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Konghor eelsIn UB, the typical thing to do is to go on a tour to the Mongolian countryside. The standard easy option is to hire a jeep and a translator and head out to see some sights and visit some nomadic families. These all inclusive tours can be sorted out by most of the guest houses, the one important point being that the more people you have the cheaper it is. Having met up with my Irish friend Andrew again and decided to go south to the Gobi desert we then went tourist hunting. Combing the hostels and supermarkets of UB for random people who might want to join our expedition. The next day we found them; Taka, an engineering student from Japan, Herry, an English/Korean buisness woman and a Dutch couple about my age; Luce, a physiotherapist and Ronald, a science writer. After negotiating a really good price with khongor guest house, we went out for a delicious Korean meal to celebrate. The next morning we were collected by our guide Soylao and our driver Baggie in a slightly beaten up Russian minivan that was to be our trusty steed for the next 8 days.
We'd been warned that the
roads weren't very good at this time of year, the truth was, there were no roads. About 20km south of UB we said goodbye to the asphalt and set of on a 1500km off road journey. There were tracks in the ground that Baggie tried to follow but a lot of the time we were just winding back and forth over streams and bogs. The snow was melting and the mud was in its prime. At one point we stopped to help dig out a Mongolian jeep that had started to sink. It took 12 of us pushing and another jeep with a tow rope to get it to harder ground.
The landscape was remarkably varied, closest to UB was the winter version of grassland. There were birds of prey circling the steppe and lots of animal carcasses for them to feast on. Like the rest of Eurasia, Mongolia had its worst winter for a long long time. It was reckoned that over 4.5 million animals died. Meat and cashmere prices doubled. Almost a third of the Mongolian population are herders and rely on their animals for food and income. One family we visited had 18 horses, before the
Gobi day 1
First desert wee stop winter, now they have 2.
After five hours bumping along we stopped for lunch in a little ger encampment next to a signpost. It was the first one we'd seen since leaving UB, and seemed a little superflous. I suspect if you'd managed to find the signpost, you probably knew where you were going anyway.
Our first Ger experience was lovely. Gers are Yurts, insulated by layer of fleece and animal skin. They have a wood or poo burning stove (as there's not much wood in the desert) in the centre with a chimney going straight out of the top. The decoration is to my taste. Nice colourful furniture, wall hangings and bedspreads As the road had been so bad and lunch was quite late, we didn't take much in. We all sat hypnostised watching our host make lunch. From outside, she hauled in a chunk of meat, hacked it up with a clever and cooked it with carrots potatoes and water. Then she made dough which was soothing to watch. She kneaded and rolled and then like magic there were noodles and we had a lovely noodle soup. It was a very tasty and very welcome meal.
The first sign post
about 200km from the nearest actual road In the afternoon, the grassland gave way to snowy plateaus. There were still lots of big birds, even some vultures skulking in the distance. We bumped into our camp for the evening just before sunset; a family with a spare ger. Soylao the guide cooked us dinner and we brushed out teeth under the stars using bottled water we'd brought from UB. In the warmth of the poo burning stove, we sat round a candle, talking late into the night
The next morning we drove to Baga Gazryn Uul and looked at a ruined temple in some low mountains. It was snowy and blue scarves were tied to the trees around the ruins (a shaman practice). In the sky above the valley, vultures circled and once again the ground was dotted with animal carcasses. We didnt stop for long as we had a long way to go. Lunch was in Manalgov, a tiny town in the middle of the desert with a small island of asphalt roads appearing from nowhere. We had lunch in the a totally deserted Mongolian cafe whose toilet, amusingly, had a clear glass door. The choice was rice or noodles with meat. I tried
In the first ger
Gobi day 1, lunch stop Camel meat for the first time. Fried with peppers and served with rice, it was delicious, tender and quite fatty (a trend in Mongolian cuisine), with a similar but not so pungent taste as lamb.
The roads at this point had not improved. We weren't even following tracks any more and it was slow and bumpy going. Our amazing minivan had to work so hard that it kept overheating, a problem that our driver kept solving by hitting it with a hammer. (I don't know if it was a magic hammer, but our driver could miraculously fix anything like this; every time time anything broke, Baggie got his hammer). We also got a bit lost in snowy grasslands as our distant guiding mountains were obscured by mist and snow. Nothingness all around us. Baggie and Soylao got a little nervous and we realized we were probably lost. We drove till dark but still hadn't got to the family we were hoping to stay with. Luckily, we came upon a village, tsogt ovoo and after asking around we found some beds in what might have been a hotel. Not as picturesque as a ger but a lot better than a
snow? In the desert?
This was just the beginning. Gobi day 1 night in the van in the freezing desert.
On route the next morning we stopped at the white stupa cliffs by Tsagaari Suvraga. A stupa is a buddhist monument, and the cliffs were named thus as they were supposed to look like stupas, although In my opinion that takes a bit of imagination.
After Lunch in a 'european restaurant' in a town called Dalanzgad, we tried to go to the Yol Valley, called 'Yolyn Am' in Mongolian, literally 'vultures mouth'. This is a valley that functions as a bird reserve and remains full of ice throughout the year, even when regional temperatures soar to 40oC. I say we tried to go. Yol Valley is set in the middle of a mountain range which this time of year is severely snowy. We got about 2km into the mountains when the van ran into a snow drift that it couldn't get through. Eventually we got un-stuck but the van could go no further in. So we walked. We were 10 km from the valley and we had only 4 hours before dark, so we set off as fast as we could through foot deep snow. We had a lovely hike,
with the sun shining and the birds circling. Occasionally there were animal tracks, horse, goat and what unervingly looked like wolf. It was cold but definitely on the thaw and eventually, with the ice valley just round one more corner, we came to a river of melted snow. There was no way across. Disappointed but pleased to have tried and not wanting to be stuck there for the night, we had to turn back. We made it back to the van, exhausted, just after sunset. Luckily we didn't see any wolves and our Ger for that night was only a few kilometers away.
The next day was a desolate deserty day. The snow was forgotten and the landscape was dry and dead. Earlier in the journey there has been mice scurrying by the side of the 'road'and birds swooping. Now the mice and birds were gone. The wind picked up and the sand whirled around furiously. The village where we stopped for lunch was a shell of empty buildings. There were rows of gers and paint flaked buildings but there was no-one there. It was like a post apocolyptic town. We ran from the van into a desrted hotel
Effects of winter
Baga Gaza Chuluu, Gobi day 2 stung by flying grit and sand and we sat in a room with some beds, waiting for either a zombie attack or lunch. I am glad to say that Lunch came first. Soylao found a person to cook for us (he was very good at that) and we enjoyed a pile of steaming rice and meat before hurrying back out to our van. The village swalled up by the sandostrm behind us we drove, practically blind for a several hours. Then it began to snow. heavily. Somehow our amzing driver managed to navigate the 200 or so km to our destination and we didn't breakdown (much). Unfortunately, the sandunes we were hoping to see were cloaked by blizzard but even worse, the family we'd been banking on staying with had already taken in some other stranded tourists. We drove on. We came to a tourist camp- a ger hotel- locked for the winter and then to a small fenced off enclosure. It was very run down, full of broken planks and half buried machinery Soylao said he didn't like the people there but we had no choice but to ask them for a place to sleep. Soylao got out of
the van and shouted for the owner. He came out and so did 3 dogs, which rushed at the van and jumped at Soylao. The ger man was there telling the dogs to stop but they didnt listen. They attacked Soylao who rushed back into the van. His clothes were ripped and he had a bite on his leg. Luckil it wasnt too deep amd it seemed to be clean- his trousers hadnt ripped and it only opened when he pressed it. We cleaned his leg and discussed what to do. Basically we had no choice but to stay. It was dusk, it was still snowing and it was getting very cold. The owner agreed to tie the dogs up- at least the one that bit soylao and we stayed. baggie reversed the Van right up to the ger door. Then we dashed in and didnt leave again till morning, taking turns to go to the toilet just outside the door while someone else kept watch. To make matters worse, our ger stove had quite a few holes in it. This combined with the strong winds meant that the chimney didn't draw so smoke from the fire just filled up
Yol valley
Gobi day 3 the ger. baggie temporarily fixed it with his hammer but in the end we had to put the fire out. As it got dark the temperatures plumeted. Soylao came and shared around some vodka and we spent alot of the night sitting in our sleeping bags playing silly games. When it got light we skidaddled. The weather still hadn't settled and there was snow on the ground so driving any sort of distance was not possible. We went back to the sand dunes and to where we were supposed to stay the previous night. After a well earned morning nap in our nice safe ger, we braved the sandstorms to walk around the khongoryn eels- the biggest sanddunes in mongolia. They were pretty big and pretty sandy. My pockets are still full of them. I think one of my strongest memories from the gobi will be the combination of sand and snow, it seems so illogical and yet it was pretty constant in my Gobi experience! That night was much more restful, we played more games and got to know each other better, but I suspect we were all slightly more relaxed not fearing death from cold, suffocation or mad
dogs.
The last rock formation we visited was the flaming cliffs at Bayanzag. These were very strange. Red clay mountains that crumbled when you touched them. The sort of cliffs you stayed well away from the edges of. From here the views of the desert were astounding, and our van looked very small as Baggie drove it around teh bottom trying to anticipate where we would descend. Our Ger camp was down in the planes, with beautiful views of the cliffs. There were also picture perfect sandy areas full of skeletal looking desert trees. These gers had camels and our old nomad host took us for a camel ride. He was a funny little man with a big toothy grin. Apparently, he has been making his living for the last few years finding dinosaur fossils and selling them to archeologists. Mongolia is very rich in fossils and the flaming cliffs area has them in abundance. About 30 mins into our camel ride, the old guy grins back at us and says 'dinosaur? 1 dollar, 1 dollar.' Of course we said yes, so he lad us a bit further and we got off our camels( you need to lean back
when you do this as they sit down on their front legs first like elephants). Our nomad then tok us to a little pile of rocks which he un-piled and digging with his hands he got to a plastic bag. He lifted it off and underneath was some sort of flattened skull buried in the earth. He said it was a dinosaur. We werent so sure but it might have been. In the Gobi, to test if something is a fossil, you put it on your tongue. Rock jsut falls off, but bone fossil is porous so if you put it on your tongue it sticks, quite efficiently actually. Im not sure of teh validity of this method- for example would old dried bones do the same thing? Anyway, it was good enough for the moment so we spent the next quarter of an hour wandering round licking everything we could find. There were some pretty obvious fossils; bones embedded in the same red clay as at the cliffs. When we got back on our camels we rubbed out all of our footprints- apparently other mongolians have been stealing his dinosaurs- and as he can get $150 for a skull
it all has to be top secret.
From the flaming cliffs, we turned and started to head north again towards UB. The journey home took two days even though the roads were much better than before. We stopped at the ruined ongi monastry, about which neither our guide or my lonely planet book could give us any useful information. Mongolia is an odd country in that it is seeping history, yet none of it is known. The cultures and ways of life are timeless and confused. Layers of people and history all mixed up. Herders ride motorbikes and live in Gers with solar panels,when they aren't watching TV, they are following their goats around with baskets collecting poo for fuel. Their dogs chase wolves away all night and chew dinoasur bones. Modern camps are set up in hundred year old ruins and rubbish is left strewn about the desert.
It was great to see. Mongolians are hospitable and friendly people. After my trip to the Gobi I went on a 3 day trip to Terelj national park with an organization called Ger to Ger. Unlike the Gobi where we covered vast distances by jeep, here we just stayed
in one small area and spent the day with the local families. Either wandering round the area, playing with the children or trying to be useful. We went between the families on horses (I had a baptism of fire when we had to cross a river, 5 minutes after getting on) and ox carts. It was a lovely experience. The families were very welcoming and the area was full of trees and rivers, a nice contrast to the desert. I am glad I got to see both. Mongolia really is a beautiful country and although the nomadic lifestyle is harsh and unforgiving, I am horribly tempted to live in a ger and get soem goats. Apparently a nice one with five layers of insulation is about $12000. In the gobi temperatures range from -40oC in winter to +40oC in summer. Perhaps Cornwall, in England needs some new nomadic tribes...
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mummy
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bayarlalaas
so what are byarlalaas? whatever they are I like the camels better - was the newborn a camel or a bayarlalaa?we are enjoying your adventures xx mummy