After an unexpected overnight layover in No-Facebook’s land (China), wherein the convenience store of our very posh airline-paid-for hotel one could purchase vacuum-sealed chicken feet to munch (vomit), we met our hostel’s airport pick-up in Mongolia’s capitol of Ulaanbaatar.

A nice Mongolian fellow waited to greet us, bearing a sign that boldly proclaimed he was waiting for us and simultaneously christened Ray with his new Mongolian porn name:

We laid low for the first two weeks, just slowly soaking up the fact that we were in Mongolia. Since we took turns being sick we spent a lot of time chillin in the hostel, but no matter how little you might interact with the world outside the walls, you can’t help but get a dose of culture and flava-flave.

Even if it’s just walking down the street to (try to find) the grocery store you learn something, or you see something neat.

Like the 98% of the Mongolian city-dwellers who are dressed in a way that they could just as easily be walking down the street in New York or Los Angeles or back home in Phoenix, to be suddenly punctuated by a man or woman adorned in the beautiful, simple traditional attire.

And by the way, did you know all the signage in Ulaanbaatar is in Russian Cyrillic letters!? I didn’t!

We checked out the “Mongolian bbq”, where you pick out your own meat – horse meat or “mutton fat tail”, anyone? – or the more familiar beef or chicken, add all the veggies and additionals you want, smother it in any of the 15 different sauces on offer, and take it over to them to grill it up on their massive tabletop griddle.

And it’s not a bad price either, about ten bucks, though we’re still trying to work on the conversion and change of currency which is always kind of hard to wrap your head around. This fat stack, for example, is all of 8 bucks.

We also got a massive Care package from (Ray’s) home, containing a few things we (he) had ordered, including a solar charger to make sure we don’t miss the chance to take plenty of pics when we hit the countryside and fall off the grid.

There were also a number of…innovative…feminine products that I won’t get into now, but suffice it to say I REALLY would have appreciated in some of those absolutely foul moments in India. Full reviews for my fellow female travelers will be forthcoming.

We also went to see the Natural History Museum, which was awesome. It was amazing to see REAL dinosaur bones and know that they walked around right nearby. The most haunting thing was the two T. Rex-like arms that were bigger than two refrigerators stacked on top of each other, sticking out of the wall. Nothing else has been found to go with them. Sorry I know it’s a crap picture but check em out on the right side, on the wall.

But consider how small the T. Rex’s arms were compared to his body? …Shudder. There were a few skeletons that were locked in time too, preserved exactly as they were found because they didn’t dig the dirt out from inside the bones. And several skeletons I’ve never seen at all. Incredible!

And so now we’ve got our tent and our sleeping bags and now that we’re rested up, we’re ready to explore Mongolia in all its fuzzy camel, Gobi desert, dinosaur bone, Reindeer People, shamanist, fly-fishing, GIANT FISH, lake, stream and river glory! The past two days we worked hard to nose out all the best things to see and do here and today booked ourselves a guided private tour to take in as many of them as we can (without rushing), and get back on July 10 in time for the incredible and much-anticipated Naadam festival.

The highlight of it all – which is hard to choose one, considering we’re talking about things like some of the only two-humped camels in the world, seeing the only true wild horses dinosaur bones still in the earth, closely interacting with a culture and lifestyle I can’t even imagine, and driving for hours and hours and hours across vast nothingness and sprawling plains without a road and only rutted tracks of jeeps gone by… the amazing and enigmatic Reindeer People.

We leave in 6 hours so I’m sorry I can’t get into it right now, but check out these links and see why we’re excited. This is truly an amazing opportunity.

We may have to ride by horse for as much as 3 days each way just to try to find them. I’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of cool things in my life, but I’ve never done anything like what’s in store over the next 25 days.

Check it out, and I’ll fill you in and tell more about it when we get back.

Some about who we’re going to see:
http://www.mongolia-travel-guide.com/reindeer-people.html

Some about what it’s going to take to get there:
http://visittaiga.org/plan-consider.html

Adventure on!