Different Origins, Same Destination

When one of my best friends was here a couple of months ago, I wanted to take him to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park. But given the unfortunate incident of his flight to Ulaanbaatar getting delayed not for hours but for days, he did not have enough time in Mongolia - so the better part of it was best spent sightseeing in the capital (and going somewhere nearer, Manzushir Monastery). I had never been to this place but I wanted to go there with a friend or two, knowing that we would all enjoy what it has to offer. (And, of course, I need at least one person to take my pictures.)

Looking back, it was a good thing that he and I could not go there. The weather was still very cold at that time and it even snowed heavily on the day of his departure. My students told me that I would not be able to go hiking in the park and visit many places there. But I have been in Mongolia for more than four months and now that spring is here, I reckoned that I had to take advantage of the sunny days with the positive, two-digit temperatures. So last weekend, I organized a trip to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park with my colleagues, students, and Filipino friends.

I asked a co-teacher, a Mongolian, to help me rent a mini-bus. But with only 11 people initially expressing interest to join this trip, we decided to have a van rented instead. To my surprise in the morning that all of us met to leave UB, that van does not have the usual seat at the back row so it can only accommodate up to eight passengers (two with the driver, two behind them seated in the other direction, and four in the third row). It was either the remaining three people uncomfortably sit on three others’ laps, or they sit much more uncomfortably on the floor at the back of van.

But as serendipity would have it, four people cancelled at the last minute - only for me to be surprised for the second time around that the driver needed to have his mechanic with him and that my Mongolian colleague also brought along her sister. It did help that one of the passengers was a six-year old kid so he just sat on the lap of his mother or aunt during the ride there and back. As we were all crammed in the van, it occurred to me that there are 10 people inside who came from different places and we were all going to the same destination.

We were five Filipinos and five Mongolians in the trip and none had ever been to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park. Among the former, all five of us are from various provinces in the Philippines; and among the...