The Other Side of the World

Main road – Lost – Darkhan

Not much to say about the last day.  We had leftover goat for breakfast, packed up and were on the road by 10am.  We made a brief stop on the main road to Ulaanbaatar where the driver told us to get anything we might want for the rest of the day because we would not be stopping again.  After the hellish driving conditions he went through the day before, I imagine he was ready to get home.

In order to avoid the traffic jam that is UB, they decided to cut across country (using dirt roads, of course) at a diagonal toward Bayanchandmani.  We got lost.  Not by far, just a few km.  It was a beautiful place to be lost, green rolling hills, blue sky. We stopped for a bit of a gnosh.  After, we drove over to the nearest ger and asked for directions.  The woman there put us on the right path and we met up with the main road between UB and Darkhan rather quickly.

We arrived back in Darkhan in the mid-afternoon.  I was looking forward to a shower, relaxing on my couch and watching a movie.  This was not to be my future.  I hadn’t even made it my door, backpack still on, hands full of sleeping bag, pillow, bottle of water, when I was accosted (pleasantly) by my next door neighbor and the neighbor who lives below me.  Through hand motions and my broken Mongolian, I figured out that my apartment had sprung a leak and was dripping into the downstairs neighbors apartment.  Shit.

I got my door unlocked and the three of us entered expecting to see disaster.  I unloaded all my gear in my bedroom and went to the living room. The floor was covered in water, the 9′ x 6′ oriental rug was sodden.  The radiator had sprung a leak.  The silver-lining is that it had only started to drip in the downstairs neighbors the day before and she had already started a remodeling project so the wallpaper had already been stripped from the walls.  Essentially no damage was done, at least none that my school (who owns my apartment) would need to pay for.  My rug saved the day.  The rug that now weighed an absolute ton and needed to be removed from my apartment so that I could start getting the rest of the water off the floor.  I managed to roll it up and push/pull it out onto the porch.  Plumbers were called, a large pot was put under the drip, I moved all the furniture and ruined all but one towel sopping up the copper-colored water from the floor.  I couldn’t unroll the rug and lift it onto the porch railing to dry, it was far too heavy.  So, it stayed in a heap overnight. The next day when the plumbers came I asked them to open it up for me and toss it over the railing.  They were very helpful.

I’m glad this didn’t happen in the middle of winter.  The water from the radiator would have been scalding and the rug never would have dried outside.  It would have just frozen into a solid rug-cicle till spring thaw.  Nothing in my apartment was destroyed, I sacrificed a few towels.  Really, for a busted, leaking radiator – things could have been much worse.

To use the overused adage – all’s well that ends well.  I eventually got my shower and even watched a movie that night.

Waterfall – Hailstorm – Kharkhorin

Goat for breakfast! We finished cooking the goat this morning and had a lovely breakfast gnawing meat from bones, eating greasy potato chunks with our fingers and  using bread to wipe the grease from our faces and hands, then eating the bread.

The ground was practically dry after last night’s thunderstorm.  It just soaked up all that water like a sponge.  We waited around for a little while to let the bottom of the tents dry out before packing them up.  With that and the goat roasting we got a late start; leaving camp around 11am.

After about 2 hours of travel over a very rocky field (so the travel was very slow) we arrived at one of the very few waterfalls in Mongolia, Ulaan Tsutgalan.  It is dry for most of the year but July & August are the best times to see it.  “When it does run, the roads leading to it are often washed out, making transport here very difficult.  Even in dry weather the road is pretty rough. (Lonely Planet)”

As we were pulling in to the parking area, thunder was rumbling in the distance.  Storm clouds were moving in and we knew we had a very short period to see the waterfall without getting rained on.  Not wanting to get soaked and then have to sit in the mikr, I rushed ahead of the group, took in the scenic beauty, snapped a few pictures, hit the outhouse and went back to the mikr.  I was only one of three who took this approach.  Everyone else wanted to hike to the bottom of the gorge and then back up.  I sat in the mikr and read as the thunderstorm turned into a hailstorm.

Once everyone was back and loaded up, the driver decided to get on the road; with the windows fogged up, rain lashing down, and hail pelting us.  This was the only time during the trip that I was truly frightened.  As LP said, the road is pretty rough even in good weather.  At one point the driver tried to get up a short, yet steep incline four times; each time we slid backwards at a 45 degree angle and my side of the mikr was the side that would have hit the ground first had we toppled over.  Time to pop a xanax.

The xanax did not kick in before we had to cross a river 4 TIMES because that’s the way the road zagged.  The water was so high and running so fast that you could feel it trying to push the mikr downstream.  Did I mention – terrified. But really I have to give props to our driver.  He got us through some areas that were more treacherous than when I drove my little Hyundai up the washed-out mountain road to Silver City, Idaho.

The storm did finally pass and after several hours of travel we made it into Kharkhorin around 7pm.  Kharkhorin is the ancient capital of Mongolia and is home to the first Buddhist temple in Mongolia, Erdene Zuu  (more info on the ancient capital here and the monastery here).  As we arrived so late in the day, the main temples of the monastery were closed but we were able to walk around the grounds.

Outside of the main entrance to the monastery is a long row of food tents and in front of those tents, pandering to tourists, were a couple of people selling the opportunity to hold an eagle and get your photo taken.  I had never held an eagle, so I did the tourist thing.  I also paid for two of my Mongolian friends to do this as well.  I needed compatriots in my act of blatant tourism.  It cost more for me, 2000 tgks as opposed to 1000 tgks for natives, which only totaled $3.50 altogether.

This was a good end to a harrowing day of travel.  We drove into the night towards Ulaanbaatar and stopped to camp along the roadside at around 10:30pm.  The next day was the last day of the trip; all driving towards home.

NW of Khujirt – Bat-Olzii – Tövkhön Khiid

This was a beautiful morning.  I was the first one up at 7:30 and went for a walk up to these white rock formations in the hill overlooking our camp.  I spent an hour up there, reading and watching the sun move up over the hills. Slowly the camp roused and I could tell it would be a leisurely morning before we got on the road.  I think the guys needed it after dealing with the mikr repairs yesterday.

We got on the road around 10:30 headed toward Bat-Olzii. One of the best friends I’ve made so far in Peace Corps used to live in Bat-Olzii.  She was medically separated from PC in May, but thankfully she is on the mend and close to medical care in the states and not a 10 hour ride from medical facilities in UB.  So, it was bittersweet driving into her soum without her there.

On the way into Bat-Olzii we stopped at a ‘scenic overlook’ to view the river winding its way through the countryside down below us.  I could hardly pay attention to the beauty around me because of being swarmed by flies.  I don’t mean 5-10 flies were annoying me by buzzing around.  I mean hundreds of flies were driving me to distraction, I’m lucky I didn’t fall off the overlook from all the gesticulating and swatting I was doing.

Bat-Olzii is in the Khangai Nuruu National Park which covers a very large area of land and is composed of rolling hills, mountains, a large river, trees, rocky plains, and is just plain gorgeous.  Green, green land and blue, blue sky.  We stopped in B-Olzii to refuel, both the mikr and ourselves, and to get directions to Tövkhön Khiid.

Bat-Olzii

Next we headed to Tövkhön Khiid.  I’ll let Lonely Planet tell you about it – “Hidden deep in the Khangai mountains, this incredibly scenic monastery has become a major pilgrimage centre for Mongolians seeking spiritual solace. Zanabazar founded the site in 1653 and lived, worked and meditated here for 30 years. The monastery was destroyed in 1937 but rebuilt with public funds in the early 1990s. Situated at the tope of Shireet Ulaan Uul, Zanabazar apparently liked the unusual formation of the peak; the rocky outcrop looks like an enormous throne.”  It also warns – “Swarms of flies will probably plague your ascent; wrap a t-shirt, bandana or towel around your head to keep them away.”  That doesn’t work, btw.

Tövkhön Khiid on the left mountain top

There is a parking lot at the base of the mountain that is a 3k walk from the monastery.  All uphill of course.  Renting a horse for the trek is an option.  An option that I should have taken.  I made it about 2.5k up and then had an exercise-induced asthma attack, which have gotten worse since coming to Mongolia.  My inhaler was not in my pocket, cuz I’m an idiot.  So, I went back down and did not make it to the top.  My traveling companions took many pictures so I got to see what I missed and I will be going back.  I’ll make sure I have my inhaler in my pocket then.  Here’s a pic of the woods we walked through.

so different from where I was two days before this

We left T-K around 5:45 and drove back towards B-Olzii.  We stopped at a ger we had passed on the way to T-K and negotiated a price for a goat. The Korean man traveling with us wanted to have a khuurkhug one of the nights we camped and he said he would pay for the goat.   A khuurkhug is kind of like a goat roast but the goat is cut into chunks and put into a large metal canister with rocks that have been heated in the fire as well as potatoes and onions.  Then the canister is put in the fire.  It’s delicious!

These two guys road down to our campsite by the river with the goat on the motorcycle. One guy to drive the bike, one guy to hold the goat.

Dinner

After killing the goat and removing the innards (almost all to be used later – we gave them to the family that provided the goat because of the time it takes to prepare the innards), the feet and head are removed, then the hide is blow-torched off. Once thoroughly blow-torched, the goat is then cut into chunks to be cooked in the canister. This process takes awhile.

Meanwhile, a storm was blowing in.  Lots of lightning, big thunder, dark skies, and wind so strong it blew one of the tents down.  Two of us stayed in our tent to hold it down but it was being bent sideways by the wind. I was certain the poles were going to break. Thankfully they didn’t. And we managed to stay dry!  It was a successful camping in a thunderstorm.  Alas, the goat did not finish cooking that night.  So, we had goat for breakfast the next day.  But that’s tomorrow’s story…

NW of Khankhongor – Lost – Ongiin Khiid – Arvaikheer

As planned, we were up early, 5:30am early. After a quick breakfast of tea, bread, stewed vegetable spread, and boov, we packed up camp and were on the road before 7am.  Traveling north towards Ovorhangai aimag the land flattened out, the roads crisscrossed the terrain and we saw many camel.  Then we got lost. Here. Yes, that is our ‘road’ in the foreground.

This was just before 10am.  We soon saw a motorcyclist approaching in the distance and flagged him down.  They told us that we were not on the right road to Mandal Oboo and in fact we were several km NE of there but if we cut across country in a westerly direction we would connect with the road that would take us to our actual destination of Ongiin Khiid.  So, only a couple of hour detour. But hey, we saw lots of camels!

Ongiin Khiid is a complex of two ruined monasteries the lie on the banks of the Ongiin Gol (river).  On the north bank are the ruins of Barlim Khiid with the Khutagt Khiid on the south.  “A contingent of 13 monks has set up shop amid the ruins, completing a new temple in 2004” (Lonely Planet)  I would love to have spent more time here exploring the area and the ruins on both sides of the river.  Unfortunately, due to the unplanned camel sight-seeing detour, we only got to spend about 15 minutes looking over the ruins.

We left Ongiin Khiid and drove to the small soum of Saikhan Ovoo about 10km away. There we found a zoognii gazar (small café) and sat down to some tasty tsuivan.  I ordered a half-order and almost couldn’t finish it.  The full-orders were huge!  And it was some damn tasty tsuivan, too.  Of course, the food was prepared from scratch so our lunch break took 2 hours out of the day.  We got back on the road around 3:30pm.  About 30km outside of town the driver hit a pothole very hard.  So hard that he immediately pulled over to see what damage was done to the vehicle.  Roadside repairs were necessary.  My language skills are not good enough to discuss car repairs or even to ask what’s wrong with car and what the degree of seriousness was.  Tools were pulled out, blocks of wood to jack the van up on, the left front tire came off, and the men gathered around deciding how to fix the problem. This is where we were – 30 km in either direction to the nearest town.

After about an hour of tinkering and tying up things with rope, the driver said we could get back on the road again to Arvaikheer, still 90km away.  Phone calls were made, I assumed to procure the parts we needed to do the full repair of whatever was broken on the mikr.  We pulled into Arvaikheer around 9pm, parked in a lot behind a supermarket and waited for someone to deliver the part we needed to fix the mikr. It turned out that the driver had a relative in AvK who said we could stay in their hasha for the night.  Mongolians are such wonderful welcoming people.  The eleven of us showed up to these people’s house at 10:30 at night, they welcomed us with open arms, had us sit in the living room to rest, brought out a bucket of airag, then a bottle of vodka, then a bowl of candy; meanwhile, the wife was in the kitchen cooking us a meal.  By 11:30 I was full and a little tipsy.  Perfect time to go to sleep.  The women slept in the house and the men put up the big tent in the yard and slept there.  This family even kept their dog tied because Dagii had told them that I was afraid of dogs.  It was a good end to a very long day of travel.

Hell – Yolin Am – NW of Khankhongor

By 6am it was near boiling hot in the tent. That’s what it’s like to wake up in the Gobi. There is no shade. It is all sun, all the time. Hot, hot, hot. Have I mentioned that I’m not a hot weather woman? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not actually complaining about this great vacation I got to take. I’m just REALLY glad I don’t live there. Not much happened this morning, just waiting. Hours of waiting. Slathered in sunscreen, trying to scrunch into the 5 inches of shade provided by the mikr. Waiting in the hot morning sun of the Gobi. Waiting and heat, two of my least favorite things. Okay, I may be complaining a little.

We were waiting for part of our group that had stayed with friends of theirs in DZ the night before. They were also charged with doing the resupply; stocking up on water and food supplies. They were also told that we wanted to get on the road to Yolin Am around 10am. I spent the morning reading, chasing tiny desert lizards around, watching a goat & sheep herd move through (I have no idea what they eat, it’s not like there was grass), and staying in what little shade the mikr provided. Our missing members showed up at 11:40. We quickly repacked the mikr and took off for Yolin Am.

Yolin Am, which means ‘vulture’s mouth’, is a “valley in the middle of the Gobi desert, with metres-thick ice for most of the year.” Ice in the desert? Hell hath frozen over. This valley and gorge is 46km from DZ but because of the rough terrain it takes about 2 hours to get there. We arrived at 1:30 and the scenery is so dramatically different from the flat desert vistas we had been in, it is truly breathtaking.

A 2km walk down this valley leads to the gorge where there is thick ice nearly year round. As it was June 30th and hot as hell in the surrounding desert (although pleasantly warm with a cooler breeze in this valley), I was convinced there wouldn’t be any ice left. How wrong I was. Not only was there ice, but there was a large amount of it wending its way back through the gorge. Anywhere from .5 meter to a couple of meters thick in some places.

Yolin Am is a truly amazing place and a must see if you ever go to Mongolia. We stayed in this valley just chilling out for several hours. Lounging in the grass with 100s of Pallas’s Pika. They were everywhere!

We headed out of the valley in the early evening and drove for a couple more hours NW. We stopped early, around 7:30, which was great after the first two nights of traveling into the night before stopping. Dagii and her husband cooked up a delicious dinner for us, buddatai huurg, (rice, veggies, meat, & spices.) Everyone turned in pretty early as the next day was going to be a long day of driving and the driver wanted to get a very early start (think get up at 5am, on the road by 6:30.)

One more pic of the valley.

Lost to Dalanzagdag

Daylight starts creeping over the horizon at about 4:30am here. This is when I woke up, thankfully I was able to go back to sleep for an hour. By 6am most of the campers were up and moving.  Camels were on the horizon and moving closer.  I yelled “naashur!” at them but they didn’t heed my command (naashur means ‘come here’). Tea was made as well as a breakfast of noodle soup.  Fresh, not leftover from last night’s dinner.  A nomadic denizen of this particular area of the middle-Gobi rode up on his motorcycle and had some breakfast with us.  He also gave us proper directions to Sum Khok Burd, which was indeed 30km east.  Either everything is only 30km away at all times or we were driving in a very wide arc in an easterly direction.

We piled into the mikr by 8:30am and about an hour later arrived at Sum Khok Burd.  I’ll let Lonely Planet tell you about it: “The temple Sum Khok Burd, which sits on an island in the middle of a tiny lake, was built in the 10th century. remarkably, the temple was built from rocks that can only be found more than 300km away. It was abandoned and in ruins a few centuries after being built.  Three hundred years ago a palace was built here, and 150 years later the writer Danzan Ravjaa built a stage on top of the ruins. ….  The lake itself, Sangiin Dalai Nuur, only encircles the palace after heavy rains; at other times you can slog through the mud to the palace.  There is good bird-watching here: various species of eagle, goose, and swan come to the spring-fed lake in summer and autumn. …. Because of its remote location There is no hope of getting here on public transport or by hitching”.  This last statement is right on.  But we made it none-the-less and it was worth the trip.

The lake was pretty dry so we didn’t have to slog through mud, although the mikr did get stuck and had to be pushed out of some muck.  There were swans, and eagles, and lots of seagulls.  I always find it odd when I see seagulls so far inland from any type of sea.  Here’s some pics of the place.

We left Sum Khok Burd and headed for Bag Gazryn Chuluu, granite rock formations in the middle of the dusty plains.  This was some rough riding and at one point as the mikr headed up a steep incline it became suddenly necessary for everyone but the driver to get out of the mikr so he could make it up this rocky incline.  Yeah, I was glad to get out and walk.  Our driver was excellent though and had nerves of steel.  I’ve taken my little Hyundai on some roads that were built for 4-wheel drive only but some of the terrain this man had to drive through was not for the faint of heart and even I got nervous a few times.  We cruised around Bag Gazryn Chuluu for a short while, got out and hiked a bit, met some locals who were training their racing horses for upcoming Naadam races.  I learned a Mongolian superstition – if you let your shadow cross unhatched eggs in a nest, the mother will not be able to recognize her eggs and will abandon them.  I learned this because while having a squat I saw a lone egg in the brush and took a picture of it.  When I returned to the mikr, one of my travel companions in a very worried tone asked if I had let my shadow cross the egg.  “No” was what I told her, but I honestly don’t know if it did or not.  Now I know to pay more attention to where my shadow falls…

The rest of the day was spent riding in the mikr. For hours. Like 10 hours.  We drove to Mandalgov, had a quick lunch in a tsainii gazar, bought supplies, gassed up and then headed into the south Gobi and to Dalanzagdag.  We stopped about an hour north of Tsogt Ovoo for a tea break. When the mikr door opened it was as if the door to an oven had been opened.  Or imagine a  hair dryer turned on high-heat blowing full-force over your entire body.  It was f’ing HOT! Definitely some of the hottest weather I’ve ever been in.  Not my cup of tea.  I’m a cold weather girl.  Snow, negative temps, bring it on.  The heat makes me want to lash out at anything that touches me, my clothes become sources of irritation, the air itself is annoying.  Thankfully, I knew this was only a temporary trip to the Gobi and I was able to look at the heat as a wonderment and amazing thing.  It’s a good thing my friend Joe was placed in DZ because he loves the heat; this is the place for him.  I would wither and die if my site were in the Gobi.  I’m so happy to be placed in the North of the country.  Anyhow, we rolled in to DZ around 10pm, found a place to set up camp, made a quick dinner and slept.  At least it cools down in the desert at night.

Darkhan to Lost

Eleven people and all of our camping gear packed ourselves into a micro-bus; hereafter referred to as ‘mikr’, at 9am on the 28th of June.  The eleven were composed of myself, 8 Mongolians (teachers from my university), a Korean KOICA volunteer, and our Mongolian driver. I knew two of the teachers fairly well and the rest were acquaintances, soon to become friends.

Our destination that day was Soum Khok Burd, a 10th century temple ruin that a palace had been built upon 300 years ago.  We didn’t get that far.  We traveled over mostly smooth roads south to UB, then we headed south out of UB into Tov aimag and then into Dundgov aimag.  Spirits were high, everyone was excited to be on vacation. Then we got lost. In the middle-Gobi. It’s easy to get lost.  There are NO road signs and the roads themselves are one-lane dirt tracks that criss-cross each other in every direction.  As the topography smooths out to flat desert and endless horizon it becomes difficult (nay impossible) to travel by landmarks.

So, we spotted a ger in the distance, crossed our fingers that someone was home and not out tending their herd, and drove over to it to ask directions.  Someone was home. Yay!  We were told to travel for 30km in an easterly direction.  So, we drove. No roads necessary. Traveling cross-county now. We drove for about 40 minutes. Then there was a ger in the distance, we stopped, they said go east for about 30km.  As the sun was setting it was pretty easy to determine where East was. So, we drove. Cross-county for about 40 minutes.  Then there was a ger in the distance, we stopped, they said go east for about 30km.  Everyone in the mikr busted in riotous laughter.  We decided to drive a little further, then about 9pm we stopped and camped for the night, still not knowing where we were exactly but with the hopes that in the morning we would be able to travel 30km in an easterly direction and find the soum we were looking for.

My travel partners cooked up a delicious noodle soup over a camp fire. We ate, drank a little vodka, looked at a waxing gibbous moon and more stars than I could count, then I slept like a rock.  Pic of our camp the next morning.