Central Mongolian Trek...part 2

Day 2....
We woke up early for day 2 as Baira was going to take us to see an important monastery complex at 10, and we wanted to get some hill hiking done beforehand. It was another beautiful day and we had heard about a so-called turtle rock that lay on top of one of the surrounding hills. We figured out which way to go with the help of our ger 'home'.

The entrance of the ger always faces south and our guide book had explained the turtle rock's location in reference to the monastery. We headed off in hopes of a successful 'treasure hunt'. We passed many rocks in different shapes that could have been the one we were looking for, but we quickly deemed our hunt as unimportant as the views provided as much satisfaction as a hill climb could give. After a while though we started to see some vans parked in a remote hilltop and decided to investigate. As we approached we saw many mongolian women selling souvenirs and knew we had found the spot. The rock is carved in the shape of a turtle, with many blue buddhist flags, vodka bottles and horse skulls left nearby as 'gifts'. We took a few pictures and headed back down to the van and a waiting Baira.

The monastery was quite old and important, however most of the original structures had been destroyed by the communits during the 'purge'. The ones that remained were mostly restructered, but our free guide did a good job of giving us a wide range of info about the different incarnations of Buddha, and the symbols that i would see over the next 3 months in other temples.

We stopped for a mid-morning ice-cream to combat the 90 degree heat and jumped back in the van for the drive toward tsetserleg, about 200 km away.
Once again we chatted away in the van, often staring out the windows, admiring the sights...all of a sudden Sandro pleaded Baira to stop the car immediately, with loud shouts of 'stop, stop, now, stop'. Sandro had had a bad stomach since arriving from Beijing, and I figured he needed an emergency bathroom break. Instead he had spotted a sight on the side of the road that blows me away even to this day. There were two freshly severed horse heads sitting about 10 feet from the road. Sitting calmly by their side was a 2 foot tall eagle, swiveling it's head side to side, either deciding how to start his meal or searching for other birds from which he might have to defend his find. Welcome to Mongolia, I thought.

We asked Baira why horses would have had their heads cut-off, and he had no answer for us. Horses seem to be the most sacred creature in all of Mongolia, and this sight seemed way out of place, but it will have to remain a mystery. Maybe it's better that way.
After a dollar lunch of Khuurshuur(mutton pancakes) and potato and carrot salad and a few hours of driving we arrrived at our second camp in the town of tsertserleg.

After dropping off our bags the 5 of us took a walk into the town center, along the way receiving many a 'hi-ya' from the local towns children. The highlight of the town is a buddhist temple on the top of a hill at the north end of the town. A long moderately steep stair case led us to the temple and a very tall statue of buddha that stood in front of a beautiful rocky cliff as a backdrop.

Bjorn and i took a climb up the rocks, half way up the cliff, and looked out on another stunning view. The town of Tsetserleg surrounded by iconic mongolian hills.

After a stop at an internet cafe...10 cents an hour, we stopped in a local bar for a cheap beer served by pre teen girls listening contently to Britney Spears songs....and thought...globalistaion has arrived in Mongolia, and it's not pretty....:)

Central mongolian trek...Part 1

August 1st....After a day of wandering around the city center of Ulan Baatar, visiting the ganden monastery for opening prayers; walking through suhkbaatar square admiring the statue of Genghis Khan; avoiding crazy drivers; I felt i had seen enough of UB and was ready to head out into the magical Mongolian countryside.

Sandro, Bjorn and I awoke early in the morning to prepare our bags for our 9 day trek, that would include trips to the ancient capitol of Khorkhorin, the White Lake, Khovsgal Lake, a volcano, and a gorge. These were some of the places listed on the itinerary for which we paid $25 a day. $25 that would buy us our transportation (a russian van from the early 90's), our driver (a soft spoken Mongolian named Baira), our accomadation(authentic Mongolian ger tents), and 3 meals a day. But it was the unexpected experiences that would truly define the trip.
Day 1: At about 7:30 am, Sandro, Bjorn and I headed down stairs to load our gear into the van, where we met our driver Baira, a man who said little but smiled lots. At this point we were joined by the two other people who would complete our group. Yu mi and So yung, 2 girls who were from the same city in Korea but had only met the day before in their hostel. Our first stop was the supermarket for supplies...the absolute essentials....water, instant noodles, and snickers bars. Our second stop was at the gas station, to load up the van and emergency cannisters. Towns are few and far between in mongolia, running out of gas is not a good situation to find yourself in. It was soon half past 9 and we were finally free of the UB traffic jams and out on the open road....which would quickly turn from concrete to dirt and grass.

There is only one real paved highway in Mongolia, built by the russians during the years of their communist influence, the rest of the time well built vans and jeeps attempt to follow the ruts left behind by their predecessors.
As we hit the open road, we got to know eachother a little bit better, sharing brief summaries of our life stories, while staring out the window at the vastness of the plateau. Every so often hearing Baira honk the horn to scare a herd of some animal out of the road...sometimes goats, sometimes sheep, sometimes horses, all of which quickly obliged.

The cows, however, caring little about the risk of being struck, and stubburn as they were, forced us to kindly go around them.
One of the great views from the van were the countless birds of pray that circled over head. Eagles, hawks, falcons and the occasional vulture all searching for their next meal, generally the small rodents that popped in and out of tiny holes that dotted the fields. Sometimes it seemed that they were following our path, gliding along directly over us, like dolphins follow boats in the sea.
Our first day was also the longest drive. 8 hours. Which brought us to the town of Khorkorin. A small town built on the location of Genghis Khan's ancient capitol which disappered long ago. It was about half past 4 when we arrived at our first night's camp. We were warmly greeted in english by our first host and shown to our ger. After being advised that our dinner would be served at 6:30, we looked at the amzing rolling green hills that surrounded us, and calculated which one we would be able to reach and return from in the 2 hours we were afforded. We strapped on our walking shoes and headed to enjoy a simply stunning panorama.

The path we took led us up a small hill then down a surprisingly deep valley that had been hidden from our sight by the incredibly deceiving landscape; up a second hill; down a second valley; then finally up to the peak we had pre-selected as our destination. There we found a series of ovoo, piles of stones created by buddhist monks to serve as holy sites, each with a worn away path encircling it, as it is customary to walk around it in a clockwise motion 3 times.

At most of these monuments, pilgrims had left behind small gifts to the buddha...small denominations of money, tiny bottles of vodka, and some random items such as crutches, old shoes and even animal skulls.
The monuments caught our interest, but it was the stunning views that captured our attention. Green hills and forrested mountains under a bright blue endless sky. Breath taking, awe-inspiring, choose any cliche adjective.

We could have stayed there for hours admiring the scene. But dinner time was closing in and we didn't want to offend our host but most importantly we were eager for our first home-cooked Mongolian meal. Arriving at the camp we met our host's 9 year old daughter who was playing a form of dodgeball with her friends.

We, being young at heart, asked to join them and they happily accepted. Another easy lesson of how many similarities can be found between 2 cultures that seem so different. We sat down in our ger for a nice meal of Mongolian mutton dumplings and played cards until midnight. It would be the latest we stayed up throughout the trip...