I know I am a bit behind with my blogging. What can I say? Times flies when you are having too much fun!
Seriously though, Mongolia is one of the most the most beautiful country I have ever visited. It had so much more than I had expected. It wasn't just the culture and the desert that I thought would impress me, it had a LOT more to offer. Take its landscape for example. It wasn't just sand dunes and steppes - there were glacial lakes, alpine forests, sublime tranquil mirror-like lakes and plenty of wild animals. The hospitality of the nomadic people continues to amaze me.
We spent the first 3 days just getting to know the capital city – Ulaan-baatar. It was actually a very cosmopolitan city. It was of course not your Hong Kong, Sydney or even Brisbane. But it was new and it felt very 'fresh'. New buildings and roads were being built every week. When we were first there, the main road (Peace Ave) was being repaved, when we came back from our first trip 12 days later, there was a new road. Then 2 weeks later after we came back from our second trip, it had fences on it separating the opposite lanes.
It was such a nice change that it was actually cold. I think we had our first cold night this year on our first night in Mongolia. Then it just got better and better with a snow storm and below freezing temperatures! I absolutely loved it! It was such a relief that my backpack was so much lighter when I had 4 layers on my including my down jacket. I felt like I was a mini sumo-wrestler. They actually were quite popular in Mongolia. I guess that's why all these Mongolian girls smiled at me when I looked super big with all the layers of clothes on. Maybe????
We were lucky that we met this Italian guy, Raffaele, on the trans-Mongolian train, who introduced us to this English couple (Steve and Sam), with whom we later formed a group with to go to the Gobi.
Gobi tour
We did this tour with UB Guesthouse. We were required to bring our own lunch and couple nights of breakfast/dinner. So the night before our 12 day trip, we went shopping together for groceries. I think we managed well with about 7 days of salami, tomato and bread and 2 days of instant noodles. We had to local Mongolian restaurants twice just to break the salami streak :)
Gobi was absolutely amazing. I have never seen anything like it before. The steppe was so enormous and flat that you could see a little hill tens of kilometres away. There were no trees at all. Just tiny strips of bush, grass and dirt everywhere. It was really really dry. No wonder the Mongolians love eating animal fat – need to to keep their lips moisturised.
I was really amazed to see the Mongolian herders herd their sheep, goats and sometimes camels in the Gobi. It was so difficult just to find water or dig a well, let alone having plenty of water for the animals. By the way, watch out New Zealand, Mongolia might actually have more sheep per capita than you!
I could really appreciate what the word 'remote' means when at times we drove for a couple of hours without spotting a single human soul (besides ourselves). Because the Gobi was so flat, it felt like the road that we were on was endless - winding to the middle of nowhere. It was very rewarding after a long day in our Russian van to watch the sunset over the horizon on the steppe and the full moon rising at the opposite end of the sky. It was as romantic as it gets.
In the desert, every night was a freezing night for us even in September. Because there were no trees for fire in some places in the desert, we quickly settled into the routine of what locals do in the desert – collect dry dung to burn. The Englishman Steve became quite good at it and he truly deserved his new nick name – sh*tman.
On our first day in the Gobi we stopped by this small oasis lake in the desert for lunch. While we were eating, a pack of horses came over and drunk and played in the water. It was surreal to see these semi-wild horses just wander over 15 metres in front of us for some play time.
Life must be pretty tough living as nomads. They tend to look much older than their true age. An owner of a ger we stayed in was only in his 40s and showed many deep wrinkles on his face from years of living in the harsh desert climate.
The scenery was so beautiful that I often sat in the car and stared out the window for hours. When we drove to the top of this bigger hill and looked down at the endless steppe in front us, it was not difficult to imagine maybe Chinggis Khan himself once stood on the top of the same hill staring down at his next prey.
We often spotted eagles, falcons, vultures, foxes and gazelles. Apparently there were wolves around as well, but we never had the opportunity to see them. Our drive, Baila, drove his Russian van as if it was a safari 4WD. He nearly got some foxes a couple of times too. True Mongolian spirit!!!
We met some random Mongolian herdsmen when were having picnic lunch one day. They probably saw tourists and came over to have a yarn. They spoke no English at all, but all seemed to be very very interested in us. We offered them some food and they invited us to join them in rounding up their yaks and horses and roping small ones. I have no idea how they managed to throw the rope onto running yaks' necks with high accuracy. They were awesome riding these wild yaks like western cowboys. I wish that could have been part of my extra-curricular activities when I was in school!
They later taught us boys how to do wrestling and wrestled with us. They may have looked small, but they were full of muscles – probably from years of tackling yaks! I think we lost every single wrestling match except when I won one against this 50 year old man. I know what you are thinking, at least I won one! So there!
We also did a 3 day horse trek in this place called Eight Lakes. We went in September just in time for the leaves to change colour. Apparently it looked like Canada according to Sam. I trained my horse really well after the end of first day. In the second day, I could canter and the horse pretty much did anything I wanted! It was heaps of fun riding horse, especially rounding up goats and sheep. Maybe it's my true calling who knows!
Has anyone being rammed by a goat before? I have. What happened was I was eating an apple when this goat came. I was patting it fine. But as soon as I finished my apple and chucked the core out, the darned animal rammed me in the knee. Maybe it was waiting for the leftover apple core. It tried to ram me again but I grabbed its horns. It looked small, but it was darn strong. I told the tourists who all came out to see the goat. And the goat ran towards me and wanted to ram me down again! It was nuts! I was like 5 times its size. I am glad the tourists found it funny.....bastards.
Mongolian food was ok, but after 12 days of mutton dinner on the trip, I almost became a vegetarian. We had mutton rice, mutton spaghetti, mutton with mashed potatoes, mutton with boiled potatoes, mutton noodles. Even the hot water we got was mutton water. Can you imagine brushing your teeth with mutton water? I can. It was as if you were brushing your teeth with left over dinner soup. I could not handle it after one rinse.
Steve, Sam and Raffa were so sick of eating mutton bread for breakfast, they ate their well-stocked choco-pies pretty much everyday. Raffa, being an Italian, were super picky with his food. Naomi actually does an excellent impersonation of Raffa...... "Nooo! I cannot eat anymore moo-ton. It waz moo-ton last night, and now moo-ton again tonight. Noo moo-ton for me".
Unfortunately Naomi got food-poisoned for a couple of days during the trip. It was not a nice experience I was told going on bumpy roads when all you want to do is chuck.
Naomi had already talked about the whole goat bbq dinner we had. It was one of the best meals we had in Mongolia. A whole goat cost AU$25 - cheap as chips!
It was a great trip and the Gobi really impressed me. But after 12 days of living with nomadic families, we were quite eager to go back to the city and have hot showers every day and eat food without any mutton in it.
Northern and Central Mongolia
We met the Lithuanian couple, Gintas and Vida and organised a trip with Khongor Guesthouse this time. Our original travel day was delayed due to the snow storm in Mongolia. It was the biggest one they had in 15 years or something. Coming from Australia, it was actually quite exciting for Naomi and I. We were making snowballs and pegging them at each other and were writing on the snow that fell on people's cars. A hot shower that night was a real blessing!
We eventually left on our trip 2 days later. Our main goal was to get to Khovsgol Lake and the White Lake and to see old monasteries on the way. The tour with Khongor was a little more luxurious as all meals were provided and we did not have to camp at all. Just as well we didn't camp, as the night temperatures around the Lakes were like -10 degrees.
Before we went to sleep on the first night of this trip, we had an absolutely cloudless sky with thousands of stars above us. I was pleasantly surprised when I woke up at 3am to go to the toilet to discover that it was snowing and the ground was covered with snow. It would have been a very beautiful scene if I wasn't just wearing a t-shirt and pair of shorts! As the toilet was like 15 metres away, needless to say, it was little too far....
It really was very beautiful the first couple of days though when there was still snow on the ground on the side of the road and up on the hills. Northern Mongolia was completely different in scenery than the Gobi. It had a lot more trees and was more mountainous. The towns/villages also were more developed. We ate lunch at restaurants in the first couple of days.
We did another 4 days of cross-country horse trekking. We rode around Lake Khovsgol and the Great Lake. I really enjoyed it, in fact, I think I might have to go and buy a horse when I get back home. It felt like a dream riding in the light snow.
We also tried some fishing, but unfortunately the equipment that we were given was not the right sort and so we had no much luck.
The van we were in this trip was definitely not as good as the last one. I lost count of how many times it broke down on the side of the road. I think our driver (Sagi) spent all his spare time fixing the van. Poor guy. Once we broke down for 6 hours in the middle of nowhere. Luckily we found a nomadic family to use their ger. That was the thing about Mongolia. It seemed that any random could just walk into anyone's ger and use their beds, stoves, watch their tvs and drink their tea etc. I was so impressed by the hospitality of these people as they had not much at all, but still gave us some of their mutton for lunch. We had about 5 lunches just in random people's gers and hung out with their families and played with their animals. We even got to try their fermented horse milk ('airag'). I even got to ride a yak! It was pretty weird riding one, but fun nonetheless.
Naomi got scratched by a family's pet kitten. She was so worried that she might have developed rabies, as soon as we got back to Beijing, she rung the travel insurance people and asked them for a recommended hospital to have some rabies shots. The Mondial Assistance guy was just like... "Right....you got scratched by a cat.....right.....I don't think that's covered.". Meanwhile Naomi was so stressed out, this guy was still not taking her seriously. Hopefully they'll give her some money.
We had a great time hanging out with the Lithuanians at night playing uno or card games. We also tried some of the local vodka.
All in all, northern and central Mongolia seemed more developed than the Gobi trip. They were both stunning, but just very different. The first trip was more outdoorish than the second trip.
Ulaan-baatar
After we got back to UB, we spent a few days just relaxing and shopping for cashmere. The price was like ¼ of Australian price. So a real bargain.
We went back to China on the 8th of October. We caught a local train to the border town (Zamyn-Uud) then a jeep across to the Chinese border, and a cab to the local long-distance bus stop and did an overnight bus to Beijing. It took us 36 hours to go from UB to Beijing, but we only spent around AU$80 for the whole trip compared to the Beijing-UB train which cost us AU$201.
I really loved Mongolia. It was definitely my favourite country so far and I would love to go back one day to visit the western side where the Kazakh people live and where the eagle-hunters are.
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