I really do love this. Can you imagine our setting up holiday camps using teepees? That’s kind of the idea here. It’s like the Catskills or Butlins in England. The family goes off roughing it and having a bit of the great outdoors. Based on the pictures of the real ger I sent you can see that things here are a lot better. 
Here is a pictures of the inside structure of the ger
And look how elegant it is too.
The camp has many gers as you can see and it is set in a national park with lots of yaks and goats and boars etc. Roaming around. You can take a short horseback ride or you can pay and take a long ride but not really up in the mountains or into the canyons like you can in Mexico. The setting is lovely however and it’s just nice to be out of the city.
This is turtle rock. Can you guess why? Many people climb up turtle rock and look down on the places they just came from. People love to do this, In the outback of Australia people lined up to climb Ayers Rock so they could look down at a red desert for as far as the eye could see. I think it’s a con. But people have to have something to do at all times,
I went here with my guide Brayar and his daughter Saruut whom we smuggled into the place. She is 16. So I ended up playing Hong Kong poker with two Mongols in a tourist ger camp. They know Hong Kong poker as 13 hand poker. And they know Texas Hold ‘Em. But I had to teach them 5 and 7 card stud and draw. Once on a roll I also taught them 7 card No Peek, Dr. Pepper and the all time pot builder Jacks or Better Progressive Trips to Win.
We went to bed early and there was a big gathering at the ger behind ours. They were whooping it up and laughing and drinking. It was fun to listen to them. About 4 hours later the fun turned to night mare. Something set them off and they were screaming and yelling at each other. Brayar told me it turned into one of those you-were-flirting with him kind of things. The head guy stomped off and the wife kept yelling for him at the top of her lungs for about 2 hours. High drama. In the morning their ger was gone.
I went to the movies in UB as you remember and while waiting I went to a little cafe for a salad. The cooks got into a huge fight, throwing stuff and screaming in a place smaller than a McDonalds with the kitchen right behind the counter. No one even noticed. I have decided that Mongols have a lot of Chinggis blood in their veins to this day.
This park has a beautiful Buddhist monastery which is reached via about 3000 steps. At the top is this painting on the rock cliff. I told Brayar that he needs to make up stories about such totems as tourists love to know stuff I gave a him a full description of the meaning of the colors (pink for chastity, white for purity, red for tenacity) etc. I went on and on describing the need for Buddhists to escape this life and rid themselves of the re-birth cycle. I am sure some of the things I was saying were true but the rest was just to show him that he could make up anything and tourists would believe him.
Stan taught the Masaai how to make French arrows with a stick and string and a cardboard flight, They assured him that by next year they would be making them and selling them to tourists as early Masaai weapons.
The monastery picked a luscious spot.
No post would be complete with out a bathroom picture. If this is roughing it then sign me up. But I had to add the sign. I thought this sign was so funny and even that they MAKE signs like this. There is a MARKET for signs like this. Gotta love it,
