Mongolia (1)

June 3 to June 17, 2026

Gate1 Small Group Tour with Tom

Bussiness Class Houston to Norita, Japan, to Ulaanbaatar; and Economy Class Ulaanbaatar to Seoul, Korea, to LAX to ATL to DAB (UUGGHH!)

Have a girlfriend who freaked out when she went to the map to realize that I was traveling in a country between Russia and China.

The big excitement for flying from Houston to Japan to Mongolia was that I paid for a one-way Business Class ticket. It was $3,300 which I booked long before I realized business class was not worth it. So I decided to enjoy it.

I arrived at the Houston Polaris Club plenty early so that I can enjoy a glass of wine and a nice free meal.

Holy cow! The Polaris Club is an elite step up from the United Club that most people can use.

The Polaris Club has an actual restaurant, a large buffet of food, and a bar with a bartender along with comfortable chairs, and available showers. All this is offered for free.

I don’t know why one eye is bigger than the other but I’m not much of a selfie taker. I sent this off to my sister to show her I was having a free glass of wine at 7:30 AM.

CLICK.

I got to Ulaanbaatar a day before Tom and this is the view from the 9th floor.

Dad told me that Ulaanbaatar was in the middle of sand, I would land in the plane on sand and there were no people or city to speak of. When he found out they had a million people he said he was sure the buildings would not be above four stories high. The bar in our hotel was on 25th floor!!

He hadn’t been in Ulaanbaatar for 30 years; and how things can change! At one point we were stuck in traffic gridlock where traffic did not move an inch for 30 minutes. We finally all got off the bus and walked to our Restaurant.

The man in charge of Transport from the airport to the hotel suggested I exchange for some mongolian money; so I asked for as small of bills as possible which worked out nicely. The 10,000s we’re about three and a half dollars and the $3.5, about one and a half US Dollars. Perfect for tips.

Genghis Khan is all over the money because he’s the one who helped liberate them hundreds of years ago. It turns out we call him Genghis Khan but the real Mongolians call him Chinggis Khan.

The room on the 9th floor was great since it was a corner room and I had five windows, a hallway, bathroom with a glass window that could be closed when you showered.

I got a massage on the second floor with the beautiful chandelier because I was too afraid to go outdoors by myself, due to the mugging that happened to one of my travel mates in Manaus ,Brazil.

A very smart woman recently told me no white woman our age should be walking alone in a country that is not the United States. And I am taking it to heart … for awhile

The night view from my hotel room — a far cry from a sandy desert.

It was 26° when I arrived at midnight. By the way we were stuck in a traffic jam on the way from the airport at 11:00 p.m. Traffic was always ridiculous.

This is Tessa our tour guide. She is definitely the youngest and the most beautiful tour guide I’ve had with Gate1 Tours.

CLICK.

We took a bus to this Gandantegchinlen Monastery. it mens Great Place of Complete Joy.

People ring the bells on this turning stand outside the monastery for good luck. This type of Monastery is derived from Tibet.

Cameras were not allowed so I took this video surreptitiously. They chant like this every day and people pass money to them for the blessings.

This Monastery is home to more than 150 monks. Communist rule closed its doors through the 20th century and it was lucky to have escaped the destruction most other Monastery suffered.

The library.

These beds are used by he monks for meditation. You put your knees toward the bottom and then you bend and put your forehead on the bed at the top, and pray.

It looks very uncomfortable to me.

100 years ago this building was seen for miles around because of its height. Today you can’t find this building unless you’re within a hundred yards of it because it is hidden by the masses of office buildings and hotels.

The goddess was huge. You always go to the right (or is it to the left??) in a temple like this.

And they say there are 10,000 replicas of this goddess housed in this Temple.

This is a baby Buddha statue.

These are the four protectors that kept showing up everywhere in Mongolia. One has a blue face, one has a rat with a jewel in its mouth, and one has a musical instrument and the other has a red face. They guard the outside of temples from all evil.

We stood in a line for a half an hour to cross the altar to get a blessing. You can see people praying and you can see the gold bars they used in the chanting in the first building.

I ate a lot of this food called khuushuur. The only day we had to buy our own meal, which was the first day, and I ordered it because it was vegetarian. I wouldn’t have done so had I known I was going to eat so much more of it in the next two weeks. The pumpkin soup was delicious too.

Our bus in Mongolia was bright pink. You could not miss it. And the inside had beautiful etchings and lights throughout.

City Sites. Many of the cars were toyota’s and the steering wheels we’re on the the right side. They originally built these cars to go to England maybe and ended up in Mongolia where people drive on the right side. It’s ridiculous to have the steering wheel on the right side also. I was glad not to have to be driving around in a vehicle like that.

Very interesting Museum. However my theory is if I don’t have pictures of it; it never happened. And we weren’t allowed to take photos.

Here are some photos I downloaded from Wikipedia.

Oh look! Here’s some khuushuur for dinner. And Asians countries think all Americans love french fries!

Our tour guide’s mother and younger sister showed up at our orientation meeting and the ladies from San Francisco were all over talking to the little girl. So cute.