Lost in the beauty of Mongolia

Amid volcanic craters, pine-clad lava fields and the occasional herd of grazing yaks lies the Great White Lake, as it’s known in English, lies the Khorgo-Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur National Park. According to legend, the lake was formed when an elderly couple forgot to cap a well after fetching water. The valley flooded with water until a local hero shot a nearby mountain top with his arrow; the shorn top covered the well and became an island in the lake (Noriin Dund Tolgoi). In reality, the lake was formed by lava flows from a volcanic eruption from the nearby Khorgo Uul volcano many thousands years ago. When we arrived, the beauty of this place immediately mesmerise the entire group, especially as the Russian beast pull over the peak for a panoramic view of the nature park. We all agreed that it probably has the best toilet view in the world, whilst doing your morning "business". The winds turned into light snow in the night as we huddled together inside the Ger, under the cozy warmth of the burning firewood.

The following day, we jumped onto the horses waiting outside our Ger as the wind howl towards us in a relentless mood. As my jacket was left in the UB Guesthouse back in UlaanBaatar, the host deemed that I was wearing too little with my 4 layers of tops that I have brought along for the trip (for a sense of how cold it was, I had a base layer, 2 t-shirts and wool fleece) and was ill-equipped to ride to the volcano. He came back from his Ger with his traditional Mongolian coat and helped to put it on me. I was also the lucky one to get the only white horse in the group which during the 4 hour ride, kept trotting to the front of the group and refused to be overtaken by anyone else.

Amidst a vast lava field strewn with black lava rocks, we visited 2 lava caves with ice that has not melted for thousands of years before heading towards Khorgo Uul volcano. As it was my first horse riding experience, I did eventually end up with a sore back bone (the piece just at the base of your back bone) and wobbly legs at the end of it as I tried all ways to make my ride more natural and comfortable, especially when the horse went on one of his ego-charge gallops to run away from the group. Paul said his kidneys hurt more than anything (wonder if it was the Russian vodka or the ride) else after the ride although he was in much better shape after a good siesta. The 4 hour ride only costs us £6 additional each! We had more mongolian noodles for dinner and it was starting to get to all of us (was hilarious when Marie took a first bite, said it tasted "AWESOME", but spat it out after I dared her to take another mouth as I suspected she was been polite, being Irish).



I set my camera up to try to take a long exposure shot of the night sky, with the eventual result showing the stars circling around the North Star, with the streaks of white light behind each. Unfortunately the camera on my battery died after 2 tried of 30 minute exposures but it was certainly an encouraging start. Even without the camera, one can only appreciate the beauty of the stars yourself in complete darkness. That was when I understood the meaning of "putting your hands out to reach for the stars...", as it really gave me that illusion.

On day 4, we packed up, thanked our lovely hosts and hop onto the Russian beast again and sped off on the dry landscape under the careful manoeuvre by Baatra. We stopped halfway to chat to another jeep of former Peace Corp volunteers heading to the west before coming across our first herd of camels. It was another 5 hours of probably the toughest off road before we arrived in the flatlands halfway between the Great White Lake and UB. The view was however one of the best of the trip as endless of mountains lined alongside us. I was enjoying the sights of the countless herds of sheeps, yaks and cows by mimicking their sounds on every passing, with Baatra contradicting me with the sound of the other animal every time. He did miss a moment of concentration and hit a sheep as it tried to cross in front of the car but was a step too late.

Our last stop on the flat plains happened to be staying in the Ger of Baatra's mom and brother, who are still living there in the wild, although few modern amenities have supplemented their simple life in the form of solar panels, satellite dish and tv. I had my first experience of a mini sand storm while walking back from the nearby river after a washup with herds of goats and sheep around me. Ended up taking shelter in a depression on the ground for half a minute for it to pass. Was kindly invited by Baatra into his mom's Ger for tea where she proudly displayed his wedding pictures and his 3 month old daughter. As there was not a single tree around, the fire burning in the Ger was fuelled by dried cow dung instead, which burnt pretty well but gives off a smell that, let's just say, not pleasant.

Another 350km drive on the hottest day of our trip on the 5th day back to the capital ended our Mongolian wild adventure. We stopped halfway for lunch and had more Mongolian noodles, this time only Baatra, Paul and I been the only ones eating; Dave has also joined Marie and surrendered to pot noodles instead. We arrived back in UB Guesthouse just before 6pm and immediately took turns for a nice long shower to clean away all the sand and dirt from the last 5 days. Looking back, I was really glad to have done the trip, and experienced the kind and warm people of normadic Mongolians first hand, which was greatly enhanced by a bunch of like-minded and fun travellers. We celebrated our "clean" self again by heading to a Cuba restaurant for some steak and Coca Cola!

Flickr to Mongolian set