Mongol Retrospective

After we had fun at the Ger camp with the dragoman guys we headed off to a national park where as you can see from our piccies we had fun climbing up to a volcano crater. it was really spectacular and on the drive through the park you could see massive lava flows and bits of black crunchy pumice which had been flung far & wide. when we got to the top there was the ubiquitous oovo but this time we noticed offerings of money too, what a trusting society that would leave cash offerings and no-one would even consider to steal them! some of the notes are off a fairly low denomination and so we both decided that we would like any extra luck & protection from the sky gods that we can get - so we each placed a note under a rock. :o) that day we were both pretty tired having not had much sleep - we camped up the night before beside the beautiful lake which was as clear as glass but swarming with flies and watched on our temperature gauge as it plummeted down to 6 degrees before it was even dark. the little diesel heater saved the day again - and in the morning we were able to look back on the temp gauge and see that it had dropped to minus 7 during the night!! brrrr

the next port of call on our trek across mongolia was to Erdene zuu monastery - i think i am right in saying the oldest/biggest to survive the purges. when we arrived there it was early and still pretty quite. infront of the walls surrounding the actual monastery grounds were a cluster of souveneir shops and a few cafes. ads was hungry ( as per.. ) and so suggested we grab something to eat before going in. i agreed as i was a little peckish and fancied some of the usual breakfast fare of tea & steamed dumplings. well if you have been reading the blog you will know that we do not always have the best of luck when ordereing food and this time was no exception. instead of tea for one which adam asked for, the dear old lady brought out to us a huge cereal bowl of airag - aka fermented mares milk :oS adam had a sip first and then refused outright to drink anymore. we were being watched from the window by the ladies cooking our breakfast so i picked up the bowl. i ad read that mongolian families are very proud of their airag and so i was keen not to offend. as i brought the bowl to my lips no smell but a distinct greasy film on the top of the drink worried me slightly. i pause now as i type this to try to find the words to give you all an acurate desciption of the tsate of this beverage. the initial mouth sensation was fizzy - effervescent like gone off orange juice. the first flavour i would say was like sour cream, but the true horror of this drink was apparent after swallowing when you are left with the taste of dairylea & vomit in your mouth. reading back over that i still don't think i have managed to quite capture all the flavours but anyway i think you get the jist. i managed to drink half a bowl of this putrid concoction as i really dodn't want to offend - how very british of me :o) anyway our food came and it was not steamed dumplings - which are small and so adam had ordered us 5 each - but greasy deep fried dough slices stuffed with some very grisly stinky meat. i must confess i was strting to loose the will to carry on at this point! i tried to eat mine but my heart wasn't in it and my stomach was still in shock from the milk, thankfully a stray dog arrived and i flung mine at him and gave the remaining 4 to adam. all this before we even entered the monastery! Erdene zuu was great, it was cool to be able to see inside the temples and we both loved the life sized tsaam mask dancers - (see the pics of a monstrous boggly eyed thing) - and i got to hear the resident monks doing their morning cantations which was very special.
after that we headed off to look at the phallic rock - not my idea let me assure you - which points at the lady slopes of the mountain. alledgedly the monks put it there to quell certain desires of the junior monks, can't see how this would help but then i'm not a mongolian monk....


it was after this that we arrived in ulaanbataar = happy days! it took us a whole lot of effort, money & determination to get there so we went out for a few beers to celebrate. we went to a brewery pub and ordered the most enormous meal you can imagine - it was lush. potato skins, rice, salad, mongolian national dish & a massive meat platter. enough for at least 6 people. it really is famine or feast with us sometimes! it started to get fairly busy in there and two local guys asked if they could share our table. no worries. we got chatting (can't remember their names so i shall call them bill & ben) and once they had taken in the size of adam, and consumed a few more beers the arm wrestling began. somehow and even now i am still not sure - we ended up on a bit of a pub crawl with bill & ben, who were very hilarious. bill fantastic spoke english and translated for ben so he could join in. we even went back to bill's flat which was just around the corner from our hotel and when it came time to leave they walked us back via Just One More bar. i think we did a lot for anglo-mongo relations that night. good times!!


from the capital we headed down to the gobi for a few days, driving out through the sandy wilderness and finding some dunes to camp in. then we came back to UB for a day to visit the monastery there and see the giant golden budda after which we drove up to russia where you find us now.
it's a surprise to me that i have managed to write such a lucid account of the last few days as i am suffering today with hangover & homesickness. last night we went to a restaurant had a few huge beers and using the point method ordered the tiniest salad to share, followed by a piece of meat and a piece of fish that would need a bun to make it into any kind of meal - so on the way back to the hotel grabbed a couple of kebabs and had a few more beers & made friends with the owner, a hilarious guy from armenia.

off now to the supermarket then we will be leaving tomsk for the next part of our journey across russia!!