Mongolia Travel Companions Wanted: 76. Barbara, a single traveler arriving on April 30th or May 1st for 20 days. 75. Benjamin, a single traveler is coming to Mongolia in March 26th, 2013. 74. A young man is to go on a 4-5-day trip to central Mongolia in mid-March. 73. A German is to stay with a nomadic family from March 3rd.

Dear Guest! Thank you for visiting my website. I'm a Mongol and I live in Mongolia which is the ancestral heartland for more than all 12 mln. Mongols who live now in 8 countries/Mongolia/2.8mln/, China/6.0mln/, Afghanistan/3.0-4.0mln/, Russia/0.8mln/, Iran, Burma, Kyrgyzstan and in Pakistan/. We, the Mongols are even more separated than the ill-fated Kurdish people. Do you know any person, any family or any nation who is happy for being separated from brothers and sisters. ...If Mongolia can bring Kyrgyzstan's Sart-Kalmyks, China's Kuko-nor's Mongols, Russia's Kalmyks and those Hazaras who are clearly of Mongol appearance what they have been discriminated for, back to the central land of their ancestors?! They wouldn't be coming to Mongolia as refugees, they will be here at home. ... If Astana is bringing the ethnic Kazaks from different countries to Kazakhstan in order to make their country stronger, why Ulaanbaatar wouldn't consider to do the same?! We have enough land for every  Mongol who wants to settle permanently in Mongolia for the ethnic reason. UN should help us too. When Soviet Union ended up with the splits, Germany has received ethnic Germans from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other former republics too. Remember, Turkey received Turks from Bulgaria when Todor Jivkov changed his mind towards them. Ukraine and Russia welcome their ethnic kinsmen from the post-Soviet countries to settle in their countries.

We invite you to visit the country and its people. You will be visiting a people with centuries-old nomadic lifestyle, listening to the absolute silence and breathing  the purest ever air  and seeing the eternal blue sky dominating over this beautiful land on Central Asian plateau:
green taiga forests, the second largest fresh water lake in Siberia, ancient burials, icy streams of crystal clear rivers,  in its north,
two-humped camels, towering sand dunes, green oases with saksaul trees, rocky mountains in scarsely green plains, natural formations of cliffs... in its South,
endless steppes, homeland of best horses, bird gathering at blue lakes, fishing rivers, numerous gazelles, volcanic craters... in its East,
snow capped mountains, great lakes, rock paintings, steep canyons, yak herds and massive sand dunes, mountain and field caves ... in its West!

Discover Mongolia with Bolod's Tours which operates since 1991!!! Stay comfortably in Bolod's Suburban Guesthouse!!! It's a truly experienced native tour operator and guesthouse reccommended by Lonely Planet's "Mongolia" guidebook of 2001/page 139/, 2005/pages 69, 72/, 2011/page 58/ and its "Trans Siberian Railway" of 2006/p. 263/, "Mongoru"/in Japanese/ by Globe-Trotter/ of 2007-2008/page 56/, "Mongolie" by Petit Fute of 2008-2009/page 86/and on the www.mongoliatourism.gov.mn- the official tourism website of Mongolia.

What's now the situation with Mongolia's tourism like? As Mr. Davaadorj Ts, the Minister of the Manufacturing and Trade admitted on October 2nd, 2007, on TV, "-Now, most foreign tourists enter and leave Mongolia by foreign-owned airlines or trains, stay at foreign-owned accommodations, eat at foreign restaurants and travel with foreign tour companies". It's true, indeed, nowdays.
This country doesn't need foreign investments in fields where the Mongols are capable or must do businesses themselves. What kind of foreign investments does Mongolia indeed need? The country needs foreign investment in manufacturing and technology most!!! Mongolia's rulers must serve in the interests of their own people.

I'm almost one of patriots who want to remain in this  last homeland instead of emigrating abroad as too many Mongols do so. Exodus of its young population and export of Mongol women are the greatest threats to the further existense of  Mongols as a nation...
Nationwide mining boom and gold rush are the greatest threat to Mongolia's nature... The gold may feed the people for 50 years, while preserved Nature-Mother would be able do it for another 5000 years.

Thank you for taking your time visiting my modest website.

I will keep my website live and constantly updated.

Bolod

Impressions of the Mongols:
1: "Two were Mongolian lamas in shabby robes of saffron and crimson, bound at the waist by twisted sashes of faded purple cloth. One lama had a crushed felt hat on his shaven head, the other was bare-headed, and both wore high, leather Mongol boots. The one with hat was tall and rather gaunt, with a long nose, and sunken cheeks below high cheekbones. The other was shorter and more thickset, with a broader face. Both might have been taken for American Indians. As we camp up, they were in the act of replacing their carved snuff-bottles in their belt-purses, having taken them out to exchange them with third man, who had just joined them.
The newcomer was a layman, with a frank, pleasant expression in contrast to the somewhat furtive looks of the lamas. He too would have resembled an American Indian except for the long, drooping moustache under his small, finely chiseled nose. Unlike the lamas, he was wearing a dark blue summer robe of heavy serge, with a red sash, a brown belt hat, and cloth boots. Though the features and dress of all three were so typically Mongol, and unlike anything we had seen in China, I thought I would try the experiment of greeting them in Chinese. The taller monk answered, with quite a strong accent, explaining that he, like many other lamas of the border regions I had visited, often had occasion to deal with the Chinese merchants in buying things for his temple, and had learned their language in that way.
pages 6, 7. "The Land of the Camel" by Schuiler Cammann. 1950. The Ronald Press Company. NewYork.

2: " We found the Mongols to be a hospitable people with full, healthy-looking faces and often with handsome and intelligent intelligent features...
In the morning several Mongol men and women looked in on us and very kind-heartedly sewed the extensions on our sleeves and fixed knapsacks for us. The Chinese have a long way to go to match the Mongols in kindness...".
"The Chinese Agent In Mongolia" by Ma Ho-t'ien. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1949.

3: " Here, for the first time, we accosted representatives of pure Mongol race; truculent-looking rascals they seemed to us, after the reserved and rather timid Uriankhai/энэ тохиолдолд Тувачуудыг хэлж байна.А.Б/. The natural influence of the wild life and freedom of the open Mongolian plateau could be traced in their careless and reckless manner; they were loud-speaking, rough soldiery, used to a hard life, apt to bully those below them, but respectful to their superiors./page 260/
...Thus we never saw the Khan/of the Durbets/; and much to our regret, for he was a rare type of an hereditary prince of ancient stock, claiming direct descendent from Jenghis Khan himself. One evening two of his sons visited us, giving us thereby an idea of appearance of a Mongol of a good birth. After our dealings with the rift-raft of the herdsmen, with rough soldiers and with primitive hunters, we had grown accustomed to the idea that all Mongols were heavily built, rough, ill-mannered, ugly to look upon, and with leathery faces, but these two Mongol gentlemen astonished us by their indefinable look of breeding and by their charm of manner. Of average height, and lightly built, with clean, sharp-cut features, soft, dark, olive skin and small hands, they showed a marked contrast to their retainers. Their had the refined air, the politeness of manner, courteous style, which belongs only to those Mongols who are accustomed to rule...There is still "spirit" left in the Mongols, judjing by these two men of a good birth; they, at any rate, gave us no impression of decay or deterioration. Turned into the right channels, the Mongol Khans could wield great power to good effect. Even now the tide is turning, and when the nomads have realized their strength and regained their self-reliance, they may also regain their independence..."/pages 269, 270/.
"Unknown Mongolia"/a record of travel and exploration in North-West Mongolia and Dzungaria/ by Douglas Carruthers. 1913. London. Hutchinson & Co

4: "The houseboys, Chinese privates from the Sarachi district of central Suiyuan, tried to crowd into the mess hall, saying that if "that no-account" could come in, they could too. They recognized him as a Mongol by the scarlet vest he wore with his student uniform-no Chinese would wear anything as bright- and Sa-hsien people, as members of the first wave of Chinese migtation into the Mongol grazing lands, are the most open in their scorn of the people they dispossessed.
Their feeling was even more obvious next morning when Fred went to ask the cook for an extra plate of eggs to give Dunguerbo. "Mongol no good!" the Chinese servants said with emphasis. This annoyed us very much, as Dunguerbo had a far finer personality and a much more generous nature than most of the Chinese we had contact with up there"
page127, "The Land of the Camel" by Schuyler Cammann. The Ronald Press Company. New York. 1950.

5: "Huc and after him, Prjevalsky have described the Tsaidam Mongols as morose and melancolic, speaking little-in fact, hardly better than animals. I was glad to find all those I met quite different from what the accounts of these travelers had caused me expect. Not only they showed themselves ready to do anything for me, but they expected themselves to make my stay agreeable, inviting me, or playing on a rough kind of banjo they manufacture themselves".
page 130, "The Land of the Lamas" by Rockhill W.W/a journey into eastern Tibet and Mongolia in 1888-1889/.

6: "Away in the distance we had seen some black spots from which faint columns of blue smoke were raising peacefully in the morning air. these were the yurts, or felt tents, of the Mongols, towards which we were making.. .. All round the sides of the tent boxes and cupboards were neatly arranged and at one end were some vases and images og Buddha. In the centre, was fireplace, situated directly beneath the hole of the place. I was charmed with the comfort of the place. The Chinese inns, at which I had so far had to put up, were cold and draughty. Here the sun came streaming in through the hole in the top, and there were no draughts whateever. Nor was there any dust; and this being the tent of a well-to-do Mongol, it was clean and neatly arranged"
-"Among the Celestials" by Captain Younghusband, C.I.E. London. John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1898

Everyone was discovering Land of the Mongols in his or her path. Here are some memoirs.

"...Pass begins. The carts here began to progress in brief spasms, and the gradient, together with the general conditions, made this a somewhat painful experience. Leading our ponies, we were able by devious paths to discover rather smoother going, and the number one Mongol, a charming old man of some position, who, having no mount, now seated himself (without invitation) on the shaft of my cart, remarked that " The great one must be possessed of extraordinary strength to be able to walk like that". I learned subsequently that a horseless Mongol is just about as much use as a seagull with its wings clipped. The missioneries had arranged that this same old Mongol, Dobdun, by name, should act " boy" for me on the way up, i.e. boil water, peel potatoes, and spread my bedding at night. I liked him very much, but mainly for the sake of his picturesque appearance, for besides being very stupid, extremely lazy, and knowing not one word of Chinese, he had not the foggiest notion as to how to do anything for my comfort beyond getting me hot water, and smiling in a paternal way, when, to relieve my beasts, I got out and walked up the steep places.

By the time we were at the top of the pass, between five and six thousand feet above sea level, it was dusk. We had taken our time over the ascent, an icy wind was blowing, and the scene before us was desolate indeed. Earlier in the day and under normal conditions the traffic here is very considerable. Not so at the time of my visit, for beyond being overtaken by a couple of

Mongols trotting swiftly along on camels, who drew rein for a few seconds just in order to pass the time of day, or, more literally perhaps, to put the inevitable question as to our destination, before they flew on again, we encountered never a soul. I had never seen camels trotting before and they reminded me of leggy schoolgirls fielding at cricket, for they scatter their limbs about in just such an ungainly way..."

\from "A tour in Mongolia" by Beatrix Bulstrode\Mrs. Manico Gull\ published in 1920.