A quick recap of our trip so far:
Lake Khovsgol
With the Gobi barely behind us, we had another early start to meet Duulguun and our new driver, Tulga, for the North.
This was a MAMMOTH driving day. We were in another Russian van, this time with an excellent back seat which you could nap on. As usual, no seatbelts. We were on the road for 14 hours, ate a lot of Pringles, and reached the town of Moron (haha) by the evening.
As it happens, the town had an alcohol ban for the night, owing to the high school graduation. It’s just as well we were in no mood for a beer!
The drive continued next morning. By the early afternoon we reached the last village before the Khuvsgul lake, an enormous body of freshwater, still deeply frozen from the -50 degree winter (it was late May by this point!)
Cue the most underwhelming tourist attraction of the trip: a ferry named the “Sukhbaatar” after a Mongolian revolutionary leader. We had seen postcards of it in UB, but words cannot do justice to its banality.
On the other hand, Emily and Alex found some camel wool souvenirs, so all was not lost. Camel wool socks: coming soon to deserving recipients in the UK!
It took an hour to find accommodation; we were in the off-season. All around the lake gers were in various stages of construction. The lake itself was beautiful, still frozen and crisscrossed with tracks from sleds and Priuses (Prii?!).
We took a walk to a pebbly spit, composed entirely of perfect skimming stones. That evening Tulga cooked an amazing goat meat dinner, and we played a Hungarian version of Rummy that Alex knew from his Magyar family.
Unfortunately, Emily was suffering from “Mutton Midgut” the next day. She stayed at camp while Alex, Duulguun and Jenny went for a hike.
We passed a lot of yaks, alpine-style meadows and eventually made it to the rocky precipices towering over the lake. Jenny too was begginning to feel the effects of “Camel Colon”.
Nevertheless, we got some great views of the lake and got rid of the cobwebs from two days of solid driving. It was lightly snowing the entire day, and felt a world away from the blazing dunes of the Gobi.
Returning to camp, we saw the yak being milked and enjoyed a goat stew for dinner.
The snow continued to fall heavier overnight and next morning everything was covered in a thin layer of snow. The dangerous-even-by-ger-standards dog (nicknamed Diesel, after an old friend from Devon…) had us pretty well confined to the ger for the night. Splendid.
Tsagaan Nuur, the White Lake
Next morning we learned the meaning of pain. We were driving from Khuvsgol lake to the ‘White Lake’, with the 200km journey taking 12 hours on dirt roads.
These were a different beast to the tracks in the Gobi, which were bumpy, dry, and delineated. Here ice and meltwater had turned the path to bog, leaving boulder-fields as the preferable option.
Our driver earned himself several rounds of applause, we only got stuck and had to push the van out once.
In the fading light, one ger turned us away for lack of firewood, and a second for lack of electricity, but the third took us in. After a hearty stew, Alex and I adventurously tried the offal dumplings. They tasted like haggis, but worse. Much worse.
Next morning we took an 8km walk to some nearby caves and an extinct volcano. The volcano was an easy hike to the brim of the crater.
The afternoon drive took six hours, and epitomised much of our Northern adventure. To get much out of Mongolia, you need to commit to a lot of time the car!
Ger trespass!
We arrived at our next destination, a hot-spring, too late to bathe. We came across an unoccupied ger. The driver went inside and started cooking! What?! Can you imagine someone doing that in the UK? Even Duulguun was bemused… Were we really going to squat here without permission? Sheepishly, we followed the driver.
We were just serving out the mutton soup as, with ominous footsteps, the owner returned…
The door swung open to reveal an enormous man swathed in a brown robe and orange cotton waist belt (Mongolian traditional dress). He had a round, ruddy face and thick set black boots. Silence. For…six…long…seconds…
We looked at him. He looked at us. We looked at Duulguun. Duulguun was looking at the man. More silence.
Then Tulga cracked into a knowing smile and held out his hand to his old colleague and friend! Tulga had played a joke on us all. He knew the owner – they had been drivers together. This was his shepherding ger!
After much discussion and obstructive politeness, the mayor said he would sleep in the van with Tulga and Duulguun, while we took the ger. He held out firm against our entreaties, so ultimately we did indeed kick a guy out of his own ger.
Tsenkher Hot Springs
Next morning we made for the hot spring. Our original destination was a tourist spa, but Tulga knew of a better area away from the tourists. This was it:
Yes, a sulphurous quagmire in the middle of the steppe, which had been invaded by cattle. So much for our spa day… There was no way we were putting a toe in there…
But our bad fortune was reversed! We found a disused bathtub, scrubbed it out, and filled it with the piping hot spring water.
So there we were, luxuriating in the open air in the middle of the steppe. In turns we bathed and shoo-ed the goats and cows away, stewing in a rusty old tub, breathing in the sulphurous air.
This was one of the highlights of the trip! Just as our thoughts of spa luxury had been dashed, we experience the Mongolian style of bathing. And how much sweeter it was! The two locals who joined us added to that sense of authenticity.
Kharakhorum, the ancient capital
Feeling marvellously clean, we returned to the van and set out to the ancient Mogolian capital of Kharakorum. Established by Genghis at the turn of the 13th century and abandoned 40 years later, little remains of the city.
We walked among some nearby sand dunes (nothing compared to the Gobi) and tried to escape the attention of the dog who gave Alex a few playful but firm bites on the leg.
Back at the ger, we tried our hand at archery and played a few hands of rummy.
Tucked away in the hills near the dunes was a monastery destroyed by the communists in the distant past, and since partially restored. We visited it the next morning, before finally returning to UB.
On our way back, we had the good luck to be invited to Tulga’s house. He fed us tea, biscuits and homemade cranberry jam.
We tried snuff from his antique jade snuff box, and he sent us away with some frozen smoked herring he had caught. Alex promised to return for a fly fishing trip with him in the distant future. Quite the afternoon tea.
Eventually, we made it back to the apartment, and said our goodbyes to Tulga and Duulguun without whom we could never have had such an incredible trip!
The second chapter of our adventure had drawn to a close. We had one last day to suck the marrow from UB, before boarding the Trans-Mongolian express to Beijing!
The Mongolia Ambulance Project 