Stories from my Sabbatical

Before I tell you all about my Epic first week in Mongolia I will give you a brief recap of my train journey into the country and my first border crossing. The train that goes to Mongolia is actually a Chinese train that runs the whole route from Moscow to Beijing. The main difference between the Russian and Chinese trains are the fact that, at least with this particular route, there are no third class sleeper carriages, only first and second. So I had a nice surprise when I boarded the train to find that not only was I in a second class carriage with proper sleeper compartments, but that I also had the whole four bed compartment to myself (the perks of travelling in off season!). As I was getting myself comfortable a little visitor appeared in the shape of a very friendly three year old Mongolian child. We made faces at each other (she didn’t speak English) and then she disappeared next door where her mum was, only to reappear a few seconds later to make more faces before disappearing again. This happened a few more times, one of which I presented her with a hand drawn picture of Mickey Mouse (thanks Mum passing on that skill), she once again disappeared and returned seconds later to say "thank you". Cue the next hour of my journey consisting of drawing pictures and playing games on her iPad with my new friend. After a while her mum came in and it turned out she spoke very good English and we chatted about my travels and she gave me some tips on Ulaanbaatar. It was then time for the little girls nap so I was left alone for the rest of the journey until we reached the boarder. Boarder crossings on trains take a long time (about four hours – two on each side) as the passport control officers have to board the train and check everyone’s documents. They are also joined by immigration officers who search all the carriages and customs officers who search your bags. The whole process takes only a few minutes per person, but as the train has about 15 carriages you can imagine why its a two hour stop each time, and a lot of waiting around. Once we crossed the boarder and I got my official entry stamp into Mongolia the train lights were turned off and everyone went to sleep. When I woke up we were just under an hour away from Ulaanbaatar. And one difference I instantly noted was how different the landscape was to Russia. Were Russia was mostly flat which many dense forests, Mongolia is more mountainous and green which not much visible flora. I couldn’t wait to see the rest of the country.
To make a change from staying in hostels I decided to give couchsurfing a try in Ulaanbaatar. I have heard such great reviews from people who have couchsurfed but haven’t felt confident enough to try it until this trip. I had a look on the website and came across a really nice girl who had a lot of positive reviews. And she was also a tour guide. And she’s vegan! Well no need to say that I didn’t hesitate to contact her. Moon responded very quickly (also excited about a Vegan traveller – we have to help each other out here) and arranged to pick me up from the station. Well let me tell you, I have never had such a great welcome from someone at a train station before. I got off the train and looked around, trying to remember what she looked like from her profile pictures, and spotted her walking through the crowd. When she spotted me she screamed ,ran up and jumped on me giving me a big hug. Welcome to Mongolia! As it was still early we went straight back to her apartment and just crashed on the couch for a couple of hours as the rest of her guests and kids were still asleep. When I woke up I met her two cute children and the two other couchsurfers, Michael and Ilies from France, who would be joining me on the tour. Oh I forgot to mention that, Moon had organised a 7 day Camel trek in the Gobi desert leaving the next day. No rest for the wicked here. As we were leaving the next day we had to get ourselves orgainsed with supplies for the trip. This meant a trip to the famous black market to buy all the food and some gifts for the Nomads we would be staying with. The black market is a huge outdoor market where you can buy literally anything – food, clothes, jewellery, electricals – anything. And it is also one of the few markets that I have been to in a foreign country that is mainly for the locals. Which also means no incessant hassling for sales. By the time we were finished at the market we were laden down with food like pack mules – or camels I should say. Back at the flat we found that we had two more travellers joining our tour, an American guy and a Dutch guy, who found the tour on couchsurfing. So now our group was five, plus our guide and a nomad who we would meet later.
Our journey to the Gobi began the next afternoon with a 6 hour car journey south of the city to a random restaurant off the main road. Here we met our “Camel Man” (after 7 days with him I still can’t remember his name – he was very shy and spoke no English), we’re each given a deel (Mongolian traditional outfit) and then transferred to another car which would take us to our first nomad hosts. We finally arrived just after midnight and were warmly welcomed by our hosts into one of their three gers. The boys were given milk tea and a bowl of sweets were passed around. The ger was a single round room with furniture around the edges surrounding a single cooking stove which also provided the heating for the ger. As it was very late we set up our sleeping arrangements straight away, which was all six of us sardining it on the floor in sleeping bags. Just like school sleepovers. Turned out to be a very good nights sleep.
The next morning we packed up our cart and met our camels. There were five camels for the seven of us, so two people would ride on the cart and we would take turns swapping around. All the tourists, eager beavers that we were, wanted to start out on the camels. Now my camel experience consists of three separate rides on one hump camels in northern Africa. In Mongolia, and central Asia they have two hump camels, which are slightly shorter, and from what I can remember they are much more comfortable as you sit between the two humps. Our journey started off with all five of us tied to the cart just so we could get used to the ride. Over the next seven hours (yes seven) we trekked roughly 30km through the sparse east Gobi desert, with our camel man somehow navigating the seemingly nondescript landscape. The only landmarks we had were two very far away “mountains” which looked the same to me. Well he obviously knew what he was doing as we eventually made it to our destination, a small ger which was the home to a single nomad man who would be our host for the night. I should also confess at this point that I did not make it the whole journey on the camel and bowed out after three hours and swapped for the carriage. Camel riding is very hard on your knees let me tell you. As we arrived just before six we were able to help our host with his farming duties. Two boys collected water, two collected dried animal dung for burning in the stove, and I got to help feed the baby sheep and help combe a goat to get the cashmere (not an easy task I can tell you!). We then headed into the ger and our host cooked the boys dinner of meat soup and me and Moon cooked our own vegan meal. We then, on the hosts request, opened a bottle of vodka and went round taking shots (I definitely faked my turn). This is a Mongolian custom, and when you open a bottle you have to finish it. After being well fed and the boys being well watered we then turned in for the night.
The next morning we packed up our cart again and chose our camels for the day. On the guys request we were now allowed to try riding solo. This was actually very easy as they are pack animals and will naturally follow each other anyway. But it was still nice to be able to feel like we were slightly more in control. The day was another long trek, same as before. Although it did have an eventful middle. Halfway through the day, when I was on the carriage with moon (seriously camel riding is not comfortable) just talking about general things, she suddenly shouts “guys get off the camels now!”. I look over and there is a group of male camels (which haven’t been castrated, unlike our camels) running towards us. We quickly get on the ground, Moon gives me the leads of all the camels and then her and the boys start running and yelling at the camels trying to chase them away as they were trying to attack our camels. After about 5 minutes of running around we managed to get enough distance between us and them to continue our journey. Pretty intense I can tell you (even though I was just being the camel mother). The rest of the journey was uneventful and we reached our first destination which was a sacred Buddhist mountain, nicknamed “Man Mountain”. And as it was named that it meant that only men could climb to the very top. And to be honest, after a 6 hour trek on the camel I was glad that my gender prevented me from having to climb that mountain. The boys went up to the top and gave an offering of vodka (of course) and me and Moon waited hallway up at the small temple area, with the other women. After the mountain we trekked the last hour to our accommodation for the night which was a “ger camp” (basically just a bunch of gers which are rented out to travellers who are visiting the mountain. We cooked our food in the main building of the camp and after we ate we taught our hosts how to play Uno, which the French guys had brought. And let me tell you, Mongolians are very good at card games, and very competitive (they like to throw down their cards when the play). Honestly one of the funniest nights I’ve had so far. After a couple of hours playing we called it a night and went to our ger, which had 5 beds in it this time, so with sharing no one had to sleep on the floor.
The next day was a shorter journey, only 15km, and we actually travelled along the main paved road as it was easier for our cart. However this also meant we had a lot of unwanted attention from the passing cars. Half of the cars would drive slowly and stop by us, taking pictures and trying to pet our camels (which I still find bizarre as its their native animal) and the other half would drive really fast past us, scaring the camels (something that I thought just would not happen in the UK with horses, especially as they had plenty of time to see us – we were on the only straight road in the middle of the desert!). After only three hours we made it to our next destination, which was another ger camp, though much bigger this time, next to a monastery. We had left quite late so it was late afternoon by the time we arrived. We unpacked our stuff and then explored the camp. At one point Michael was challenged to a wrestling match by one of the local nomads. Needless to say, after ten minutes the nomad had one (he was actually a wrestling champion). With the male bravado over we cooked dinner and headed to bed.
The next day was a little different as we left our cart at the camp and rode the camels to the monastery and onto two other sacred sites which were close buy. The ride was a lot more undulating than what we had experienced previously, and the camels were hungry now so kept stopping every few minutes to eat the desert grass. So our 5km round trio actually took quite a while. After the monastery we walked to another site which was like a “gateway to heaven”. It was pretty hot by this point so I sat in the shade behind one of the temple buildings and watched the others as they walked around. A very peaceful experience. After this area we walked about another kilometre to an old cave, which actually used to be a historic mansion that was now just a ruin, but was where a monk had meditated for 108 days. After days of seeing just desert it was pretty cool to have a day of seeing some Buddhist sites. On the way back the camels were even more tired and hungry so after a few minutes we decided to just get off and walk, after which they were happy to be led quickly back to the camp, where we decided to stay for another night.
The next morning we woke up to a commotion outside. Moon went out and found that some local tourists were crowded around our camels taking pictures and some people were even trying to ride them. She started shouting saying these were our camels and they were very tired and you need to be respectful. The tourists didn’t like that and all went off in a huff. It was here that you could really see how far apart the nomad population and the city people had drifted over the years. After shooing away our onlookers we packed up our camels and started our penultimate, and long trek back to the first nomad (we had to return our camels of course). Although this day was probably the hardest, as the terrain was far from flat, it was actually my favourite. The landscape started out a deep orange colour and then turned yellow and grey, with many areas of rock being layered in different colours. At one point we also found ourselves walking through a herd of camels (luckily all females and babies this time) all of which full on stared at us the whole way (very bizarre I can tell you). After about 8 hours we made it to our final host of the trip, and probably the most friendly of them all, a lovely old nomad couple. We arrived very late so cooked dinner straight away and shared yet another bottle of vodka. The guys decided that they wanted to sleep in the tent we had brought as this ger was the smallest yet and was very warm inside. Me and Moon thought they were mad as it was very windy outside and was actually like a minor sandstorm. But boys will be boys I guess, so out they went while me and Moon stayed nice and warm inside.
They next day me and Moon woke up later than the boys and found that they had helped our hosts come some goats, and also drank some more vodka. We then ate breakfast together and our male host, who had become very fond of us, went around saying to us how we need to start families and bring our children to see them. He was very sweet. The camel that was leading our cart on the trip was actually theirs so our host was going to walk the last two hours with us, through the mountains, back to our first host. This was probably the hardest ride yet as we were literally going up and down and long the side of the mountain (it was the quickest way and our host said we were good enough solo riders now), and following our slightly drunk host who as leading his camel with the cart (while our camel guy was holding the back of the cart steady so it didn’t fall into a ditch). We made it to the other side in one piece and trekked the last kilometre through the desert back to where we started. Here we got presented with yet another bottle of vodka as a reward for doing so well on the journey (apparently we were the first group which rode solo on the camels). And as is the custom we (the guys) had to finish the bottle. Needless to say they guys were fairly drunk by the time we got in the car to head back to the city. Now if we thought we were going to just head straight back we were mistaken. Our driver wanted to take us to his home to show us his and his sons wrestling meddles. The son was hoping to go to the next Olympics. And once again, in his house, another bottle of vodka appeared. The guys had a couple shots with our host an then we were ushered back into the car where we travelled to the entrance of his city, where we got out and our host gave us yet more shots and then blessed the rode for the journey home. I was then relieved to see that his wife and brother would drive us the rest of the way to Ulaanbaatar. Well I’m afraid to say that his blessing did not work, as about two hours into the 6 hour journey we got a flat tire! The brother changed it quickly (during which point we took a toilet break and Quan proceeded to throw up all the vodka he had drunk – lightweight!) and then we drove to nearby, and conveniently located, tire repair shop. The tire was repaired, changed, and we were on our way again. But then as fate would have it, another two hours later the sound of the tire going again woke me up. Are you kidding me?! Once again it was changed for the spare, we drove to another repair shop, it was fixed and we were on our way again. Thankfully we then made it to the city! It turns out they were going there to fix the already dodgy tire. Thanks for the warning!
So there you have my first week in Mongolia. What a rollercoaster of emotions! Week two will be much less intense I’m sure!

Until next time

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