Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
I have been back in Ulaanbaatar a few days now, and really had such an amazing time on my 2 week tour of Mongolia, so a run down of what we did.......
day 1- got up at 6am as we had 260km to travel for the day, going south into the gobi. I am in a group with 2 american guys, a french couple, 2 dutch guys and tom and myself. We didn't have time to do very much else that day, though we did visit the remains of a 17th buddhist temple called baga gazaryn, walked for a bit in the desert and watched sunset from near the ger we were staying in for the night. That night we stayed in the family ger on the floor, and the family themselves moved out for us and slept in their kitchen ger.
day 2- so gers are heated to a ridiculous extent, so much so that we would all be in summer clothes, but then during the night it goes out and you wake up freezing, however by the end I was practiced in this routine and had a system of layering up! we drove all morning and stopped for lunch in a village where there is another driver from the company, so we stopped in his house to eat. Unfortunately (or maybe not, depending on your perspective) he got out some vodka to celebrate our meeting, and it is customary to accept and very rude to refuse. Later in the afternoon we did a little bit of caving, which I hated as the space was tiny and I didn't have a light, but it wasn't too long. We watched sunset from the white steppe, called tsaagan suvarga.....an area of rocks where there was once an ocean. Got to watch a lady milk a camel at the gers we were staying at!
day 3- unfortunately i had to get up for the toilet very early on this morning but got to watch sunset with some camels. We drove to the capital of the south gobi region, and stopped to buy supplies and have showers in the public baths. Unfortunately the day all took a bit longer than expected so we didn't make it to the ice canyon.
day 4- went to the ica canyon, and walked through it for a few hours until our lunch was ready. In the afternoon drove to the flaming cliffs, which are essentially just large red rocks and cliffs that at sunrise and sunset are bright shades of orange and red. We walked around them for about an hour whilst our guides and drivers went to the gers to prepare our dinner as they were making a traditional mongolian meal that takes a while to make. From the cliffs we could see a large rock in front of where we would be staying, so headed north for over an hour until it was pitch black and we could no longer tell if we were actually walking in the correct direction. Luckily the drivers came to find us, though we weren't actually too far off. For dinner it was dumplings!
day 5- Pretty much drove all day but by this point of the trip we were used to the roads, which were far far worse than the one we came in on from the border. However, I had perfected the art of reading and playing cards! For the night we played cards, with rules that were governed by tom's snoring as he had fallen asleep in the middle of everything.
day 6- Today we had no driving as we would be staying in the same place for 2 nights. In the morning we road camels across to the sand dunes, had a quick look around and then went back for a really good lunch of camel dumplings. In the afternoon everybody else drove to the sand dunes as they wanted to look at them more but Tom and I got back on the camels. We had more time at the dunes and then we raced back! I got in just after the 2 mongolians we were with, got off and saw that Tom was a black dot in the distance....20 minutes later he returned complaining that camels were too uncomfortable to be used for running.
day 7- got up at 5:30 with Julie to learn how to make a traditional mongolian rice breakfast using camel milk. We drove for the most of the day again to get to Arvaycer, which is a town in which the aunt and uncle of one of our guides lives, so we stayed in a building for the night!! there was constant heating all night and electricity!
day 8- today was our last day with peter and paul (the 2 dutch guys), so we drove for the morning with them and after lunch we split all our things and then had to cram 8 people in our car, whereas they only had 4. We had to stop off at a number of gers before we found one that had space for us for the night. In the evening we learnt to play a mongolian game played with the ankle bones of sheep and goats, but we were all pretty rubbish at it. Our driver left this night as for the following few days we would be going through places that cars can't reach so we all minimalised our things......so, for 3 days I had only what I could fit in the lid of my rucksack!
day 9- luckily we were able to use one of the families horses to carry all our things whilst we walked for the day. It took around 6 hours to walk through the mountains to our next ger. The area we were in is called 8 lakes- self explanatory, though they are all actually linked together underground. The family we stayed with slaughtered a goat for us to watch- it was actually very quick and seemingly simple. They took the whole thing apart in about half an hour (just in the middle of one of the gers!). Around an hour later we were given all of the 'best bits' of the goat to try. I braved heart and intestines stuffed with blood, onion and other little bits of meat. They were pretty good but I declined liver as it was served with a lump of fat to go with, and also didn't have lung as others weren't so impressed by it.
day 10- Today we were able to what we wanted, so some people went off walking, Jeremy and Julie helped the family with some of their daily tasks, and I painted. However I was disturbed by one of the little girls who then did her own painting and when we went to show her mum I ended up being giving tea and pancakes (not good western style ones) and stayed there for quite a while. For lunch we had what looked and felt like fat soup, tasted of very little, but actually turned out to be flour soup......not something I would recommend trying. Continued painting in the afternoon, whilst some people had a go at wood cutting and herding some horses in.
day 11- We rode horses all day today through mountains and snow for the morning and across desert in the afternoon. By this point we were in the semi Gobi region, classified as thus as it had sand, dunes, moutains, rivers and forests. I had a pretty naughty horse that just wanted to run even if I told it to stop.
day 12- For the morning we had free time, and after lunch we walked to a waterfall. It was really beautiful and large parts of it had already frozen. So we stayed there quite a while and then got our driver to pick us up as we were all tired and achey still from horse riding.
day 13- In the morning we drove to see some hot springs, where Julie and I wanted to shower, though the mongolian man with a tin bath who had said we could shower, walked off with the bath filled with his washing! After lunch we went to Khara-khorim, a city with remains of a buddhist site, with temples, shrines, statues and lots of artwork. They even had a working temple and a ger where you could go and have Buddhists pray for you. We drove into the dark as we changed our plans to stay in the same place for the following 2 nights rather than driving again the next day.
day 14- We again had some free time for the morning, so I did some more painting. Then after lunch we walked over the mountains so the remains of a Buddhist monastery. It was really calm and relaxing there so we stayed for a little while before heading back. For our last dinner we had dumpling soup, actually one of the best of the trip. We stayed up past 9:30 to celebrate our last night! And went out for a while to look at the stars- there were a number of shooting stars, venus and what we think might have been mars!
day 15- as the last day of our tour, we had quite a bit of driving to do for the day, so only stopped for lunch and to see some rare, wild horses in a national park (they actually just looked like donkeys!). We got back into Ulaanbaatar at about 5pm.
During the trip I tried goat, horse and camel for the first time and also had yak and camel milk and dried yoghurt! Mongolian food is nothing I would rave about, and I have spent the last 2 days eating only fruit and vegetables!
I have done very little since returning as I have been very tired and have got a bit of a bug. At the moment I have no plans past staying at the hostel tonight, so I'll see how things work out.
I am also now 8 hours ahead again as Mongolia doesn't have daylight saving times.
I have put more photos on facebook, but I don't actually know if anyone was able to look at them before??
Lots of love.xxxxx
- comments
Robin Great to hear the news Alice, sounds like quite an adventure!
grandad Wonderful story. Youmay be able to write a good book on your return. What an adventure I am glad the religious locals are saying prayers for you. Love Grandad and take care