11 day trip around Mongolia

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DAY 1 Weds 14th OCT

So last Wednesday (14th Oct) we set off nice and early for our trip around Mongolian countryside. Our quite drink the night before turned into a few drinks, going onto a club with a load of people from the hostel and not getting home till 3am, so the start of our trip we were all pretty tired and sleepy. Not only that, but Ste and I both woke up with some pretty painful stomach cramps...luckily it was only cramps, but still took a few tablets to stop anything from happening during our long journey ahead of us. We had a driver called Budda and a guide called Tol who spoke English really well. None of us were up for socialising much for the first few hours though. Mongolia is pretty much full of countryside, hills, mountains and then in a couple of valleys there will be some cities or towns, so most of our journey the first day was seeing pretty similar scenery, although the scenery is stunning. It just goes on forever. We drove for a few hours before stopping at a National Park, which wasn't as great as they had made it sound. It basically was home to some wild horses, which by the end of trip was completely irrelevant as we had seen hundreds of wild animals by then. But still was a nice break and a chance to get out of the van. We were travelling in a russian minivan with us 6 in the back (Me, ste, Sandra and Carine the french girls and Jack and Joy the americans) then our guide and driver in the front. In the back was packed full with 8/9 boxes full of food for our trip and all our bags. After our stop we carried on driving for a few more hours before stopping again for lunch. We stopped in a beautiful location right on top of a hill overlooking so much land. For our trip I had fully expected to help with cooking and preparing the meals but apparently that wasn't going to happen. Our guide told us to go off for half an hour before coming back to the van for lunch which they will prepare. So we hiked up a nearby hill for some more great views and then arrived back to our van with a perfect little picnic all laid out. It was a lovely afternoon, warm enough to sit outside to eat and lovely and sunny. The rest of the afternoon we drove a long time to reach our first site where we would be staying in the semi Gobi desert, which meant it was supposed to have a few sand dunes but it was almost dark when we arrived and couldn't really see much.

Each night we were sleeping in Mongolian traditional homes called Ger tents. Most mongolians who live in the countryside live in a ger, and even some do in the city outskirts. They our a circular wooden structure with a stove in the middle heated by animal poo or sometimes wood and are layered with various types of animal wool. We had been giving the impression that we would be staying with mongolian families but most of the time we ended sleeping in their spare ger with us 6 on our own. Our guide and driver would sleep with the family and cook dinner in their ger then bring it into us. At the start of this trip I was a bit annoyed that we weren;t getting to stay with them but after a while you beging to understand how impractical it would be to have 6 of us in their home and it was quite nice to have our own place where we could drink and play cards. We realised tonight just how great a cook our Tol (our guide) was and throughout the trip she contiued to impress us cooking a different breakfast lunch and dinner every day!!

DAY 2 Thurs 15th OCT

We woke up about 8am to find everywhere covered in snow!! That was a bit of surprise!! After breakfast and a wash (baby wipe wash 😊 we said our goodbyes to the family (that we hardly even saw) and continued our journey to a town called Kharakorum. It was slightly awkward leaving the family as everyone advises you to buy gifts for the family to thank them for letting you stay (even though they get paid) so we had all bought various gifts useful things that are difficult to buy out in the country or bits for children and had agreed to each leave something each night, so Jack and Joy when in to give their gift but came out saying it was pretty awkward as we hadn't barely spoken to the family and you kind of wondered why we were giving things to them and whether they appreciated it as much as we though they would of...

Anyway we reached the town by lunch time, driving through hours of snow snow and more snow. The town was pretty deserted, areas of gers and huts and a few shops but the main attraction was an old monestary which was now a museum. We stopped for lunch at a tourist ger camp where we just used their gers to cook our lunch (well the guide cooked in one ger and we sat and waited in the other ger). It is mad how much they can do in the gers considering they have no electricity and no running water. They used the stove in the middle to heat and cook their food and boil water and most towns have a water pump where they fill up water tanks every now and then. Although some gers did have some electricity but most didnt. After lunch we continued into the snow storm to head up to the hot springs. This was what Ste and I were most looking forward too, especially now its snowing, will be amazing. We drove for 100km before stopping with Budda and Tol looking slightly concerned. After a while she explained to us that the snow had covered the road and they couldn't see where they were supposed to be going. It was funny how they said "the road" as most of mongolia doesn't have roads, just dirt tracks, but this track had been completley covered in snow and the vision was so poor you couldn't see any of the mountains that had surrounded us earlier. So we made a decision to drive back on ourselves to Kharakorum as Budda and Tol didn't want to risk being stuck somewhere. So we headed back to the tourist ger camp where we had lunch all slightly dissapointed but frustrated as there was no choice. We spent the evening chilling in our ger, trying to keep it warm adding more poop to the fire worrying that we would freeze to death in the night. Drank a few vodka's we had bought with us and played many many card games. Was a nightmare with the snow though as the toilets are basically squats/long drops/holes in the ground about 75 metres away from the gers, so was freezing and a pain everytime you had to go pee and venture back out in the snow. Was difficult as you didn't even want to attempt to wash your face as the water was so cold so it just babywipes the whole time.

DAY 3 Fri 16th Oct

We got up early again after a hard nights sleep in the ger. All the beds are literally just planks of wood covered with several layers of blankets as their "Matresses". Today we were driving to the waterfalls. We made a couple of stops along the way, one just up on a hill over looking Kharakorum where we had just spent the night...amazing views. Its literally just a huge flat piece of land in the middle of these huge mountains...Tol was telling us how its going to become the new capital over the next 10 years which was hard to believe as there was pretty much not a lot there right now, but she was eventually planning to open a restaurant there...not surprising as her cooking was sooo good!! Up on the hill we stopped at was a rock in the shape of a....penis!! Tol said it had been built many years ago to shame the monks who had been "interfering" with the daughters in the village!! Shocking!! But now a main tourist attraction! We stopped for lunch at a random ger on the way...its amazing how Tol can just show up and they let us all in, let her use their stove to cook for us. Luckily the weather had improved slightly so we could all just have a wonder around whilst she cooked for us...again. When we arrived at the ger the family welcomed us with some local snacks to try one being airag...which is basically fermented horse milk, a huge traditional dish in mongolia which pretty much tasted like fizzy milky cheap wine!! I could hardly drink much but Ste had a bit, jacked downed a bowl in whole are copying our driver who also necked a couple of bowls...luckily its only about 3% alcohol. Eventually we arrived at the waterfalls late afternoon with enough time left in the day to go off and explore. Basically there was a huge canyon type thing which didn't seem to have any way of getting down, really frustrating as we could see some people sitting round near the waterfall but after 2 days there we didn't figure out how to get down other than to climb down some extremely unsafe looking rocks which neither of us fancied.

DAY 4 SAT 17th OCT

First lie in!!! Well 9.30am! No driving today so Buddha got a little rest. After a lazy morning we finally got ourselves sorted for some horse riding around the waterfalls. Ste got the unlucky horse that had never been ridden by a tourist before and had to be towed along for the start, but the horse was fine. Our guides were 2 young mongolian boys who looked about 15 who entertained us by singing lots of mongolian songs and laughing randomly. Was absolutely stunning scenery and half way through Ste got to change horses and was free!! Our horses must have liked each other as for the last 30 minutes they rode ahead of everyone else and were trotting loads, even galloping a little 😊 Surprisingly horse riding is extremely tiring and after returning and having lunch all 6 of us fell alseep. We woke up late afternoon with really sore bums and legs but also to find outside was once again completely covered in snow!!! It had been such a nice sunny morning. We all ventured out into the snow, went round the waterfall again and refreshed ourselves a bit before returning to our ger for dinner and more vodka and card games 😊 This time Tol joined us and we played the drinking game Ring of Fire...but changed the name to the more appropriate ring of ice. In the game each card has a different rule and it was most definitely the funniest night we had so far...made even funnier by Tol joining in. We had rules for having to sing your national anthem, running round the gar with no shoes on barefooted in the snow, saying the french word anticonstituissurlelemon (something like that) before every sentence you said....soooo funny!!

DAY 5 SUN 18th OCT

Today was another long driving day. We stopped several times to stock up (more vodka), pee (in the middle of nowhere with nothing much to hide you) and for lunch on some snowy mountains. We reached our destination earlier than Tol had wanted so suggested we keep driving on for the afternoon to another location. We arrived there around 5pm to find that the family had moved. Basically mongolians who live in gers have summer ger and a winter ger, depending on shelter shade etc and our family had already moved to their winter ger spot...so we had to keep driving trying to find their new location. Luckily we did, pretty much just as the sun was setting otherwise it would have been impossible to find in the dark with no roads around!! The rest of the day was spent just chilling out in our ger tent...more vodka...more cards...maybe a bit of reading, we had all seemed to start a little book exchange!!

DAY 6 MON 19th OCT

Since we had made so much distance driving yesterday we reached out next destination, the flaming cliffs by lunchtime. Not sure if I had mentioned it before, but back in Olkhon Island in Russia we met a couple,Jennifer from Hong Kong and Antoine from France who we spent a night talking to but they left the next day, we then bumped into them briefly before we left Ulaanbaatar but they we just about to go on a trip so we didn't get a chance to speak to them much....well their group were stay in the ger next to ours at the flaming cliffs!!!Mad!! Unfortunately they had all been unwell one by one so far during their trip...so neither of our groups really mixed much and at the time Jen was really poorly so hardly saw them. The flaming cliffs were amazing, literally just loads of red rock/sand that you could climb up. There was no snow here but it was sooooo windy. Joy had lent me her sparew down coat which was amazing!!! Soooo warm!!!! The flaming cliffs was also the sight where they had discovered loads of dinosaur bones and eggs, the guide even showed us what she said was part of a dinosaur hand and that you could tell it was horse/camel/sheep bone because dinosaur bones stick to your tongue,showed us thenpassed the bone to us for us to try...which we didnt :s just took her word for it 😊

DAY 7 TUES 20th OCT

Another long drive today, this time to the sand dunes in the Gobi Dessert!! The sand dunes (so we were told) were 100km long, 12 km wide and at somepoints 300m tall!! We had a few problems finding our families ger (again they had moved locations), eventually got there quite late in the day again, but we were staying here for 2 nights so we had all of tomorrow to explore.

DAY 8 WEDS 21st OCT

In the morning we all went camel riding. Didn't think it would be that much different to horseriding but apparently it is. First of all the camles are soooo tallll!! I was a bit confused as to how we weresupposed to get on them but soon found out when the guide starts yanking the cord and makes the camels sit down which also looks like the most uncomfortable process for them,their legs bend in all kinds of directions. Then they have to stand up again with you on top which sends you back and forward with nothing to drip onto but their hump...and mine and Ste's camels both had floppy front humps!!! Great! Once they get walking its ok,a bit more bumpy, when they try to jog/trot whatever its called, thats a bit scary as you get bumped around quite a bit, again with nothing to hold onto. The ride was amazing though, went all along the sand dunes, up someof them although strangely our group of camels were a bit reluctant to go on the sand. BUt yeah good morning in all, our guide was great, kept stopping our group so we could take some group pictures in somegood locations. When we got back the the gers, the family had taken down one of their gers and rebuilding it for the winter adding extra layers of wool etc, was really interesting for us to see it all stripped down and watch them rebuild,although we left the boys and went to help Tol prepare lunch...first time we had helped so far,think we just got in the way though to be honest. After lunch Ste and I decided we would be superfit and have a nice afternoon hike up the large sand dunes near our gers...or so we thought. My god they are tough!! Soon into the dunes it gets soooo steep...more steep than what it looks from the bottom and the sand becomes quite loose so you make a few steps but by the time you slide a bit you've only progressed 1 step.Well about 45 minutes into the hike and 2/3 of the way up at the hardest steepest part I got the worst stomach cramps!! Incomplete agony for a couple ofminutes then they went away, so we carried on,then they came back...kept happening so I stayed put for a bit and Ste decided to continue up to see if it waseven possible to get to the top. The sun was setting too so we wanted to see a really good sunset, but also get back before dark. Anyway Ste takes about another 20 minutes getting up and he is right near the top but so knackered just catching his breath back and as Im watching him my stomach feels like its about to explode and suddenly have to go to the toilet...immediately!!!!!!! I had about 2 secs to try and hide myself behind some branches. God mystomach felt so much better but had a slight dilema in the fact I only hadthe smallest amount oftoilet paper in my pocket.... :S...Ishouted up to Ste to see if hehad any but he was so near thetop, exhausted and couldn'treally come back down and all I had left in mypockets were...my gloves...yes mynice cream gloves....well you get the jist....my hike on the sand dune ended awfully, cant believe I had to go to the toilet and ruin these poor beautiful sand dunes. Poor Ste eventuallycame down after making it to the top, completely exhausted and dehydrated, I was peed off I didn't get to see the sunset at the top and after my bad toilet experience....both just walkingback to the ger in a complete gaze,agreeing not to try and climb anything that big again, least not fully prepare with somewater and some toiletpaper!! Luckily the rest of the evening my stomach felt fine...was starting to think I had caught the bug Jennifer and Antoines group all had!!

DAY 9 THURS 22nd OCT

We left our ger early morning and began our journey to the Ice Canyon, our last sight to see before heading back up to thecity. On the journey we bumped into Jennifer and Antoines group again who were all recovered at last!! 😊 They were also going to the Ice Canyon that day. The scenery start to change slightly as we got nearer, had to drive through some rocky canyons, some pretty steep and bumpy parts...really nice though. Finallywe reached the ice canyon and both groups joined and walked through it together. It was so amazing, a walk way through this cannon, maybe 4km long with a tiny stream in the middle that was covered in ice, someparts you could walk over which we had to, otherswere really thin and someone would step then the ice would crack...luckily the stream was only about 2 inches deep so no danger there just a wet foot!! Was good to go with the other group too andmeet the rest of their group properly. After we left we continued our drive back towards the city and stopped off to spend the night at our next ger which happened to Buddha's (our driver) homewhere his son, wife and grandon now live! The evening wasn't so good for me, after lunch earlier that day I had felt reallysick, not like I was going to be sick, but just really nauseous so come dinner after a couple of mouthfuls I couldn't eat anymore, the cramps had come back so I just tucked up early to get some sleep which seemed to encourage everyone else to do the same.

DAY 10 FRI 23rd OCT

Today the whole day was spent driving our way back to the city. We stopped a few times at some pretty locations, I was still feeling sicky, had eaten a little bread in the morning and couple of spoonfuls of rice for lunch but couldn't manage much more so was also pretty tired. We spent our last night at a really nice location called small places rock. The family had their spare ger for us just right next to these rocks,we arrived late in the day though so couldn't really do much. Another early night for all. I hadn'tbeen sick or had an upset tummy or anything yet, just felt nauseous all the time so again didn't eat much for dinner...felt bad too as I think Tol (our guide/cook/anything else we needed her to be) our gone out a bit for the last night,cooked a lovely dinner, bought us all some beer and her and Buddha came and spent the evening in our ger talking to us (well Tol translating for Buddha),it was so lovely as they were sayinghow much they had enjoyed the trip,we all exchaged details and Tol and Buddha told us all about themselves and their families. Was a really nice evening,shame I still felt ill...think Ste enjoyed my beers though 😊

DAY 11 SAT 24th OCT

Back to the city. Again, another long drive, stopped at some nice places, some old ruins and eventually got back to the city around 6pm!!! Felt like heaven!! Was so nice arriving back at the hostel, they are so friendly you feel like you've just arrived home! Finally a shower after 11days!!!!!!!!



Apologies there are no piccies for this blog but the computer wont let meupload...will add them later though,they are on facebook too if you want to look there.

Lots of love

Layla & Ste

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Photos

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Our group!

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Inside the ger tents, with our not-so-comfy beds

Comments

[Lara Ellis]

Wow that was a long one! Just read it out to Mum, am at Mums with Ellis and Lyla Nicky is here with his new girlfriend carla who has been staying for a week. Sorry but the story about your toilet experience had me in stitches! crying with laughter was funny! Love you lots Mum said you seem to be enjoying yourself sorry you had the trots, nicky said now you know how he feels, mum said take care miss you lots of love mumsy! xxx