Holiday in Mongolia: Part 1

After years of thinking about it and months of planning we finally arrive in Mongolia! Adventure here we come!

Flying into Ulaanbaatar we got a taster view of the steppes, rivers and mountains that were waiting for us. At the airport we succeeded in haggling the pushy (unofficial) taxi drivers down to a reasonable price, jumped in the back of a local's car and headed into UB to meet our next Couch Surfing host. Catherine's apartment, in a Russian style block, seemed enormous compared to the places we'd stayed in China, and she kindly even let us have the double room and gave us a rundown on what to look out for in UB. We also met Chinggis Khan, her rescued cat, who is very playful and has bucket loads of character - and some sharp claws to go with it!

We then headed out into UB to get our bearings and find some food. Wow, definite culture shock after China! The Mongolian people didn't stare at us openly like the Chinese but we felt like we were being "cased" instead, we'd been warned about the prevalance of pickpocketing in UB so we kept a tight hold of everything. In summer the UB people make the most of the warmer weather (it gets down to -40c in winter) and do all the outdoor fixing up so there was building, renovating and holes everywhere. We wussed out on trying Mongolian food our first day and decided to get some French food, there are heaps of international options in UB and it seems the locals like the international fare as well.

We spent our first few days in UB doing some research on tours and things to do for our next month. I'd seen a very well priced 10 day tour out to Central Mongolia (west of UB) advertised on the Couch Surfing website with a local guy and his class of Mongolian Geography students. It seemed a great opportunity to save some money, get to know some locals and have an experienced guide so we met the guide, Kishig, and his wife Oogii and decided to go ahead with it. We also checked out the local history museum which was surprisingly professional and interesting with lots of info on the different minority groups, stone and bronze age artifacts plus info on more recent history such as the purging (murdering) of Buddhist monks.

Takhi boys

Our first booked tour was a two day trip out to the Khustai NP to see the wild Takhi (Przewalski) horse. Just an overnight trip to fill in the time before our bigger trip to Central Mongolia and also to get out of UB into the countryside! Our driver didn't speak much English so substituted with some German and Russian as well - he pointed out the UB abbatoirs on our way out of town, "Sheep, kaput!", hilarious. We saw our first herds of horses, sheep and goats and lots of Ger. We even saw a family on the move with everything packed onto their wagon, and all the livestock in tow, definitely nomadic. When we reached the NP we picked up an english speaking guide and headed to where the Takhi were, we spotted lots of fat marmot on the way - they are so comical when they run, surprisingly fast but totally ridiculous looking. We saw a couple of Takhi in the distance and then stopped for pictures of a group of three young males. They have been reintroduced into the wild as they actually became extinct in Mongolia, luckily there were still zoo Takhi left and the reintroduction is going well with new foals every year. They are definitely different from domestic horses - the Takhi is the predecessor to the horses we know now.

Although we would have liked to see more Takhi it was time to head to a local nomadic family's ger for our homestay. We jumped back into the little Festiva and bumped along the dirt roads to their place, a lovely spot on top of a hill, with livestock milling around the ger. We had some of the local salty milk tea (urrrgh) and met the family (no English, but friendly enough). We were surprised to see that the head of the house only had one leg - he still rode both horse and motorbike with no problems though, adaptation and making do is pretty big in Mongolia! It was cool to see the guys bring in their herd of about 15 horses, they soon beckoned us over to go for a ride. Check out the Mongolian saddle that we had to ride on, not comfortable thats for sure!

Yak, running away from our cross country car!

All was going beautifully on our ride, another gorgeous Mongolian evening, marmots running into their holes, local livestock in the distance and gers spotting the hills - pretty much my dreams of Mongolia come true! All until my horse decided to lie down on the job, with me still on board... long story short the situation ended with me dragged down the hill by the stirrup, bruised, cut, scraped and lucky to be alive! After steeling my nerves and getting back on a horse to be led back to the Ger by the horseman, Tim and I decided that the best course of action was to head back to UB for some hospital attention. Our driver seemed reluctant to go, which seemed odd at the time but when we hit the traffic going into UB we realised why - public holiday on the next day meant a huge influx of people, not a good time for driving. Drawn out bouncing and jouncing not so good with injuries!

The BAD horse, with
Mongolian saddle

Eventually we made it to the local emergency hospital, and a doctor (nice guy, spoke ok english) checked me out, decided i wasn't terminal, and nurses cleaned and sterilised the massive graze on my back, which was full of dirt and tiny stones - an experience I never want to have to go thru again, talk about pain. I'm so glad Tim was there or i think i would have run out and not come back. When they finished i turned around to find about 10 Mongolian nurses standing behind me, i think they all came in to see what the wussy white lady was groaning about! The driver dropped us back to Catherine's who Tim had called to explain the situation - it was midnight so lucky we had somewhere safe and comfortable to head to.

So our start to adventuring in Mongolia didn't end too well! But as i am writing this from Borneo, post Mongolia, i can tell you that things do get better... sort of. (see what i did there, suspense! Tune in next installment... )