What Eid is!

Yesterday was Eid El-Fitr, the feast where Muslims celebrate when the holy fasting month of Ramadan ends; actually, I did not feel it as a feast since I live away from my family, living the joy and happiness is much different when you are among family.
Here, away I mean, you miss the Eid meanings, I hope that I will be home in next one.

pictures from mongolia

people in west mongolia are famous in eagle hunting




around 50% of mongolians are children

mongolians still wash clothes at rivers



Yak( kind of cows) exists only in Mongolia and Tibet

Mongolia… what you could tell?

Two days ago, I came back from my long work visit to Mongolia, what could I tell about this unknown country?
The earth: mountains, steppe and desert still as Allah created them millions years ago, still untouched, the people in countryside still live their grandfathers' lives without any changes; There were no toilets and showers in most places out side cities, some people do not know even what shower means, they never tried it and they drop their bowels in nature. We had to do the same during our staying in these places.
Most people depend in their live on animals: riding, eating meat, milking and shearing camels, horses, sheep and goats, they even play with these animals' bones.
The most popular game in Mongolia is anklebones, all people play it and the child who still four or five years old could differentiate between the anklebones of these animals. Old people and children play this traditional game all over the country.
These four animals besides camel are the main animals in the country, in Mongolia there are more than 32 million head of domestic animals. So that the country is suffering now from over grazing as these animals eat everything. This problem is now under discussion from many NGOs.
Going from city to another one in Mongolia may take you two days of driving, there are no paved roads outside cities, driving from Ulaanbaatar to Murun which is around 700 km away took two days on off roads. Going from Ulaanbaatar to Bayan- Olgii in the west takes 3 days of driving through steppe, mountains and forests. Therefore, there are domestic flights between the capital and main cities but not all Mongolians could afford the tickets cost.
The country is 1.56 millions square km which is about half of Europe but with 2.5 million people you may drive hundreds of km without seeing any inhabitant but animals.



There are so many places in Mongolia deserve to talk about and to visit, one of them is Khovsgol Lake in the north west of country. The lake is 380 cubic km of water make it the fourteenth largest lake in the world and second largest in Central Asia by volume, with over 1% of the world's fresh water. At its deepest, the lake dives 262 meters. Ninety-six rivers empty into lake, but only the Egiin River exits the lake. The Egiin flows southeast until it joins the Selenge River, which flows through one of Mongolia's most densely populated areas on its way to Lake Baikal. The lake is 1645 meters above sea level and is generally frozen from January until April or May.
The Tsaatan are a small culture of reindeer herders living in northern Khovsgol. Only 44 Tsaatan families remain, totaling somewhere between 200 and 400 people. They ride, breed, milk, and live off reindeer, though the reindeer population has dropped to approximately 600 since the 1970s, when it was an estimated 2000.
The second place is Gobi desert in the south of country. The Mongolian Gobi, a vast zone of desert and semi-desert occupying almost 30% of country's vast territory, is a well-renowned place. The Gobi is often imagined to be place of unbearable heat and lifeless sand dunes, similar to the inhospitable and uninhabitable Sahara desert whereas, the reality is quite the reverse. The Great Mongolian Gobi (the western part is located inside China, now) has high mountains, springs, forests, sands, steppe lands and rich animal kingdom, and has been inhabited since ancient times.
The third place is Altai Mountains in the extreme western part of country, where the Muslim minority lives; the mountain is 4374 above sea level. It’s the highest point in Mongolia.


Despite that Mongolia has more than 30 million head of animals, its hardly to find a good food in country, they cook meat with fat so we could not eat it unless we drown it with pepper and salt, sometimes we did not eat during two or three days but noodles with hot water. Nevertheless, we always managed it for example; we were buying sheep and cooking them in our way.
Any way this was a great adventure in Mongolia despite it was too difficult and hard.

Again from Mongolia

Today I arrived again to Mongolia for work, after one month I came again to this virgin country, where every thing is harmony between man and nature, I become familiar with the country as well as the people here. In this time, I suppose to visit many places in Mongolia, to experience the nomadic way of life here, and to meet with people who still live as their grandfathers lived thousands of yours ago.
I hope I can tell more details about this untouched country soon once I come back from the countryside where are no inhabitants but nature

Pictures in Beijing & Great Wall in China

Discovering Mongolia!!!

After three days of flying, one of my colleagues and I arrived to Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia.
The country is very poor but its people is very rich in culture and history, as last year was the 800th anniversary of the foundation of the great Mongolian Empire when Chinggis khan united the Mongolian tribes and then he invaded most of the world in 13th century.

Nowadays, you can find chinggis khan pictures everywhere; in airport, streets, buildings, countryside and every souvenir as he becomes the country symbol although the Mongolians were forbidden to mention his name during the socialism period, which lasted until 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Chinggis khan, nowadays in Mongolian people eyes, is a hero and peace man even he killed millions of people over the world, and his grandsons also killed millions and as its known one of them, Holako, burned Baghdad and killed everyone in the Islamic capital before he dropped the books and every thing in Tigris river in 1258.
Lets back to Mongolia today, after being one week there I can tell that most images we have about its people were wrong, the country is very nice, the people are peaceful and helpful, they are well educated and they have so many universities public and private. Most Mongolians are Buddhist but there is around 7% of 2.5 millions in the country Moslem, their grand fathers came to Mongolia from Kazakhstan 150 years ago, and they live now in the west of country.
The Islamic religion was prohibited during the Socialism as well as all religions but now Moslems have 37 mosques in the country, all of them built after 1990.
Mongolia's nature is very beautiful and there is some people call it the earth heaven. As it is located between Siberia and central Asia, it has three types of nature: in the north, there are the lakes, Ice Mountains, in the middle there are the plains, and in the south, there is Gobi desert.
The nomadic life is very nice in Mongolia; they still live in nature, their houses called Gels….
What I can say that when you go to Mongolia you will find another Mongolia, Mongolia that is different totally, of what you can imagine and I am sure that one week is not enough to discover a country of three times more than France is.
More is coming about this virgin country, the land where the number of horses is more than the people are.

Day in South Korea

I spent all this day in South Korea in my way to Mongolia, I supposed to stop here for around one hour for connection flight to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia but there was a delay in the previous flight from Beijing to here so I missed the flight.
The next flight to will be after 24 hours but I stay for more than 30 hours as the next flight will be delayed and here I am writing this post from airport hall,
Anyways the delay is over all trip as it began in Doha, May 15, and I hope nothing like this going to happen in my home flights.
I spent the whole day watching and exploring things here but I did not buy anything, as everything is so expensive.
It seems that the people here are kind and helpful but not all of them as well