Blog 9
Trip Start
Feb 15, 2008
1
10
13
Trip End
Ongoing
UlaanBaatar,
Mongolia
Monday, June 30, 2008
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.
French guy riding from Paris to UB
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.
Tsetserleg
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
