Mongolia!!!!!! Part 3!

By this stage I am up to writing... more amazing scenery out the window, more eagles, more camels, more desert plains, more alpine valleys, more green steppe, more nights camped under the stars, more bowls of tuna and pasta for dinner.... :) The trip continued to be very cool as we journeyed across the North!


New developements included flat tyres, salt lakes, sand dunes and a few meals in Guanz (small restaurants) where we got Tsuivan- fried dough and meat,or meat with rice and mabe a fried egg.


Oh yeah and there were the wolves... :). One night our drier pointed off into the sand dunes and made woo woo wooooo wolf noises, that night I woke up and I could hear wolves howling in the (hopefully) distance! I heard then quite a lot at night for the second half of the trip!

We stopped at Uvs Nuur which was cool- an enormous salty lake (looks like the sea as you can't really see the other side), which is 5 time saltier than the ocean. It was hot and we were in the desert, and swimming was irresistable! Lenore and I had walked a bit from the an, and didn't have our things with us, but just went in in tops and undies, possibly scaring off Michael, (our 4ths person in the van, who seems to have issues with the female form), by the time we'd laid around and had lunch our clothes were dry anyway! That was a fun afternoon!

Then we stayed with a family in a mountain valley (Turgen Uul) in their Ger for two nights, as it was chilly at night in that area and uncomfortable sitting around in the evening outside. The family told us they only stay in the valley in summer, and even then, at night I had my long johns, merino wool layers and beanie on!
Gers are amazingly insulated- something to do with thick layers of felt I think! We did a day hike up to see a glacier and get a view of the mountains, which was fun, but we took a hard route up this hill covered in scree, which was not easy walking! the return journey in the bottom of the valley took 1-2 hours, whereas going there took maybe 5!
This family was really lovely, and they especially warmed to us after I gave the kids textas and colouring in books. We got to try camel yoghurt, (even though they were goat herders, they somehow had camel yoghurt), which was really really nice! I took loads of photos, the boys especialy were showing off on their horses and promised to post them some, must do that soon!

On the way from this valley to Olgii, the main centre of west Mongolia, we had an interesting river experience. Some rain earlier and snow on the hills had made all the streams full of water, and we'd had a few hairy crossings but the most show stopping was when we got to a river that went over the road. It was clearly the only place for miles to cross, as there was a bit of a bank up of traffic waiting at this spot to cross ( a few cars a two trucks). The trucks had a long wait on their hands I'd say, as the river was full and flowing fast, and the snow'd keep melting for days...

We wouldn't have made it if an enterprising local with a tractor hadn't been there monooplising the river crossing business! He towed us across, which was ScAREY, you could feel the water pushing us around and it was coming in the doors! We made it, and the engine still started, but the next jeep across in oposite direction was not so lucky, they had like 15 people in a 5 seater jeep, and got stuck on a rock in the middle, I suspect it was the jeep drivers fault, he seemed a little drunk! There would have been lots of water in their car!

The final bit of Mongolia was our excursion to the Altai National Park, which 'straddles' the border with both China and Russia :) . (I like the word straddle... it has a kind of cool sound).
It was very much sound of musicness there, green valleys and hills, snowy peaks- which were just beautiful...we did an overnight hike to the base camp of Tavan Bogd, and hiked to the Russian border, to get a cool view of the Altai peaks of the Russian side... and on our way back to Olgii we stopped at a Kazakh family ger for the night. They were also amazingly friendly and made us beshbamak- a kazakh dish of meat and pasta sheets which was delicious.
The western region of Mongolia is mainly Kazakh and Olgii was very different to other towns we went through. The people dressed more like central Asia- head scares, and felt fez-like hats for the men, and the Ger's are decorated with the most beautiful embroidered wall hangings and felt carptets. This area is more traditional-Kazakh than Kazakhstan, where nomadism was stamped out by Stalin.

yeah, the ending of Mongolia you know from the Appednicitis post, we evacutaed with a medical emergency!