Golden Gobi #4

We left the infertile landscapes for some more mountainous ones, next to trees and at the altitude of 2.000m in the heart of Arkhangai county. This was the place where we experienced horse riding and probably the friendliest Mongolian nomadic family that hosted us and offered at once “airag”, a traditional mix of tea and yak milk. Mongolian horse riding? Hmmmm, we were pretty confident after the first 2 hours, where the horses (short but really muscular) were just moving faster than the camels, on my behalf I suppose, as my horse was held up from the horse leader. Shortly after we had the second horse riding sessions that it was just amazing. Just by whispering “chew” the horse accelerated so fast until you were afraid of it and you had to make it stop. Our ride tour included a frozen waterfall, a frozen lake and some nice view of the river, in addition to a plain valley next to the snowy mountains.

Our next stop was Kharkhorin or Karakorum, the old capital of Mongolian empire back in the Chinggis Khan years. The diffrence is that they have enough wood to make fences and separate their landpieces between family gers. The highlight of this town is the Erdene Zuud Khiiid, probably the most well known monastery in the country. It was also interesting our visit at the local school, where children were amazed to see foreigners inside their classrooms. We arrived early at night at our last stop on the way back to UB, next to some imposing rocky mountains and it was actually our last experience of a remote place in this mindblowing trip. The view from our ger was magnificent and we hiked a bit around to take as many pix as possible of the sunset. Our way back to the capital was quite silent with a stop just for lunch and we had plenty of sceneries to remember. Ulaanbaatar welcomed once again in a foggy atmoshere and we spent two more days there in order to get our train tickets to China, but it was more adventurous than we thought.

Golden Gobi Tour #3

From Khongoryn Els we drove back to the east, reaching Bulgan village before midday. The one and only reason to stay there is for getting food & water supplies. We visited a friend of our driver at his house, where suddenly a couple of cute faces just arrived from school... There were his sons and when they saw us, they changed clothes and threw a ball for starting the game. It was a mixed of basketball-volleyball and football or anything can be played in such a different playground but all of us were enjoying it. After a while, more and more children wanted to play with us and finally we ended playing with more than 15 children.

We left our young friends with a big smile on their faces and we headed towards Bayanzag, commonly known as the Flaming Cliffs, where the panteologist Roy Chapmane found dinosaurs eggs and bones back in 1922. The monotony of all these flat plains, breaks suddenly by some sandy-rocky huge formations at the colour of desert sand. Our ger we were going to spend the night was once again in the middle of nowhere. The only visible things are rocks, red sand, flocks of camels and a field of some short trees. The wood from these trees kept us warm and its burning smells so nice. Just before sleep we had a glass of Chengis, whereas the two junior British companions decided to pay a visit to a neighbour ger around 22.00, as we saluted some European girls earlier that day.
It was only around 9 when we were seriously worried for them, as they haven’t come back from their walk even for their breakfast time. We checked all nearby gers, we found out either they were locked or empty the others told us that they left from their ger around midnight. So where on earth might they be after 9 hours? Worst thoughts possible crossed our minds, as the desert is so cold during the night and windy. At last around 10.30 we managed to contact all gers in the area, and they were found in a distance of 8km, in family ger as they froze. Almost speechless in most of the trip we drove many hours and because of the delay we reached our next stop at night in the middle of a snowstorm.
Our new ger owner has a cute bulky son that enjoys our company. This time we shared the ger with our drivers too. 7 people on the ground all around, feet facing the door of the ger –as it should be-, making fun of the juniors about their adventurous story earlier that day. Thank god we were not in the mountains where hungry wolfs are around ….
Compass & matches at least guys ;) I am sure u still don’t have them in your huge pockets. Take care and remember: “Nobody crosses Gobi without misgivings” (English lady in 1920’s)