Day-129

 During my working days with IIBF, I had a number of occasions to visit foreign countries for attending conferences, training, seminars or even organizing international seminars by the Institute.

 Hence I could visit number of Asian countries, a few African countries,  some European countries. Lastly I had a personal visit to USA. With the result I could get a glimpse of the – although miniscule- of the world and its people.

I will record some of the memories through these blogs. I will start with Far North East, Mongolia. They had arranged a conference of banking institutes at their capital Ullan Bator.

·       I am sure many of the readers may not have heard that name. Till I went there, even it was Latin to me.

But we Indian cannot dismiss knowledge of Mongolia, which gave us the Moghul history which many proud of even today and most of us were made to  swallow in our School days.  What is that Mongolia even today? Worth a look. People hailing from such a backward, primitive and  truly isolated country - what they can offer to humanity. That also to a rich cultured nation like India?

Be that the case let me come to this small city of Ullan Batar  that can be compared to a three tier city of India. The climate is unbearable for people from most of the countries. Fortunately, the conference was  held during a nice climate and we did not have any issues at all. Further we had some extensive sightseeing tours too during the short visit.

• “Owing to its high elevation, its relatively high latitude, its location hundreds of kilometres from any coast, and the effects of the Siberian anticyclone, Ulaanbaatar is the coldest national capital in the world, with a monsoon-influenced, cold semi-arid climate that closely borders a subarctic climate  and a warm-summer humid continental climate.  The city features brief, warm summers and long, bitterly cold and dry winters. The coldest January temperatures, usually at the time just before sunrise, are between −36 and −40 °C (−32.8 and −40.0 °F) with no wind, due to temperature inversion. ( wiki).
• Probably due to the extended winter, hardly any greenery is seen in the form of trees. Though during our visit lot of grass and grazing by animals were seen. Apart from the limited city area all other surrounding places we visited are full of extended plains. Plains like a long beach or desert. No roads worth the name could be there. But that is not an issue at all, vehicles can go smoothly on the plains, like a plane moving in the sky. We must have travelled some 100 plus Kilometres on such plains during our sojourn.

The city was trying to imitate any western cities and is developing fast.

• Let me focus on the life in those plains. We visited couple of places, which are far away from any civilization, yet at those places  some people are living. I still remember vividly  a religious sect seen there. Some 20 small houses  were found  slightly above the ground level on wooden poles- as seen in Assam or Thailand. Here ,  the followers of one of their important religious sects is living. We met the Head of the sect and interacted through the interpreter.
• I wondered how they must be living . No road, shops, schools, transport except probably by horses and occasional private jeeps. How they must be educating their kids, and getting medical attention. All needless thoughts, but they came to my mind. How Nomads were living then and are living even no?.

We went to a tourist spot in a no man’s land where  a big statue of Genghis Khan, their national hero, was seen mounted on a white Horse. A very imposing sight.

Similarly in a popular market place in Ullan Battar, there is a place where he is sitting on throne like seat. Again a very imposing sight.

Other than these, I am not able to recall  anything of significance. I felt happy that I could see a most isolated region in the world, some 8000 Kms from Mumbai . We travelled to Seoul, S Korea and had to change over. Total journey time was around 8 plus hours.

While returning we were at the Seoul Airport for over 6 hours to get the connecting flight to Mumbai.

·       Here I saw planes landing and leaving almost at 5 minutes gap and the efficiency of the ground staff.

·        Almost all the activities are automated and with a few staff complement the movements were going on smoothly.

·        I contrasted the situation with our Airports,, where a battalion of ground staff attends to each flight.

But then Seoul cannot be compared with our cities, at least for some more years..

Be happy. Be safe.

        ॐ 

      9 AM