We just had our extension of our visa until 1 November and managed to apply for our Chinese visum. With a fake plane ticket and a reservation on hostelworld.com is it very easy.
Yesterday we came back from our first real encounter with the real Mongolian life.
In the hostel where we stayed over I asked where we could learn horse riding for 10 days and he sended us to his parents in law. They live somewhere in between Ulan Bataar and the ancient city Kara Korim, 4 hours by bus from UB.
Our hostelowner Gan told the busdriver to stop somewhere specific and over there we had to walk straight to the south. Once arrived there was standing a tourist in the middle of nowhere called Lucas. A nice guy who could tell us Mongolians are also very eager to get dollars and dare even to leave you in the freezing cold if you don't pay some imaginary price to get a ride. Anyway, he was hitch-hiking through Mongolia.
We were heavy lauded with vegetables, vodka, chocolate, bread,... walking six kilometer on a field with scattered bones, earth and grass, with burning sun is not really a pleasure. Gan told us there was a jeep looking for us, but we didn't see one. Finally we arrived at two gers with a family who were busy with making a filth cover for one ger. I called Gan with my Mongolian number and let him talk to them. He arranged they would bring us to our hosts. So they put our luggage and the two of us, plus driver on one motorcycle for a ride of ten minutes for the price of 5000 T.
Once arrived we were welcomed by the family and the parents in law greeted us with on sniff(like a horse kiss) on each cheek. We gave a bottle of vodka, as prescribed and some chocolate.
We installed our tent next to the ger and wandered around.
It was a amazing place! Beautiful hills, dessert, big fields, a river, horses(auto), cheeps(hun)and goats(yama).
We got to know the Mongolian food, and it is really bad. The horse milk they manage to screw up totally by letting it fermenting and the goat milk they dilute with boiled water and some salt and herbs. It is drinkable, but the old couple was very unhygienic and as a consequence we were very soon a bit upset in the stomach. They ate only rice with a potatoes mixed with cheep, or self made noodles with potatoes/carrots with cheep. They just boil all the stuff with some salt and that's it. Very greasy and very salty. If its not finished, they serve it the next day as breakfast with sand(because the sand flies in the ger) and loads off flyshit. After four days we didn't accept anything but boiled water from them because I had diarrhea and Saartje was all the time nauseous. We could use our vegetables and all the other stuff we luckily brought.
Next to that we had also great experiences off course. We learned horse riding a bit(not as much as we had hoped, but anyway). We crossed the fields with it, we herded cheeps, goats and horses and even climbed a rocky mountain with it(super irresponsible0, but we survived, although with fright.
We learned how they milk horses and helped, we learned how they milk goats and helped, we learned with what they make fire and helped, we learned were they got water and helped, we learned how they slaughter goats and cheeps and helped and we learned how they manage to live with all the stuff the animals and nature gives them. It is amazing, I have the greatest respect for it and I must admit I can't do it, nor stand the simplicity of there life, which is on the other hand very complex of course. Off course maybe if I could speak there language it would be more easy and I could have some intellectual pleasure to understand more and learn more and have some chit chat.
On the mountain we had the pleasure to see the game between the sparrows, the crows, the falcon, the eagles and the many vultures. It was fascinating and downhill there was a dead cow which they were eating.
We witnessed and perished the strength of the Mongolian wind which can change the climate so fast and bring a sandstorm, followed with snow and freezing temperatures coming from 30 degrees Celsius by day. So it took us by surprise at night our tent collapsed and we had to rush out holding everything we could hold, throwing it into the ger. Everything covered with sand: teeth, eyes, nose,....we were frightened and our hosts were laughing. I only lost my sunglasses and one leg protector for horse riding.
The beautiful sky colors you can see a bit on the pictures, the night sky is incredible and above all we saw some miracle. The sun had set, many stars were at the sky and suddenly there was a bright white cloud. But soon we saw it was concentric moving and widening, more direction the west until it covered half of the sky and became so transparent it was not more visible. It was astonishing. I wrote a mail to the KMI in the hope they can explain what we saw.
It's a pity it had to end with a bad feeling off being looked at as a dollar sign, as they tried to sell a dress to Saartje in a way it was not proper and they were asking for money on a way like we had bothered them a whole week, while we had the feeling we had helped them a lot and were willing them to pay them anyway. So we were quiet angry when we left, but it ceased the further we drove from them.
For putting us back into balance we went eating vegetarian in Ulan Bataar after we visited the cinema for enjoying 'District 9' in English.
So far our adventure,
now we are arranging our tour for about 30 days through Mongolia.
Keep in touch
love
Simon and Saartje
Oh yeah, Buddhist monks play here shoot-them-ups. ;)
