It probably wasn't until day three of our horse trek that the experience of being in Mongolia really hit us. We'd already been in-country about a week, driving through huge, sparsely populated valleys, visiting remote monasteries, and witnessing nomadic life on the steppe, but somehow Mongolia remained something to observe from a distance. But spending a long, cold night in a ger with a nomadic family, communicating with gestures and the ten words of Mongolian we know, cooking up the trout that Brook caught in the river 20 feet away, eating homemade curds and fresh-killed goat, and drinking endless cups of salty milky tea transformed Mongolia from observation to experience. Plus, the next morning our guide was nowhere to be found. And we were 50km from town. But at least we still had our horses and the very hospitable family who offered their ger for another night if he didn't show...
Back up a few days. We arrived in Ulaanbaatar on a long red-eye from Thailand (with a 3-hour stop in China) a bit tired but otherwise unscathed. As promised, our driver met us at the airport to commence a 4-day jeep trip from UB to Tsetserleg, a provincial capital in central Mongolia. It also has an ancient monastery and a good museum:
Our "jeep" proved to be a Honda CRV, and for the next few days, we should have been filming a Honda commercial. We took that thing on roads you wouldn't drive a tractor on, through rivers, across sharp volcanic rock fields, over two mountain ranges (no roads, just guesswork by the driver and our GPS), and up endless valleys. We had a hell of a time, and only got stuck once.
Our Achilles heel was the tire that kept running flat after a bad patch job, but luckily we got that sorted before the mountain ranges... Turns out we were supposed to have a Land Cruiser for this particular route, only it was in the shop so our driver took his wife's car. With no spare tire. But we made it, and enjoyed our first taste of Mongolia along the way. Here's our chariot being repaired and some photos from the drive:
Next up was a down day in Tsetserleg before our 5-day horse trek. Tsetserleg is a town of maybe 10,000-20,000 people nestled between a beautiful river and a mountain range that's a national park. It's also home to the Fairfield Guest House, run by Murray and Elizabeth, an Australian couple who moved their family to Mongolia and were instrumental in organizing our entire Mongolian trip.
On the day we were setting out for our horse trek Tsetserleg was hosting a large, traditional wrestling competition. Turns out the horses used for the wrestler's grand entrance were also the horses we were using for our trek. This resulted in a delayed start and some very fatigued horses (most Mongolian wrestlers are big boys), but we also got a close up look at the wrestling competition and reassurance that our horses were considered well behaved by Mongolian standards.
When traveling in Mongolia, especially when traveling by horse, you get a true sense of the nomadic life. Animals everywhere (goats, sheep, yaks, horses); people living in felt gers (yurts); food based on the animals they raise (mostly dairy and meat, almost no vegetables); and nomadic hospitality that means just showing up at someone's ger gets you invited in for tea and curds (which are salty, tangy, and sweet all at once - an acquired taste but oddly good) and orom (thickened dried cream that looks gross but is absolutely delicious). Everyone sits around the woodstove, shoots the shit (or just stares at you) and drinks tea. And, if you need to stay the night you're welcome camp or sleep in the ger. They'll also make you dinner. Our first night saw us chowing down on fried organ-meat dumplings that Erin helped to make on wood Brook split. Day two brought a long ride through the rain, with a lunch stop for more delicious dairy products and some freshly boiled yak heart and liver (we passed on the kidney); night two was spent on a trout-filled river with a lovely family that cooked up delicious fried homemade noodles with sheep meat; day three started with no guide, but after a few phone calls he arrived on motorbike at 11:30 am (turns out he had a family emergency the night before and took off without telling anyone - Mongolians are not known for their communication skills) and then improved greatly - we fished, crossed a mountain range on horseback with five hours of hard riding and slept amidst goats in an almost-empty 100km-long river valley; day four saw another mountain range and a chance to help some local boys cut hay for the winter; and day five meant galloping the horses at full speed across the steppe.
The hours on horseback seemed to just slip past, with the valleys and rivers rolling by under mostly clear skies, the scenery stretching out to the horizon. Nights passed in our tent or ger under starry skies. It was a surreal, ethereal experience, and we're definitely going back. There's one valley in particular that needs a couple more weeks and a better fishing rod... It's a story best told with pictures, so here they are:
After the horse trek we had planned to go camping, but it snowed, so we spent two nights at nearby hot springs, went for great day hikes, had our 5th wedding anniversary (with a bottle of champagne, no less, courtesy of our hosts), found a geocache, and enjoyed the scenery around Tsetserleg.
Here are pics from town, including some entertaining wrestler shots:
Even the 10-hour bus ride back to Ulaanbaatar had some local color:
Mongolia definitely makes our top-five list for the year, and may even be our favorite place so far. It's challenging: weird food, no toilets or running water on the steppe; no one speaks English, no paved roads to speak of, and a very alien culture. But it's awesome. The people, once you get to know them, are mostly kind and helpful, and the country is wild and endless. The kind of place you can visit but never truly leave because something of you remains there, while the rest of you longs to return to find that missing piece and to learn why it stayed behind.
