Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia

The train from Irkutsk to Ulaan Baatar has been one of the highlights of the trip so far. We shared our cabin with a lovely Scottish lass from Glasgow, Polly, and a Mongolian business man - let's call him Timmy. We had a number of animated neighbours including Timmy's wife, Serge and Karin from France, and an Australian part-time dance instructor called Helga. And so for the next 36 hours we shared travel tips and stories, played cards with some Russian teenagers and learned to count to ten in Mongolian. The border crossing took the best part of 8 hours - most of that was spent on the Russian side waiting for the immigration officials. Without too much bother we crossed into Mongolia and noticed almost immediately a change in scenery. Arid landscape, not quite desert but not very green, rolling hills and small Ger camps scattered all around the place. Mongolia is called 'the land without fences' and for good reason. Many Mongolian herdsmen believe that the land is sacred so they avoid ploughing and harvesting as much as possible, instead they give their animals free reign to wonder all over the place. We saw huge herds of cattle, sheep, horses, yak and even goats and camels. The people are so different to the Russians as well. They were smiling and seemed genuinely interested in meeting and talking with foreigners. It was so warming to finally see broad toothy smiles again - even if only a couple of teeth at a time.
We were met at the railway station by the wife of the guesthouse owner and rushed to our beds. The train arrived at 5.50am so the first point of business was to catch up some sleep. Later that day we arranged a three day jeep tour, leaving the next morning, and then wandered around the town to get familiar with the location.

Ulaan Baatar

The following morning at about 9.30am we headed out on the road to Kharkhorin, about 400kn south west of Ulaan Baatar. Late in the afternoon we reached the city but continued off-road for another 3-4 hours to a place called Orkhon Khurkree. We found horses waiting for us so before dinner we rode around for an hour before pitching our tent on the large valley floor. Nearby is a large waterfall so we wandered around and marveled at our seclusion before falling asleep under the huge Mongolian sky. Later that night we could hear a herdsman riding up the valley singing in the tradition Mongolian throat singing style to himself.

 Our four wheel drive

 No roads around here

 

 With our tour guide, Timmy. 

The following morning we were greeted by a lone horseman who sat with us for a while and watched me boil some water for our morning coffee. He sat in silence for a while before handing me his identification card - he was the park ranger and he had come to collect a dollar each from us for camping overnight. After we paid him he sat and watched for a few minutes more then mounted his horse and retreated back up the valley.

Our campsite

Our driver came to collect us an hour or so later and took us to the nearest Ger camp where we were invited in for breakfast. We were shown amazing hospitality as we tried to communicate using our phrasebook and a lot of hand signals. We shared a bowl of Mutton stew but in all honesty neither of us could come close to finishing the whole thing. Before we left we gave them what little food we had (a couple of oranges) and took lots of photo's, promising to send them back to our guesthouse for our driver to deliver at some future date.

Our hosts in the middle of nowhere

The rest of the day was taken up with the Shankh and Erdene Zuu monastery's, near Kharkhorin before we headed back to the east and towards the northern tip of the Gobi. That night we slept on the sand although we were technically quite a distance from the proper desert.

Kharkhorin

Our campsite

On the last day of the tour we took a leisurely drive back, stopping to pick up a roasted marmot and take pictures of the two humped Bactrian camels. We made it back to the capital in time to meet up with a few friends to watch some of the world cup football. A hot shower was well over due and after three weeks on the road I can still count the number of times I've had one on one hand.

Some of the scenery on the lonely road back to Ulaan Baatar

Tomorrow we board the train to Beijing, further into unknown territory.