A trip to Mongolia, June 2012

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I was glad I made the decision to go ahead with the trip to Mongolia. It has been one of those destinations that I must go. Obviously, it was because of my fascination with Chinggis Khan but also because of its beauty, nature and people. I had to take my two weeks compliant leave and had planned a week to spend with my family, which meant that I had one more week to use on my own.

I applied the visa at the Mongolian Embassy in Singapore which was quite straight forward and had it done the next day. I had made my onland tour arrangement as well and had bought my flight with Singapore Airlines and a connecting flight from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar with China Airlines.

I left Singapore in the evening and arrived Beijing in the morning and realised that I didn't have much time to get my luggage and check in at the China Airlines counter. I had also realised that I had applied for a single entry China visa vs multiple entry (to check in at China Airlines counter would mean I had to officially enter the country). At the assistance of Singapore Airlines ground crew, I was taken with a wheel chair to the immigration counter so that I could rush and get to the China Airlines counter for checking in (this was not my idea, by the way).

Relieved I landed at Ulanbaatar about an hour and a half later, I had not much expectation of my trip. I was being picked up by my guide, Yonno (a law student who moonlight as a guide in his sparetime), who then took me to the Kempinski Hotel. It was the nicest, four star international chain hotel in Ulaanbaatar. I didn't understand why there were not many international chain hotels in UB (stands for Ulaanbaatar) until I was explained that only 2 or 3 months in the year that temperature was normal. The rest of the year, temperature can be as low as minus 20 degree. Building anything in this challenging weather condition can also prolong the construction period. I must have arrived right before summer officially started, so the weather was still quite cold.

The road from the airport to Ulaanbaatar was not as smooth as I had expected and I realised the infrastructure in this country is relatively poor even though you could see the sign of wealth from the number of Hummer vehicles on the road. Later on I was told this is mainly newly wealth coming from the mining sector, in particular coal mining. The Russian influence was also apparent in this country not only they remained using Russian alphabets but many older buildings had Russian designs.

For the rest of afternoon after lunch, we had a tour of the city which had a population of approximately 1.2 million (the entire country has a total population of 3 million). Wondering at the long queue at several buildings, I asked Yono - what was the line for. He explained that the government handed out USD300 every week to the people (wow, that's nice). In the afternoon, I visited the Parliament Building of Mongolia, Suukbhatar Square, Zaizan Memorial (where you could have an eagle view of UB) and Gandan Monastery. Of all the places that I visited, I like Gandan Monastery most as I got to see the locals and monks going for prayers there. Unlike the monks in Tibet and Bhuttan who are vegeterian, the Mongolian monks consume beef (in general, the Mongolian has 30 kg of beef a month I was told).

The next morning I was picked up early as we had to head towards Gun Galuut Nature Reserve, approximately 81 km of UB as I was scheduled to stay over night at a ger (local tent) at Steppe Nomad Tourist Camp. As it was a solo trip, I had taken my time and could stop wherever I wanted. I was fascinated by the number of herds along the road: cows, sheep, horses and camels. This is one of the countries that has a lot more herds population than human.

About an hour and half later, we spotted a few beautiful horses and I decided to stop and took photos of them, and continued our journey when we realised we're being followed by a man on a motorbike. We pulled a side and asked the man as to why he was following us. He asked us back as to why we had taken the photos of his horses. Later on we learned that modus operandi of horses thefts started with identifying the target ones. My guide, Yono, explained that he took a tourist from Indonesia who has not seen horses roaming freely, and I had offered him a cigarette. That nice gesture triggered an his ger. Thankfully, we had prepared a few goodies purchased at the local supermarket as it is customary to leave our host with some goodies. He invited us to his ger and introduced us to his 15 year old daughter who then served us with goat tea, goat yoghurt and goat cheese. She was in the midst of making goat cheese but his wife went to town with his son (I still didn't get how they made a living and live in a ger like this in winter).

He didn't mind being photographed and in fact was hoping that he could get a copy of them. He would be coming to UB in the next month attending the Nadaam festival where many people from all over the country gathered and competed on wrestling, horse back riding and archery. He was very proud of his horses and asked me to take a photo with his horses. He said he used to be working for military during Russian occupation (and wore a CCC cap). We thanked him and left him with the goodies an hour after we chatted and continued our drive to Steppe Nomad Tourist Camp.

I found it amazing that our driver could navigate (yes, there was a GPS) as there was no road sign. It's all steppe. Wherever you look, the view was scenic and you hardly saw anyone (we saw a few nomad people along the way who were either in the midst of building their gers or dismantling them).

We found the compound an hour and half later. By then, it was close to 4pm and the staff had expected us to arrive earlier. After lunch, I was shown to my ger (one of 20 gers in the compound and there were four other guests in the camp) which didn't have an attached bathroom (the bathroom is located at the common area a few meters from my ger). Note: some tourist camp has ger with attached bathroom (that would be my wish list if I ever come back). I had a free and easy time till dinner and decided to borrow a bike and roamed around nearby at the endless steppe and enjoyed the sunset. I had tempted to borrow the kayak but it was getting dark. In the evening, a teenage looking camp staff helped putting fires inside the ger. He said he was learning English and intends to continue his study overseas.

That evening, I could not sleep; I felt Chinggis Khan's image on the carpet on the wall kept staring at me. I didn't dare to get out of my ger to go to the bathroom either (it was too dark and too quiet). Thankfully, days started early in summer as sun rise at 3 am! I was thankful and immediately ran to the bathroom. After breakfast, we headed towards the Terelj National Park and this time, I stayed at Terelj Hotel, the most luxurious hotel in the entire country. We arrived at the Park about one and half hour later and had lunch at one of the camp (I ran into one of the most famous singers in the country: Dashdondog and had a photo with him). Unfortunately, it was raining so we skipped all the sight seeing after lunch and my guide sent me to the hotel to rest for a day.

It was such a pleasure to be in this civilised and luxurious hotel (www.slh.com/TereljHotel). Actually, by international standard, the hotel is not too luxurious but in comparison to the rest of hotels in the country, yes, it is actually outstanding. Anyhow, the hotel was strategically located next to the national park, and from the outdoor restaurant area, I could enjoy the view of the rivers and mountain. It was such a peaceful and serene place.

I was being picked up the next day to be taken to Terelj National Park where I saw Turtle Rock and took a horse ride to go to meditation temple at top of a hill where I could have a great view of the entire park. I had enjoyed the horse ride and wished that I could ride as well as the locals (Mongolians were trained to ride a horse as early as 3 or 4 years old; many were able to ride a horse without saddle). Anyhow, my guide told me if I have two weeks to stay in Mongolia, he guaranteed that I could ride a horse by the end of my stay. When we're back at UB, we went for cashmere shopping before heading towards folklore show and dinner.

I had to leave UB early the next day to catch my flight to Beijing and spend another night to have a look at the Great Wall of China; I had enjoyed my short stay at Mongolia and intended to come back again as there are many other thing that I'd like to explore and see.

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Photos

Steppe Nomad Tourist Camp
at Gun Galuut Nature Reserve