Day 195: Goodbye Gobi — Back to UB for One Night
Alarm went off at 5 am today. Quick breakfast at sunrise and flew back across the grasslands to the airport for our flight back to Ulaanbaatar.
We will miss the Three Camel Lodge. So many memories here. The biggest takeaway? No internet does wonders for a family, for the brain, for the soul. Even for us, who are seven months into full vacation mode. It was our third such no-connection experience (Amazon rainforest, South African bush came first) and only now has it really sunk it how important that time is. Not really possible to do unless you’re forced to, so we’ll be seeking out off-the-grid experiences again in our future.
Back in UB it was cold and rainy. We were happy to see our driver Zia again, and we all had lunch at Silk Road again.
We played “Top Mongolia Highlights.” Here’s what people said:
Willa and James:
- Balloon darts at the Naadam Festival
- Riding in the motorcycle sidecar
- Flying the kite
- Looking for dinosaur fossils
- “Babies” documentary
- Playing hide and seek with the friends at sunset
- Sand dune sledding
Margaret + Teddy:
- The rainbow
- Watching the last-night sunset performance with kids dancing
- Seeing the first-place horse racer cross the finish at Naadaam
Ganzo:
- Seeing the first-place horse racer cross the finish
- Sand dune sledding
- Beating Margaret at chess
We were eager to have some downtime to do our own thing, and we knew Ganzo wanted to see his kids, so we cut everyone loose until the next morning.
I took the kids to the Kids Adventure Zone thing again with all the slides while Teddy swam, then we swapped — he took the kids swimming while I worked out in the gym.
Later, we shopped in the mall attached to our hotel — got a bunch of cashmere sweaters because not only is it cheaper here, there were a bunch of deals (no one’s buying cashmere in July here). Teddy got two gorgeous thick cashmere sweaters that would be $500-600 each — minimum — back home for about $80 each here. So did I.
We ended up meeting up with dad Wayne and daughter Emily again for dinner at Mongolian’s (the friends we made at the pool last week) and this time his wife Alionna joined. The kids drew and played with Legos while we chatted.
At one point James came over and announced he was tired (5 am wakeup, nonstop playing a swimming all afternoon). Teddy put together two empty chairs and he fell asleep right there at the end of the table. Absolutely shocking behavior. He never would have done that a few months ago. Who is this casual napper??
Back in our rooms we packed up and prepared for our departure from Mongolia tomorrow.
