Chilling out in the Gobi

Trip to Sainshand – Way back in October of last year I made the trip to the Gobi (please see http://rob-in-mongolia.blogspot.com/2007/10/adventures-in-gobi.html). I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity to go back, but as a group of VSO volunteers were planning a quick weekend break I thought I should take the opportunity to revisit the region. With economy seats on the train being $5 each way (for what is a huge 10-hour journey), it’s still pretty affordable to travel about on volunteer wages. As this second trip was a lot more relaxed, I managed to see a lot of the local places of interest. Stop #1 was to the Energy Centre, a Buddhist shrine in the middle of the desert. It’s here that Mongolians believe you can collect energy from the sun’s rays. You can see a photo of the centre below:

Next up was a trip to the local Buddhist monastery. It was interesting to see the lives of Buddhists monks living in a quite isolated spot. The monastery was once full of monks, but it suffered badly during the Stalinist purges (during which many Buddhists were killed). After our first day of travelling we made our way back to the local town and our place of residence. We were all sleeping on a living room floor belonging to a very enterprising Mongolian family. This was a novel experience, as there were 18 people packed into what was quite a small room! Most of us managed to get some sleep, despite the various snorers in the room… The second day was a lot less frantic – we went at a leisurely pace around Sainshand town centre, and visited a couple of local cafes. It was great to be able to relax in the hot sun, and get away from all the noise of Ulaanbaatar. I really like my trips outside of the capital, I guess I’m more of a small town boy than a city boy!

Talk at the Mongolian National University (MUIS) – the university invited Amnesty International to run a lecture about the work that it does, and the staff of AI Mongolia kindly asked me to take part. I introduced the international element of the organisation, and also talked a bit about what it is like to be a student member of Amnesty in the UK. It was funny to be in a lecture hall again, but this time having the vantage point of a lecturer. The session went well, and was most notable for the contributions of one student member of Amnesty. She gave a quick talk on her own family’s experience of child trafficking – her own cousin was kidnapped and is still yet to be found (the last sighting of the girl was in Beijing). It is one thing reading about child trafficking, but to meet someone who is personally affected by it makes it seem more real. I hope that her cousin is found soon.

Language school puts on a show – Erdenes is a friend of mine who is a teacher at a local language school. She invited me to see some of her students perform in their end of year concert. It was great to see children perform short plays and sing songs in different languages. The school specialises in teaching English, Japanese and Chinese, and we were treated to different showcases from each language. It was really sweet to see little children play different parts in plays – my personal favourite was the rendition of Goldilocks and the three bears (“this bowl is just right”).

I send you all lots of energy from the Gobi Desert’s Energy Centre. Look after yourselves and have a good rest of the week,

Robert