Blogs from Mongolia, Asia - page 7

Tariat le 28.05.15, Jour 92 Bon j'écris carrément après coup mais j'avais pas la foi d'écrire avant. Arrivé a Oulan-Bator, c'est la jungle! Après 2 jours non stop de voyage, crevé, il est 6h du mat´. Premier combats acharné, se débarasser de tout ses promotteurs qui viennent me vendre les hotels, auberges et tour a cheval... 20mn de luttes avant de me retrouver libre, perdu au milieu de cette capitale survoltée! Je vais me refugier a mon auberge, dormir 10h avant d'oser repointer mon nez dehors. Ici impossible de passer incognito, je suis blanc, et pas imberbe, parfois j'ai l'impression que tout le monde me regarde. C'est c'est comme si j'étais le seul blanc de cette ville, j'ai pas croisé un touriste. Je hais cette partie de la population qui me considère comme un portefeuille sur ... read more

Before leaving home, what did I know about Mongolia? Not much. It was squeezed in somewhere between China and Russia in Central Asia. A country that we knew very little about and one that had always had an air of mystery about it for me as a young child. As I grew up, I still didn’t know much about it. Several years ago whilst on a visit to China and hiking the Great Wall, at one point I stood gazing out at the rugged, mountainous country surrounding us as our guide, waving her arm in a wide arc, said to us – “that’s Mongolia over there”. It still remained some mysterious faraway country to me that I knew very little about. About all I knew was that, I had heard of its nomadic people and of ... read more

Hi All, Woke up in our Ger, which was freezing even though I was stoking the fire all night. Our Ger was situated in Gorkhi-Terelj National park. We headed for a breakfast of bread, jam, cheese (slices yuck) and then sausage and fried egg, this seems to be the Mongolian breakfast staple. We then headed out to see the rock formation Turtle Rock, which by chance looked just like a turtle!!! We were allowed to climb up to a cave in the rock where they store meat in the summer. It was good climbing it as you can see by the photos (Vicky’s spider man silhouette was good). We then headed to the 40-meter Chinggis Khaan statue, recently built in 2008; you may think we spelt it wrong but that is the correct Mongolian spelling not ... read more

Today we were heading a couple of hours out of the capital to go to a ger camp in Terelj National Park, about 60 kms northwest of the city, where we would stay overnight in a ger or yurt, as they are otherwise known – the traditional nomadic round tent “house”. Nemo had said to us that, even though our destination wasn’t that far away from the city, it would take us about 2 and a half hours to get there because the road conditions out of the city were very rough in parts until we reached the outskirts so, we would have to travel slowly. All tar-sealed (for the most part) we did, however, encounter some very large pot holes and other areas where the asphalt had broken away from the edges of the road, ... read more

My journey in Mongolia has been the best experience I have had since I have started my world trip in January 2014. I didn’t know what to expect from this country. We indeed know so little about it in Europe and I was a bit afraid of not being able to travel on my own there –without agency or driver I mean-. However, my journey there proved me every day that travelling on your own is the best way to really get a true experience in a country and that in Mongolia, it’s even easier to get to know the local people than in other countries. Mongolians are in fact the exact definition of hospitable. It’s in their culture to know how to receive guests. At their home, they will always have some tsai ... read more