Ploofle

As pointed out by my ever-alert friends, I am being bad. There are some nice Ash* people too that I mentally misplaced, so it’s totally mean of me. Though I will leave up my post, let it be known that I am duly chastened for making a sweeping generalization.

Ahem. Sorry Ash-from-down-the-hall-at-old-work. I like you

On the other hand…the trip yesterday was pretty cool. Mankhan soum is about 80 km south of Khovd center and there are a surprising number of trees out there. One of the other passengers, a Ministry of Health person, said that they planted them in the 30s or 40s. They were probably about a foot in diameter and leafless.

On the way there, we stopped at the lake where I’ve picnicked with coworkers before - except now you can walk on it. I don’t think I like the concept of frozen lakes - they’re scary and can crackle alarmingly:

We also went to a place with cave paintings - I was told it is the largest cave (painting? not sure) in Asia and 10th-largest in the world. On the way, the soum (county) governor’s jeep got stuck, but we eventually got it out:

We got to the caves around dusk (6ish pm) so we couldn’t see too much. The best view I got was from the camera flash here:

It was scary in that it’s a slightly steep switchback up to the cave and some people were wearing heeled (as in more spike than heel) boots. Tumbling would not be good. I also saw some rocks that were very strange - a grayish metallic sheen and they tended to fragment in sheets. Given the randomness of contamination here (fueled by my paranoia or newspaper reporting on mining) I left it, though.

Maybe when people (coughbonmaybecough) visit Khovd we could go out there again.

Tags: caves, ice, sorry to all the ash's, soums

This morning, walking over a cold, kinda squeaky-crunchy layer of snow, I watched a scrum of dogs.

Just sayin’

Secondly, Friday will also be a Fry-day - woohoo! Clash of the titans - latkes versus falafel, with a concrete barrier of yogurt and grease uniting the two. Deep-fry-a-thon mini version.

I also bought some what I think is shortening (beef fat? In a large white squarish chunk?) to make borsak, a pastry similar to beignets. It turned out well, and I may use the fat again for the latkes - although that seems inappropriate for some reason.

Finally, I am going out to a soum (county) today with UNFPA. It’s rural and I hear very beautiful. So I have packed accordingly loaded for the proverbial bear: extra long johns, food, water, flashlight, matches, candles, heavy gloves, etc. in case we get stranded. I hear there are cave paintings there so I’m looking forward to that as part of the non-official work before getting back in this evening.

Tags: caves, dogs, food, frying