What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

Firstly, a piece of interesting statistics of this country, the average population density of Mongolia was last measured in 2014 to be 1.87 person per square kilometer - think about it, that's like one could on average, almost walk for 1 km without encountering another human being ! That's exactly what we found once we headed out to the national parks of Bogd Khan and Terelj as well as the huge stainless steel statue of Chinggis Khaan in the area of Tsonjin Boldog - we saw more horses, sheeps, yaks and gers (yurts) than people ! The two national parks each had their own special atmosphere : (i) with strange rocks (including the charismatic turtle rock), the Aryabal Meditation Temple and numerous nomad ranches, being the main theme at Terelj N.P. and (ii) miles of open hills, pine forests, the Mandshir Khiid Monastery, Ovoo piles (Mongolian ceremonial stone piles), ancient religious rock carvings and paintings and crystal clear rivers, being the main attractions of Bogd Khan N.P. - it was hard to pick our favourite. The Chinggis Khaan Statue was a magnificent piece of engineering where the base of the statue was designed to house a small but informative museum and by going up the escalator in the middle of the structure, we would emerge from the "crotch" of the great man and enjoy a beautiful vista of the surroundings - once the domain of Chinggis Khaan. The vast openness and walk-your-own-trail style of these sites were just our ticket to enjoy the freedom of roaming around amongst the hills, forests and wild horses and yaks in this lovely country.