiparty elections, and there have been examples of corrupt election practices in the past, so I was asked to act as an international observer for these elections to try and identify how free and fair they were. I had training on the most common election rigging tricks - they are quite ingenious - and yesterday I visited nine polling stations in the north east of Ulaanbaatar to see if voters were able to make an informed and free choice. Voting was open from 7am to 10pm, and there was a steady stream of people during the entire time. Early indications were that the turn out was between 60 and 80%, which indicates the enthusiasm Mongolians have for elections. Mongolia has had a coalition government for the past four years, which is not always conducive to progress and achievement, so I think a lot of voters were looking forward to having an input into the next government. So far no result has been announced, but the voting I saw was free of obvious illegal practices and allowed people to cast their ballot without undue influence, which was very encouraging.

I hope you enjoy the photos - there are quite a lot this blog!

Pip
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UlaanBaatar, Mongolia

Blog 8.

For the past ten days I have been having a fabulous time travelling around the eastern aimags (or counties) of Mongolia, so there is lots to tell in this blog entry! The trip allowed me to visit some regional veterinary diagnostic laboratories as part of my grant from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. I was assessing the laboratories' capabilities in diagnostic pathology and also their preparedness for disease outbreaks such as avian influenza or foot and mouth disease. The trip was combined with a scientific investigation of my boss - Professor Sodnomdarjaa. Prof Sodnomdarjaa is a specialist in metabolic disease and was touring local herding families in the east to enquire about the levels of hypophosphatemia in their animals. Hypophosphatemia is very common in eastern Mongolia due to the lack of phosphorus in the soil in this region. So we travelled together with an accompanying scientist Batzurig, and our driver Batsenga over 2000km through the Gobi desert, through the Steppe region of central Asia, and on to the more mountainous region of Hintey.

For those of you who are looking at maps, on day 1 we travelled from Ulaanbaatar to Saynshand, due south. We then travelled to a small soum (or village) called Erdene near the Mongolia - China border on day 2. Day three we drove over 300km to Bayuun Urt, the capital city of the Sukhbaatar province. We spent a day in Bayuun Urt, and then on day 5 we travelled to a small soum due west of Bayuun Urt. Day six we drove to Choibalsan, the capital of Dornod aimag. After spending a day in Choibalsan we drove north west to stay at another small soum before day 9 driving to Ondorhaan, the capital of Hintey aimag. Day ten we returned to Ulaanbaatar.

I was very impressed with the four regional veterinary laboratories I visited. They had all recently received funding from agencies such as JICA, the EU, or FAO which has enabled them to improve the quality and range of their equipment. The staff were also all very enthusiastic, friendly and eager to show me their work. All four labs I visited had a very good mix of older, more experienced vets, and younger graduates who were recently out of veterinary school with high energy levels! If anyone requires more information about the regional vet labs, send me an email and I'll give you more details. The only problem I had with the laboratories was the height of their doorways! Right at the beginning of the first inspection at Saynshand I walked smack into the concrete lintle over the doorway to the laboratory building and spent the next five minutes sitting on the ground wondering where I was! I'm comparatively tall in western countries but really tall in Mongolia, and this fact was reinforced by this experience! Very kindly, the guys I was travelling with always proceeded me into new buildings for the rest of the trip, and pointed out low doorways (there were many!), so I avoided a repeat of the head banging.

As part of Professor Sodnomdarjaa's work we visited a number of traditional Mongolian herder families across the plains in the east of the country. The countryside in these areas was absolutely superb - there really are not words to describe how breathtakingly beautiful it was. I have looked at the photos I took during these parts of the journey and a lot of the photos show just wide open spaces punctuated by the occasional ger (traditional Mongolian house) and livestock grazing on the plains. The photos really do not capture the vastness of the countryside.

I saw quite a few examples of the five livestock animals in the Mongolian countryside: sheep and goats (of which there are about equal numbers in Mongolia), cattle, camel and horses. Most goats are for cashmere production for the Chinese export market. The sheep are for meat, their wool is used to make felt for covering the gers, and they are mainly the Mongolian Karakul breed (pronounced crackle!). The cattle are for milk and meat, the camels for transport, milk and meat, and the horses mainly for transport although horse meat is eaten in Mongolia too. The horsemanship I saw from the herders was really something special. We needed to take blood samples from particular cattle in each herd, and the herder would jump on his horse separate it out, lasso it with a rope on a pole, and then jump off the horse and hold the cow still while we took our blood sample. Mongolian horse saddles are very unusual, they are small wooden constructions. They actually look very uncomfortable, and I can't imagine how the herders can ride all day and so effortlessly! On numerous occasions I was offered a ride on one of the horses, and even on a camel once, but I have little faith in my riding ability and was too worried I would fall off so I declined gracefully! As well as the livestock I was lucky enough to see wild gazelle, marmots, little gerbil things, and many birds including enormous eagles.

There were also many children living with their parents in the gers. Normally the children would be away at boarding school at the local village or aimag centre, but because of the hand, foot and mouth disease outbreak in China (don't get confused - this is a human disease caused by an enterovirus and has nothing to do with the animal affliction foot and mouth disease!), which has spread to Mongolia, the schools have all been closed. So all the children have received an especially long summer holiday this year! A traditional nomadic life seems particularly fun for children - lots of fresh air, exercise, all the children I met looked to be having a ball!

When ever we visited a herder we were always invited into the ger. The steppes on some days were bitterly windy, as is so often the case in springtime, but inside the ger it was always cosy, warm and bright. The families hang brightly coloured tapestries around the wall, and there is a big stove in the centre of the ger, fueled by dried manure since there are no trees on the steppes. All the cooking is done in a great big semi-spherical cooking pot which fits into the top of the stove. The most common meal was meat stew with a high fat content. Because of my celiac disease I wasn't able to eat the food we were offered at almost every ger, but it smelt good, and the guys assured me it tasted as good as it looked! The majority of the gers have all mod cons, which is slightly strange in the middle of nowhere! A lot of them have solar panels to provide electricity, with car batteries as backup. They also have satellite dishes to provide television, and most if not all herders also have mobile phones. I was amazed by how clean every ger was too. It's a dusty environment in the desert and steppes, and there are up to 8 or 10 people living in each ger, so I would have expected them to be quite cluttered but they were organised, spotless and beautifully tidy.

The herders pack everything up and move 4-10 times a year, depending on pasture availability. During winter they usually stay in the same place, with their animals corralled in winter steddings for 3 or 4 months until the snow melts. It was cold enough for me in the icy wind in May - it would be a pretty tough life out on the steppes in winter when the temperature drops to -20 or even -30. One herder explained to us how they choose a new site for the ger when they move around in the warmer months. After choosing the general area based on pasture and water availability, they used to choose the new site of the ger based on geographical reasons - sheltered by the hill behind, not too close to the vehicle track, etc etc. However these days they walk round with their mobile phones held up in the air. Where they get a signal, they site the ger! Traditional Mongolian herding moves into the 21st century! I have to say that mobile phone coverage in Mongolia is extraordinarily good. There were probably only 3 or 4 days when I didn't have a signal, and we were in some very remote areas, well off the tourist track. Twice we came across the mobile phone company vehicles which are setting up masts and outlets to bring coverage to new areas as fast as they can.

The trip also involved regular vodka drinking! Vodka is a strong part of Mongolian culture, and is drunk as part of welcome, farewells and most meals. Luckily Mongolian vodka is top quality, really smooth, and I never had a hangover, I was just fairly permanently smiley.

When ever possible we stayed at hotels in the aimag capitals, however on three nights we stayed in small soums. These little villages usually had about 1000-2000 inhabitants, most of them living in permanent gers. Each soum had an elected governor and was the centre for the surrounding countryside, sometimes hundreds of square kilometres in area. The soum contained a school, veterinary establishment, a shop or two, a guest house and usually a minibus stop!

So I can now heartily agree with everyone here who has promised me that the countryside of Mongolia is totally different from UB. I strongly urge anyone who visits Mongolia to spend only a few days in the capital city before travelling out and around the countryside. I absolutely loved my trip and am looking forward to some more travel around the country, hopefully sometime next month!

I am now back in UB writing my reports on the trip, and catching up with my emails. I have begun to receive the parcels of reagents and equipment I have ordered from overseas and will be able to begin laboratory work in earnest. Many many thanks again to all of you who have been so generous in providing reagents - Sionagh, Colin, Chris, Karen, Judy, Martin, Derek, everyone. We are now able to include appropriate positive controls in experiments and to compare Mongolian and international standards, which is making a real difference to the quality of science we are able to achieve here. And also thanks to all the companies who are making the extra effort to send products to Mongolia, usually for the first time ever. It takes time and effort to organise shipping to such an unusual destination, and its always slightly worrying to both parties when the online parcel tracking systems loose sight of the package somewhere round Taiwan or the Philippines, but so far (touch wood) everything has eventually ended up here in one piece!

Regards

Pip

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Hello all and welcome to blog 7.

I am continuing to enjoy my time in Mongolia, especially as the weather continues to warm up. Well, its generally warming up! Spring weather in Mongolia is very changeable. We had a couple of days with maximums of 25OC last week, clear blue skies and just a warm, light breeze, it was really lovely weather. I was beginning to think all the warnings about spring in Mongolia were exaggerated, but then on Wednesday it changed back to a wintery maximum of 4, with a bitter, bitter wind! And the highlight was the snow on Thursday! It was the first significant precipitation since I arrived 10 weeks ago, I was so excited I took some photos. They show the snow covered hill behind my work, and the view down from my work over UB, with the golden Buddhist statue in the foreground. Note the wet ground!! Spring in Mongolia isn't quite the same as spring in the UK, where it is full of daffodils and baby lambs and everything is green and beautiful. Spring is quite a difficult season in Mongolia because the weather is still intermittently cold, there are frequent dust storms, and not much food left after the winter. I have noticed the prices in the market have increased even in the 10 weeks since I arrived here. My Mongolian friends recommend summer and autumn as the best times to visit their country. Just as a sidenote, if anyone is interested in visiting Mongolia, do let me know as I can put you in touch with reputable travel agencies and hotels, and recommend a few good things to do. As the Beijing Olympics is this summer, Mongolia is expecting a lot of tourists, so do book early.

One of the most fun afternoons I have had since arriving was watching a Mongolian wrestling tournament a couple of weeks ago. Mongolian wrestling is quite unique. The participants wear a pointy hat, a shrug with sleeves that ties round the front, Speedos, and knee high boots. The general rule is the same as in most wrestling - whoever gets their opponent on the ground wins, however, there are special traditions to be followed before and after each bout. The wrestlers both slowly circle a flag before they fight, and the wrestler who wins circles the flag after the bout too, while the looser just trudges off. There were at least 50 wrestlers participating in this competition, and up to ten bouts were going on in the stadium at the same time, so it was very exciting to watch. There were no boundaries between the bouts, so they would sometimes crash into each other. The tactics involve making use of any hand holds you can, and one of the most useful things to hold on to are the sleeves or the waist tie of the shrug. I noticed a couple of the wrestlers had a distinct advantage as they were so fat their bellies hung over their waist tie, and their opponents couldn't grab it! I couldn't quite figure out how the wrestlers progressed from one round to the next, as it didn't seem to be a knockout format. It was too complicated for me, however! There were about 8 rounds so the winner had to beat 8 people, he looked absolutely knackered at the end. There are photos attached showing some of the wrestling. It was a bit dark inside, so I have included a photo of the advertising poster outside the stadium, which shows the apparel more clearly.

I am continuing to progress with my Mongolian language. Gerlee, a friend at work (she is a foot and mouth disease virus specialist), is teaching me for an hour every Monday evening, she is very patient! We practice texting too which is highly confusing as mobiles don't do cyrillic text, so you have to kind of translate the Mongolian cyrillic symbols to normal latin letters, sort of phonetically. I find it a struggle to translate what I want to say from english to mongolian, and then into a sort of hybrid latin/mongolian alphabet! I did have my first conversation solely in Mongolian recently, with a rural veterinarian who popped into my office at work. I managed to find out where he was from, what he was doing in UB, and how long he was going to be here for. And to tell him pretty much the same about myself! I was quite proud of that, but then spoilt it by asking for 21 kilograms of potatoes when I went to the market that afternoon! That mistake caused lots of hilarity amongst the stall holders! I meant two kilos.

Work is also going very well. Our new cell culture facility is ready to start next week, which is very exciting. Its been slightly difficult to source some items such as liquid nitrogen and CO2 but we are pretty much ready to go now. I have included a picture of the sign on our laboratory door, and a photo of me with our new O2 monitor, which will be used when we are working with the liquid nitrogen. I think it may be the only O2 monitor in Mongolia! I am a little apprehensive about running a cell culture facility in the dusty environment of UB, as it is not very conducive to maintaining sterility! I usually don't put antifungal agents in my cell culture media as I think it's an indicator of poor technique! If you get fungus in your culture you should check your procedures rather than just adding antifungal to everything. But I notice that the scientists here have bought in industrial amounts of antifungal additive, so I wonder if I am going to have to change my mind?! I think I'll run a small experiment - I won't use antifungals in my media, but Dulam (the other cell culture scientist) will, and we'll see who gets fungus first in their cultures!

I have also started my weekly seminars at the institute. I have given a seminar on "DNA to protein" which included coverage of transcription and translation and a couple of examples of diseases due to DNA mutations. And last week I gave a lecture on ovine pulmonary adenomatosis (OPA). This is a lung tumour in sheep which is caused by a virus. It's a really fascinating disease, but there is no treatment, no control and no preventative measures, so farmers are generally not so enthusiastic about it. There is a lot of OPA in the UK but it was only discovered in Mongolia for the first time last year. It will be interesting to see how the disease spreads and what effect is has in the very extensive, nomadic sheep rearing system here. Next weeks seminar is on PCR, and the one after that on tick borne diseases.

Thanks for your emails and news from home, its great to be able to keep up with whats going on - the EBRC opening, Anzac day holidays, WPO concerts etc.

Love

Pip
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UlaanBaatar, Mongolia

Hello again from Mongolia

Its time for another update. I have been in Mongolia for seven weeks now and its definitely spring. Its Sunday lunchtime and my thermometer is reading 18 degrees outside. However, the consistent thing about Mongolian weather is its inconsistency. I have attached a picture of my thermometer from one morning last week. It reads both inside and outside temperature, and you can see the difference. The humidity reading is very accurate - low! I have forgotten what rain looks like.

My work at the veterinary institute is progressing well. At the moment I am working on ways of diagnosing foot and mouth disease. At the moment the diagnostic centre can detect antibodies to the virus, but not the virus itself. So I am developing cell culture and PCR based tests which will indicate if the virus is present in samples from animals. Mongolia has suffered from three outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in the past few years, and quicker and more accurate diagnosis will allow future outbreaks to be identified and contained more easily. And I have learnt that foot and mouth disease affects camels! I knew if affected pigs, sheep, cattle and goats, but apparently in the south of Mongolia, in the Gobi desert, camels showed signs of foot and mouth disease during one of the epidemics down there a few years ago.

The biggest obstacle I have come up against in my work so far is the difficulty of getting things delivered to Mongolia. There is a three week delivery time so your work can be held up for 3 weeks if you run out of something. Its very tempting to order stacks and stacks of everything to try and avoid this, but with a restricted budget that's just not possible. The sources are quite restricted too. I emailed a number of laboratory and chemical supply companies to see if they would deliver to us, but most said no or just never replied. A big thumbs up to Invitrogen and BDSL who together have been fantastic, really taken my request on as a challenge and come up with solutions, and are the only company I have found who will supply items on dry ice. However, these special deliveries cost a minimum of £195 for the shipping cost alone, so I think we'll only be able to afford two or three dry ice shipments this year. I'll be planning those very carefully! I set up my lab in Edinburgh just last year, and in retrospect it was an absolute piece of cake compared to setting up one in Mongolia! How I just wish I had John and his stores just along the corridor from me here!

At the moment I am planning my first countryside trip. There is a problem in the east of Mongolia, in the Dornod and Sukhbaatar aimags, with sporadic, sudden death of livestock. One of the theories is that it is connected to low phosphate in the soil and resultant botulism. A team of vets from the Central Lab is going on a two week trip to investigate, and I have been invited along! It is planned for early May, and we will be going through some very remote areas, way off the tourist track. My boss has warned me that "facilities will be primitive"! I am hoping we are going to go in a grey Russian van - they are so trendy! I have included pictures of the Vet Lab one, they are apparently near indestructable. I have been a passenger in one a few times and they are surprisingly comfortable with lots of leg room, but I am hoping I will never be called on to drive one as they were built before power steering came into fashion and the gear box also seemed quite a struggle!

I have been visiting some of the other veterinary organisations in Ulaanbaatar including a group called VetNet who have been in Mongolia for 12 years and are involved in improving the professional education of rural vets. There are seven US and about 60 Mongolian staff including veterinarians and support staff. VetNet run one and two week-long training courses in UB which include practical sessions. They also travel around the country providing on-site advice and assistance and act as a semi-private pharmacy, supplying good quality veterinary drugs to rural veterinarians at a reasonable price. Good quality veterinary drugs are hard to come by in Mongolia. It was a really interesting visit, my impression was that VetNet are doing really useful and important work.

I must apologise for the lack of photos in this blog. I haven't had much time to do much touristy stuff in the past couple of weeks, but I also think I need to overcome my scruples in taking photos! There are loads of things I'd like to take a photo of in UB but I am a bit self conscious about taking my camera out sometimes. There is a little old lady who sits on the pavement all day every day just up from my apartment. She sells individual cigarettes, little wrapped sweets, and she has a set of scales on the ground next to her so you can pay to weigh yourself. She also has a phone which you can use for a charge. It looks like a normal landline phone, quite incongruous on the street! Public phone Mongolian style. I'd love to take a picture of her, but don't know if it would be rude. I'd also like to take a photo during the bus trip out to work but unfortunately there isn't room for me to take my camera out! Squashed takes on a whole new meaning on the bus! It probably wouldn't be safe for me to take my camera out either. Pickpocketing on the buses in UB is very common.

I am becoming more used to Mongolian society rules now, particularly the lack of queuing. Mongolians do not queue. I remember when I was flying here back in February we were waiting at Moscow airport to board the flight to UB and there was a total scrum when the gate opened for boarding! I was standing at the back thinking oh my goodness! Similarly, there is no queuing for a bus when it arrives. In Edinburgh everyone lines up in the bus shelter in the order in which you arrive there and then wait patiently while everyone boards in turn. Not here! I was in the bank the other day and there was no queue to get to the cashier. Luckily I was with one of the ladies from work who got me to the counter, but there were about 3 people all crowding around me as I was handing over my bank card, identity and signing for the money! Actually, that bank trip was almost highly amusing since the cashier became confused over currencies. I asked for 60 000 tugriks (about £30), but she thought I meant $US60 000. She was preparing to hand over $60 000 in cash to me!! Luckily with the assistance of my workmate we sorted out the confusion before it was irreparable.

Thank you all for your emails and especially the gluten-free food parcels! All extremely gratefully received. I am carefully rationing it all - I have actually just made a block of Green and Blacks chocolate last a whole week. This is absolutely unprecedented self control!

Love

Pip / Pippa
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22Mar08

Hello again from Mongolia. So many exciting things have happened recently I thought it was time I wrote another blog entry. I have moved into my permanent flat in UB, started my work at the veterinary laboratory, and visited a number of new areas of UB.

I started work on Monday (the 17th) at the State Central Veterinary Laboratory (SCVL) where I will be based this year. It is situated in the southern suburb of Zaisan, at the base of the hills that surrond UB and with great views back to the city (I have attached some photos of the building). The institute's main role is to carry out testing for veterinary diseases, but it also does some research too. I have really enjoyed my first week there, I have been made to feel very welcome by all the staff and am really looking forward to working with them. My jobs this year will include setting up some cell culture facilities so we can carry out virus isolation and neutralisation tests, and devising and optomising some new PCR tests for various different diseases. I have also been asked to give a seminar a week on various topics suggested by the staff such as poxviral diseases of livestock, the immune response to viral pathogens and such like. During my tours around the laboratories I have been very impressed with the facilities, there is a real-time PCR machine, a new ultracentrifuge, numerous class 2 tissue culture hoods, and a newly constructed biosecurity category 3 laboratory suite.

I have been delighted with the English language ability of the SCVL staff! They all speak English far better than I speak Mongolian which is going to make life a lot easier than I was envisaging. My Mongolian didn't ever progress much past the "I like green apples but not red apples" and "When I was 12 years old I played basketball" level, and definitely didn't reach the standard required to discuss PCR primer design or determining end point titres for haemagglutination assays. So I'm relieved that I can put my Mongolian language textbooks away and rely on the SCVL staff's English! In summary, then, I have settled into my very large and comfortable office (photo attached!), received my lab coat, and will be working on objectives and priorities in the coming week as well as starting work at the lab bench!

I also had some great news from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Trust - they have awarded me a grant to investigate veterinary diagnostic pathology in Mongolia. This will allow me to visit some of the regional veterinary laboratories, determine their diagnostic pathology capabilities and make suggestions for future developments [for the non vets: diagnostic pathology is the branch of veterinary science that determines why animals are sick or why they died. It includes taking blood, fluid and tissue samples, carrying out post mortems, and examining samples under a microscope]. This is a really exciting project with huge potential benefits for Mongolian veterinary disease diagnosis and surveillance, and I am very grateful to the RCVS Trust for their support and looking forward to getting started with the work.


I have now moved out of the temporary guest house and into my permanent accomodation, a very comfortable two room flat in the centre of UB. It is in the Chingeltei district, near the Mercury Market, and my Smith Lab GPS reads 47O 54.685N, 106O 54.070E in case anyone wishes to Google Earth me. The flat is on the fourth floor of an apartment block with a lovely view of the hills (see photo). It has lovely wooden floors and solid pine furniture. The desk had an added bonus of four drawers full of neurosurgical textbooks and notes - quite bizarre. I can only guess that the previous occupant was a specialist at the local UB hospital, I wonder if they meant to leave behind their notes? The two most exciting aspects of the flat are (1) I can receive BBC World Service now, whereas I couldn't in the guest house, and (2) it has a washing machine!! It's a twin tub but works just fine, and is far far better than having to either wash clothes by hand or frequent icky laundrettes. My most favourite invention has to be the washing machine.

I actually moved into the flat a few days later than planned, on Tuesday which was also my birthday so it was a particularly exciting day with phone calls, presents, packing, moving, and unpacking. It was exhausting, but a lovely feeling on the evening of my birthday to be settled in my flat with my things unpacked around me and a loaf of bread cooking in the bread machine!

I had a really interesting visit to another VSO volunteer last weekend. Ruth works out in the ger district to the north west of UB. I think I mentioned the ger districts in a previous blog, they are very deprived areas of the city containing many displaced rural families. Ruth works and lives on a small farm owned and run by the Mongolian Women Farmer's Association. The Association was set up 10 years ago by a lady who realised that women could provide food and eventually an income for their families by growing vegetables to eat and sell. The farm and its work are now a very well regarded charity which provides advice, support, and, initially, seeds and equipment to families who want to grow their own vegetables on their little plot of land in the ger district. I have attached a couple of photos from my visit - one is of the farm with a few polytunnels and construction materials and some ger district houses in the background. The other photos is of Ruth's ger in the corner of the farm - it is really cosy inside!

I have also paid a visit to the infamous Black Market of UB. I needed to buy a few things for the flat, so my new workmates very kindly took me to the black market on Wednesday afternoon. Its proper name is the Naratoul Market, but everyone calls it the black market, and it is a huge open and undercover market just to the south of UB centre. It sells everything you could ever possibly need and more from loads and loads of little individual stallholders. Visiting it was quite an adventure, especially since the market is known attract many pickpockets and westerners are a top target for them. However, I managed to keep all my possessions safe and with the help of my Mongolian colleagues bought some real bargains. I enjoyed it so much, and the prices were so low, that I am planning a return trip some time soon.

I think that's pretty much all the news for now, but do let me know if you want more information about anything I mention in these blogs. For example, I can put you in touch with Ruth if you'd like to know more about the Mongolian Womens Farmer's Association, or I can tell you more about the RCVS Trust funded project if you are interested.

Love

Pip

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Blog 4. 08Mar08

I've been in Mongolia for three weeks now, and it continue to get warmer! It was a truly tropical 8 degrees yesterday, a total heatwave! I hope it lasts.

This week has involved more Mongolian language training which I am really enjoying. I can now do past, present and future tenses, order food in a restaurant, and answer the phone Mongolian style. Our teachers (Chimgee and Saraa) make the lessons interesting and never seem to run out of energy.

On Friday I met a representative from the Central Veterinary Laboratory (CVL) here in Ulaanbaatar, where I'll be working this year. The set up of the veterinary laboratories seems very similar to that in the UK and Australia. There are a number of smaller diagnostic labs in the countryside which deal with on-farm problems and do simple diagnostic tests, and they feed into a larger central laboratory (the CVL) which carries out more complicated tests if needed. The CVL has a bacteriology, virology, pathology, serology and parasitology department and about 50 staff. They deal with quite a few diseases I haven't seen before such as brucellosis (abortus and mellitensis), rabies, and sheeppox. I'm hoping I'll have the opportunity to visit some of the countryside laboratories during my time here.

I have also been continuing my sightseeing around UB. There is a monument on a hill to the south called the Zaisan monument. It is dedicated to soliders, and you get a wonderful view of the city from the top. I walked up there this morning and took some photos as well as a video. I'll see if I can upload the video, it shows UB laid out the other side of a frozen river. Unfortunately it does highlight the thick blanket of smog that hangs over the city, one of its least attractive features. A lot of people, if they can afford it, are beginning to move out of the centre of UB to the outskirts to avoid the smog and the traffic jams, and you can see on the video lots of new buildings going up on the southern edge of the city. There are also areas called "ger districts" going up on the outskirts of UB. These are at the opposite end of the social spectrum from the new apartment blocks. Rural people who cannot make a living in the countryside anymore move to the city with their family and ger and set up on the outskirts and try to find work in the city. The wood burning stoves used in the gers are the cause of a lot of the UB smog.

We have had a lot of statistics given to us over the past three weeks during our lectures, but I think my favourite is that there are 2.6 million people in Mongolia and 2.2 million horses, so there is almost a horse for every person in Mongolia!

Love from

Pip (or in Mongolian "Ïèï")


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Blog 3. 01Mar08.

Its getting warmer! Decidedly so, its not quite so bitingly cold in the mornings and I am wearing one less layer. However, the locals have warned me that this is probably just a brief respite and there is often a sudden drop in temperature again just when you think winter is over! We have also started to get dust storms from the Gobi desert. These are common in spring, so far they have been quite mild, just a light dusting in the afternoons. You still have to be careful not to leave the windows open, though.

I have had a few enquires about Mongolian history, so I thought I'd give a very brief overview in case you are interested (if you're not, just skip to the next paragraph!). Everyone knows Genghis Khan, although his proper name is actually Chinggis Khan, meaning "universal king". He united the Mongols in the late 12th century and within about 15 years had conquored most of Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The Mongol empire lasted about 150 years before disintegrating, since the Mongol hordes were much better at conquoring than ruling. Between about 1450-1700 the Mongolians returned to Mongolia and fought amongst themselves. They were then themselves conquored by Manchurians from China who ruled them from 1732-1911. In 1911 the Manchu empire fell and Mongolia declared itself independent and established a government under their religious leader, the eighth Jebtzun Damba. It didn't last long though, as a Chinese warlord entered and occupied Mongolia from 1919 until 1921. The Chinese troops were expelled by White Russians in 1921, however they were about as popular as the Chinese (not at all), so later that same year, Damdin Sukhbaatar, the leader of the Mongolian army, with Bolshevik support, took control. In 1924 Mongolia was declared a communist country and until 1990 was ruled by the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party with direct assistance from the Soviet Union. Although nominally an independent country, Mongolia was heavily influenced by the Soviet Union, for example, the traditional Mongolian script was replaced by a cyrillic alphabet that is still in use today. In 1990 the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, and multiparty elections were held in Mongolia. Its now a democratic country and elections are due in June this year. And just in case you are confused by the terminology, Inner Mongolia is a part of China, just to the south of Mongolia. Its nothing to do with Mongolia. And Mongolia is called Mongolia, not Outer Mongolia. There is no such place as Outer Mongolia.

My second week in Mongolia has been spent along much the same lines as the first, learning more Mongolian and gradually adapting to the environment. I can now put together simple sentences in Mongolian, such as "I ate an apple last Sunday" and "I would like to buy that potato". The more indulgent shopkeepers are beginning to pretend to understand me but often my rudimentary Mongolian falls short. I had to mime "power cable surge protector" to one non-English speaking shop owner yesterday which was quite taxing.

I am gradually finding out a little more about what I will be doing this year. I have a meeting with colleagues from the State Central Veterinary Laboratory (where I'm going to be working) later this week, with the aim of discussing the objectives of my secondment, so hopefully by the time I write the next blog I'll have some more information to give you about this. In the meantime I have had some meetings with Mercy Corps, a US-based non-government organisation (NGO), who are interested in linking my work at the SCVL with work that they are doing. Mercy Corps has been working in Mongolia for about 10 years and supports rural communities and nomadic herders. And I may also be involved in some wildlife work! I have been invited for a meeting with the World Conservation Society who do some great work here in Mongolia. Mongolia abounds with beautiful and unique wildlife including snow leopards, Gobi bears, loads of different species of raptors, moose, saiga antelope, musk deer, lynx and many more. A lot of these species are being illegally hunted to support the Chinese traditional medicine trade. I haven't done any wildlife work before, its not my area of expertise, but I'd love to just learn more about the projects the WCS is involved in here.

I have spent most of my free time this week exploring UB a bit more. I visited the Gandantegchenling Monastery yesterday, it is the largest monastery in Mongolia. It has undergone a lot of restoration since the democratic revolution in 1990, since many of its buildings and artifacts were destroyed under the communist regime. I also went to the ballet on Saturday night, it was Swan Lake, and I loved it! I'm definitely going to go again. Apparently they are doing the opera Carmen this coming Friday night.

The best piece of news from this week is the very generous gift of membership of the British Veterinary Association, donated by their Overseas Group. This will enable me to receive the Veterinary Record and In Practice magazines while I'm here in Mongolia, as well as all the other benefits of membership. It will be a real bonus for me and the SCVL, so a very big thank you to the Overseas Group for their generosity.

I hope all is well with you all and don't forget it takes about 3 weeks for birthday cards to reach Mongolia, so you'd better be thinking about mine pretty soon!!

Pip

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