Last day in Mongolia

Just wanted to start with the bottom of Mastodon...I am standing next to his shin bone.....and then I have taken some pictures of the history of the grasslands with some costumes and some other stuff...the top of this museum was dedicated to some revolutionary talk and some history of wars and victories and modern government......
















This one doesn't show well bu this sucker is huge as is the next dinosaur....the head is being held up at the roof.









Some of the costumes of the Mongolian grassland peoples








Genghis Khan...the famous leader who united all the Mongols and had them become a force in the world.....revered here and I tried to get a good photo...failed this time.



The next photos are of the two temples that we visited. Many of them were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution and now the government is making an effort to rebuild them and tell the story of the past.

Just a couple of notes in here....This is the five towered temple and all around are carved Buddhas and no two are alike. The new ones are brilliant red and have some very new carvings in them...we were not able to take pictures inside but could stand outside and take some pictures...the Lama below here would not allow Grace to have her picture taken with him....Allie said they can be a strange lot....celebisy? can do that to you but he looked as grumpy as all get out....what was really unusual was to see them walking around and one was using a cell phone....and apparently they have computers as well...so they are joining the modern world. It was here that we met up with our friends from the grasslands and had a chat about their adventures too.





The middle one shows and incense buring pagodad of some sort....you buy the incense and then put them in here. There were some really big suckers you could buy...apparently they let the incense get higher to the forces of good.
Lastly we went to the faactory where they make Kasmir stuff and leather goods and knives. There were a couple of jobs here that seem so booooooring.....punching holes in leather using a punch and small hammer.....sewing all day at the sewing machine.....putting sequins on some of the dresses and costumes.....not much variety in jobs......then it was a chanace to buy some itmes......I didn't.....not much of a shopper.....off to a supper....by this time we were Mongolian fooded out and so we picked up a couple of chocolate bars adn stuff for the train....almost wished we could have stopped at a McDonalds or KFC for some other kind of food but we were a little pressed for time.....got on ...said our good byes to Allie and left for Beijing.....And I will tell the rest of the story in the next blog