Mongolia

Mongolia - Ger to Ger trip

Hi Friends,

already in Beijing, but now we have time to give you some more details on Mongolia. We spent there 1 week which was way too short... but as there are trains only 3 times a week from UB to Beijing, and we have an appointment in Beijing on 23 Oct, we had to leave.

We spent the one week in the Mongolian countryside in an organised tour where more or less the two of us were the group :o) We left UB by bus to somewhere in the West where a nice local non-English speaking coordinator picked us up and put us in a car, so the driver could take us to the first family with whom we stayed the first 2 nights. We had our own Ger (Mongolian tent) which you will see in the pics. First day we headed to the religious spot which Chris has already described already (weirdo gut-meal... Chris still is not relaxed that I had seconds...). 2nd day we further improved our camel riding skills and later that day 3 ozzies joined us for 3 days. This made the trip a bit more pleasant as the communication with the locals was close to nil (besides some hand signs and other body language).
Ah yes, before I forget, some general features of these Gers:

 •  no toilet and shower (or let's put it like this, the whole steppe is the bathroom... ;o)
 •  heating with dried cow and horse dung
 •  no electricity/light in general
 •  but they all had solar panels and satellite dishes for TV reception.

On day three we travelled to the next family on horse back, this was a great experience (this time Chris was still travelling on camel back as his 2m size was considered a bit too big for those small Mongolian horses by the host). But in the afternoon he could also experience his first ride when we visited a Buddhist ovoo (sacred place).
Day 4 we moved to our next family whose ger was on a hill top. This is interesting as usually they put the gers in flat/low places to avoid wind and lightnings... That night we could experience a real snow storm, so by the morning all our fingers and toes were nimb but to make up for that the whole landscape was covered by snow. It was great to see the change of landscape as autumn turned to winter. So what else could we do than horseriding in the snow? Those horses are so great, the snow did not cause any problems and we warmed up so quickly in the gallops so at the end we did not want to get off the horses. Have visited some other Buddhist and sacred places.

On the steppe cuisine: basically all meals are based on milk, mostly mare milk, fresh or sour. Besides, the nomads use dried meat (with a lot of fat), lots of pasta and some onion to have vegetables on the plate too. (FYI: while we're typing this, we already are 2 days in
Beijing and oh my God, the flavors of the Chinese food are heavenly!) The pictures tell I think.

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