A little adventure in the West
Monday, October 28, 201321 - 28 October 2013
We woke early
to enjoy a nice breakfast at the hostel before catching our bus to Tsetserleg
at 8am. As soon as we had cleared the suburbs of UB it started snowing and
after driving for ten hours through a stormy winter landscape we arrived at our
destination (our lunch stop was particularly eventful where Alby met Snowpig
behind the roadside eatery on a visit to the outhouse).
We settled down in an
80s-style cheap hotel room with a stunning view next door to the overpriced but
popular western-run Fairfield guesthouse. After a dinner of some typical
traditional (greasy) Mongolian food we hit the sack.
Snow pig in barron surroundings
The view from our hotel room
After
enjoying some warm yoghurt and an apple which was slightly past its best in our
hotel room we headed to the market where it took us less than ten minutes to
fix ourselves a deal in a car that would bring us to Tariat, a village at the
edge of the Tsagaan Nuur National Park that we would love to visit. Although he
promised us that we would set off right away it took him more than two hours of
faff (buying new soles for his shoes, picking up his toolkit, a car jack and another
passenger and catching up with everybody he knows, all in different places
dotted around town) before we were really on our way.
A fellow passenger en route to Tariat
A very bumpy 3,5 hours later we arrived dusty and tired in Tariat where our driver drove directly to a house where a woman that could speak English lived. Although he nor we knew who she was, she got in our car and made communication for everyone a whole lot easier – we agreed for our driver to take us all the way to Tsagaan Nuur (the Great White Lake) if he could also fix us a cosy but cheap ger on the lakeshore… Challenge accepted!
Two hours later we found ourselves already lighting the stove in our new little home. We enjoyed a more than stunning sunset above the lake and had selfmade dinner and hit the sack.
Our cosy ger on the lake side
Sunset over the Great White Lake
After a good night’s sleep (although we had to use the blankets of five beds to keep us warm) we woke up with our favo breakfast… hot porridge! We got dressed warmly and set off for today’s mission: a hike to the Korgo Uul volcano crater. Since Alby felt like making it a “special adventure” we spent almost two hours crossing an extremely bumpy but very impressive field of sharp volcanic lava rocks, after which we bumped into a comfortable path that led to the crater as well.
Ovoo on the way to Korgo Uul
The lava field
The view from the crater was simply awesome. The crater was too big/deep to capture in one photo and wowed us with its intimidating scale. We decided we wouldn’t find a better location for lunch and enjoyed our pack-up on the spot. Having found the path on the way up we followed it back down and around to the other side of the mountain where our walk should have started.
Standing on the edge of the crater
On the way back to our ger we encountered a massive herd of goats, sheep and horses returning from the lake for a drink, accompanied by horse-mounted shepherds. We had a cosy evening of keeping the fire going and reading books in our ger, the only one still standing in another desolate tourist camp closed for winter.
A herd of horses
Our cosy pink ger
The Great White Lake starting to freeze
Bitterly cold we made it a short one and luckily returned to the ger for an early lunch and to pack our rucksacks. Our driver appeared with his mate two hours earlier than we had agreed, but with little else to do we decided to set off back to Tsetserleg. In our driver’s typical faffy fashion we stopped off at his friends house to eat some greasy mutton and to pick up a couple of mystery guests…
Tired but satisfied we arrived back in Tsetserleg where we went straight to our favorite hotel and ended the day with a delicious beer and a dinner in a cosy Mongolian ‘pub’. Since we had heard that Tsetserleg is one of Mongolia’s prettiest aimag capitals we decided to spend the next day exploring its beauty. First stop was an interesting but slightly overrated aimag museum filled with traditional Mongolian weapons, musical instruments, artwork and an entire ger. Obviously this place had already started its hibernation since the caretaker happily unlocked each hall of the museum for us to enter and quickly locked them again in succession after we’d finished in each one. We wandered the steps up a Buddhist monastery, situated on a hill overlooking the town, appreciating the view before heading to Fairfield Cafe (an excellent lunch place attached to the overpriced hostel next to our hotel) for a tasty and huge lunch. Full of food we decided to take it easy for the rest of the day and wandered through the black market housed in several shipping containers. We picked the same Mongolian pub from the night before to drink some tea and read our books and made it an early night.
At 8am we
already found ourselves on a bus headed towards Harhorin, Mongolia’s ancient
capital. Although there is not much left from the capital’s glory days, one of
the only monasteries to survive the Stalinist purges still stands (only just)
at the edge of the town, which is also what brought us here. After installing
ourselves in a new – this time urban – ger and discovering the tiny village
center and all its facilities we had lunch and set off to the Buddhist
monastery.
Unbeknownst to us the three temples left standing were closed because it was a weekend, but fortunately there was a ceremony taking place in the main temple so we had a glimpse inside. As we shyly stood by the door and watched in awe as young monks ritually read sutras and older monks chanted prayers we all of a sudden were offered a big bowl of something that on first sight looked like milk tea. On closer inspection, using the taste test, our stomachs gave their veto… We were experiencing airag, Mongolia’s national drink, consisting of fermented and therefore slightly alcoholic and fizzy horse milk – a taste comparable to normal milk that’s been in a student fridge for a month too long. Paralysed and slightly panicked at the thought of having to finish our liter of airag we stood there trying to be polite and grateful, until a 10-year old monk recognised the fear in our eyes and relieved us of our bowls. To avoid new encounters with this local delight we decided to head back to our ger for a lovely eve.
Erdene Zuu monastery in Harhorin
Unbeknownst to us the three temples left standing were closed because it was a weekend, but fortunately there was a ceremony taking place in the main temple so we had a glimpse inside. As we shyly stood by the door and watched in awe as young monks ritually read sutras and older monks chanted prayers we all of a sudden were offered a big bowl of something that on first sight looked like milk tea. On closer inspection, using the taste test, our stomachs gave their veto… We were experiencing airag, Mongolia’s national drink, consisting of fermented and therefore slightly alcoholic and fizzy horse milk – a taste comparable to normal milk that’s been in a student fridge for a month too long. Paralysed and slightly panicked at the thought of having to finish our liter of airag we stood there trying to be polite and grateful, until a 10-year old monk recognised the fear in our eyes and relieved us of our bowls. To avoid new encounters with this local delight we decided to head back to our ger for a lovely eve.
Highly decorated rooftops in the monastery
Because our previous bus journeys all went so smoothly it was high time to be treated to some transport karma. Despite arranging us two ‘seats’ in a bus from Harhorin to Mongol Els, our next destination, we ended up sitting on top of cardboard boxes and water carriers in the narrow aisle of the coach, unable to see anything.
Both quite carsick we arrived at Mongol Els, happy that the ride only took a couple of hours. As the bus drove away we were treated to our first glimpse of the only sand dunes which are not located in the Gobi desert and headed towards the nearest ger camp we could see.
The dunes at Mongol Els
After a short bargaining session we settled down in what must be the most luxurious of all the gers we have stayed in, complete with mirror, (non-functioning) light, slippers and a very naughty 3-year old girl. We found her cute until she slapped Alby right in the face, at which point we made her cry by moving the wailing siren away from our ger.
A sweetie until...
After enjoying a small midday fire (which was lit by our host with a blow torch) we went outside to go explore the dunes. After a couple of hours plodding up and skipping down the sandy hills we headed back for our usual evening ger routine and round two with the devil child.
Atop the dunes
After a relaxed morning making toast on the stove and sipping coffee we wandered back to the main road to wait for the daily bus to UB that we had hopped off the day before. Within ten minutes a car stopped and offered us two seats to UB for the same price at the bus – our decision was made easy by the infinite improvement in comfort we hoped to experience. Luckily our hopes were fulfilled and after a comfy ride with a 3-year old co-passenger who spent the whole time cuddling the sweets we gave her in a pair of very sticky hands we arrived in UB. After another good meal at our favorite Japanese place we returned to our faithful hostel and went to bed.
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