Hello all
Sorry, I’m behind schedule with my story. I’m in China since 20 days and only now I’m coming up with Mongolia.
Here we go:
1 month ago I crossed the border in the ‹Transmongolian Train›, which left Irkutsk in the evening of November 4th.
At the border, at around 11 pm the russian officers collected the passports and after a couple of hours the reappeared and started to search the wagons. No idea, what they were searching for, but they did it very firm. They opened every space of the wagon, looked under the carpets And they did it twice. They didn’t touch tourists bags and backpacks.
On the stretch between Irkuts and the border Mongolian passangers were moving around boxes and goods all the time. They were hiding this stuff and redistributing it. Every minute a guy passed by our compartment, carrying some boxes. The officers of course found these goods as well, but were not concerned about.
So I wonder, why these stuff was hidden anyway. Very strange!!!
After 4 1/2 hours the train started to move again. We got our passports back.
30 minutes later we stoped at the Mongolian border. There the procedures for customs and immigrations were straight forward and took only 3 more hours.
But this is part of the schedule and we arrived in Ulan Bator (UB) according the time table.
At the railway station hostels owner are waiting for tourists and try to get them to their places. The hostel I wanted to go to, does this to, so I had a comfortable ride to that place.
There I booked a 5 days/4 nights tour to some more remote places of Mongolia, together with 2 Australian buddies, which I met at the hostel. The same day I also explored UB a bit.
The tour was a long drive on dirt roads and tracks in an old russian military jeep the first day. After some hours driving we had lunch in a very simple restaurant. There I had my second ‹experience› with basic bathrooms. It was a small, doorless hut, built over a huge ditch and you just stand on two planks for squating. Sometimes 4 of this huts stand in a row on the same hole. Sometimes they have a door.
After 3 more hours drive through beautiful prairies we got to lake Ogiy. Beautiful sceneries. Another 2 hours and we got to our first days overnight stay. This was in a ger (Jurte), which is an experience as well. We had time to explore the surroundings a bit before sun was setting. After a simple dinner we went to bed. We felt asleep early, as the ride was quite hard. The ger has a stove in its middle. Our host put a load of wood into it. Neverthenless the fire was out at 2 am and temperature drop significantly.
In the morning we had 5 degrees below zero in our ger.
The next day, after a breakfast (bred without anything but tea) we left for another long drive. First to a pretty canyon, some hours later, after another simple lunch, in another simple restaurant, we reached ‹White Lake National Park›. This is such a beautiful place. The lake was completely frozen. Black and clear ice. I’ve been walking for hours on this lake the next day. As the ice was still ‹growing› there were strange noises all the time. Somtimes the lake was roaring, sometimes it was cracking. But it was safe to walk on it, even the noises made me worry some times. Again we slept in a ger. For 2 nights this time at this place. The breakfast was not better than in the other place, but we got used to it. Day number 4 brought us to another beautiful site. An old monastery: ‹Erdene zuu› in Kharkorin. Nice temples surrounded by a large wall. Beautiful evening light. And the fourth experience in a ger. It was the same every morning. -5 degrees.
Back in Ulan Bator I decided to do another tour to the ‹Tereldsch National Park› instead of spending to much time in UB itself. This was now a 2 nights/3 days experience in a bigger group. Only a couple hours drive away from UB this National Park is another beautiful place in Mongolia. It’s more touristy, as it is so close to UB. This time we occupied two gers (11 people). As a new experience, this time the stoves were also filled up with coal, to keep them hot a longer time. The host meant it to good. The first evening he heated the ger up so it became a sauna. I measured 39 degrees on my bed sheet. We had to open the door, which made our host a little angry. The second night the same story again. Even we shouted at him to stop putting so much coal in to the oven, he did not listen. The oven got red again. Glowing. The chimney was red glowing as well the first meter. This guy was mad.
The scenery there just so beautiful. I took a load of photos. I climbed all hills in the environment. I wonder how this place must be in summer, when the meadows are green and full of flowers.
Back in UB we had time left to visit the so called black market. It’s a huge market, where you can find whatever you need. I went there with Citt (http://www.teacup.net.au/). I met her on the tour to Tereldsch N.P. and there we walked around quite a bit together.
Next morning a bunch of people from the same guesthouse was to leave to China on the same train. 6 or 7 seven from our Tereldsch tour were on the same train. After crossing Gobi desert we reached the mongolian-chinese border around midnight. Imigration- and custom controls are much faster here. It only takes 1 to 2 hours for the mongolian part and 2 to 4 hours for the chinese part. But there it includes the replacment of the wheels of the wagons, as in China the trains run on a narrower track with.
So the 15th of November I already left Mongolia, after only 10 days.
I might go back there once, in summer.
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Thomas Stalder
tomtom@coco.ch | http://www.coco.ch/ | https://weblog.coco.ch/