Week 7 - Mongolia

A typical Airmag capital - This one is Arvaikheer
Enjoying the green grass and a mountain stream

Us just arriving at the waterfall - time for a dip!

One of the rivers we crossed on our journey - note the truck to the right which didn't make it!

The hunting eagles in Kharakorum

Disappointed about fishing, but enjoying the view next to Tsagaan Nuur Lake.
A typical Mongolian bridge... Not typical, but we crossed this in our van on the way to Moron. The bridges in movies which collapse are in better condition.


Sainta sainbai nauu!

Welcome to the 7th week of our trip and the 2nd completed week in Mongolia. When I say 2nd completed week in Mongolia, I mean 2nd completed week! It has been a tough trip, but full of beauty and adventure!

When I last wrote you I detailed the tough times in the Gobi. Now as we have headed north, the conditions have vastly changed. The contract of landscape from north to south can be compared like Arizona to Minnesota. We are now surrounded by forests, green pastures, rivers, lakes and more lots of wild life.

One of my favourite topics - food. Wow, Mongolian food is NOT good.... But we have maintained our agreement of only eating local food. To describe Mongolian food - you either get meat and rice or meat and noodles. And its alway a great suprise when you get a soup with meat and most of it is fat - very common :D For anyone looking to lose weight, Mongolia is not your place!

I've really enjoyed the language in Mongolia, firstly because they use the Russian Cyrillic alphabet its easy for us to read everything. However, the Mongolian language is far from Russian. The Mongolian language almost makes Russian seem like French - soft and beautful. I've heard it described that Mongolian sounds like horses grunting and coughing and then hacking up something from its throat.

Our past week: Arvaikheer > Orkhon Kurkhree > Tsetserleg > Tsagaan Nuur > Moron (yes, its really called Moron although pronounced Mooroon - however has been the subject of many jokes, Yes, I know I'm 32.. :D

Saturday - Mongolian Disco: We stayed in the town of Arvaikheer. Being in an Airmag capital on a Saturday night, Marina and I thought we would go and meet the locals. After a late dinner we found a night club and went in for about 2130. It was decent music, Western music and a little bit of Russian. The place started filling up and it was impressive to see the Mongols get dressed up and some could have fit-in in London. Being the only foreign people in the bar we had a lot of attention and it was cool enjoying a $1.50 beer in a club a vast change from London.....

Sunday -Waterfall. This was nice change to see after leaving the Gobi. When we arrived at the camp with the Waterfall and we changed to our swimming suits and climbed down a 20 meter gorge (you can guess how tall the waterfall was) and had a nice swim below! The water was very cold given we were in the mountains with the altitude at about 2000 meters (6600 feet), but was absolutely refreshing - and a pretty good place to cool off our beer. After this we had a nice horse ride and my horse loved to gallop. This gave Marina good training for our upcoming horse trek in a week.

Monday - Shower: We stopped off in the afternoon to see the Erdene Zuu Khid monastery in Kharakorum - the most famous in all of Mongolia. The communists banned religion during the Soviet reign and all religious places were closed. Erdene Zuu Khid had reopened in 1990, however, I expect some of its former glory is lost. Despite this it was an interesting place. Even more interesting is the two eagles outside which we were able to play with. In Mongolia Eagle hunting is very popular - before you get all up on human rights; the Eagles actually do the hunting and return the prey to the owner. The hunting is mostly done in the winter so we were able to see these great eagles and hold them. They were incredible! Later on when we arrived in Tsetersleg we were able to have a much needed shower...

Tuesday - Another Volcano: We went to Tsagaan Nuur or the Great White Lake in English. On the way we stopped off at a volcano that we were able to climb (erupted about 7500 years ago, so pretty safe) and then climbed into a cave a few miles away.

Wednesday - Fishing: We woke up at 0520 to begin our fishing. Marina and I had arranged this without the group and had a row boat waiting for us. Unfortunately the fishing didn't go so well with the windy conditions and that we didn't have a bobber to use with our crickets. The crickets were everywhere so it was pretty easy to catch our bait. So far the weather had been perfect so it was a shame to get the wind. We didn't let this get us down so after having some breakfast at camp we went out and climbed a mountain we saw in the distance. Kind of like your eyes being bigger than your stomach - our eyes were indeed bigger than our feet. This was far and very steep. It took about 2.5 hours to scale and descend and after we took a much needed nap. Later that day we took horses out to have a look at another part of the lake. Unfortunately these were very lazy and unlike the previous horses at the waterfall. We bailed after about an hour to go to the tourist camp and enjoy a cold beer.

Thursday - Hell: They called our journey this day Hell. Its known through Mongolia as one of the worst drives. I'm sure there are much worse ones, but this is in a main area. We were driving from Tsagaan Nuur to Moron. An 11.5 hour trip (counting the lunch stop) - when we got to Moron we were dead. Now all of you back home are thinking.. hmmm, 11.5 hours, that's like driving from St. Louis to Denver - no problem, but this isn't so. Given Mongolia really doesn't have roads and up north there is water, the paths are terrible. We drove through about 10 rivers on the way and it was mostly like a roller coaster ride, not the fast part, just the slow bouncing ride where you hurt your arm or head in the car.. Basically it sucked!

We are now in Katgal near Khovsgal lake. We have just arranged for a guide to take Marina and I up north around the lake. The trip will have fishing most mornings and evenings and we will be riding on horse back to the different places. We are told about 5 hours of riding per day. The trip will be 3 days and then we will be starting the trip back to Ulaan Bataar with two others in the group. Our trip was longest so the other people have gone back to UB or another place.

Wish us luck with the fishing. I've forecasted 12 fish and I hate missing my target!

Bayaerta!

Dan and Marina