Hello again once more and don't worry, this will be the last post of our long marathon to catch up with all that has happened those last couple of weeks! I left you in the middle of the Gobi desert the last time but our tour did not end there at all. Very sandy and sweaty and with an ever-improving odor in the van, we moved up North for about two days before starting off on a three day horse tour. After all the dry and hostile and empty Gobi landscapes, we were looking forward to some more green and some water and we soon had loads of it. The landscape started to transform into rolling greenish hills, after a while the first fir-trees indicated
huge untamed forests to come and small rivers appeared in gorges. Before we took off for our horse tour, we even had a day of rain and watched the awesome spectacle of a thunderstorm over the wide plains. The play of light and shadow, rolling clouds, and an unforgettable sunset became an unforeseen highlight of our journey. Cutes, however, where the sheep and goat that sought refuge underneath our van when we were comfortably installed in our ger enjoying the luxury of french-fries (no boiled mutton - yeah!!!!) done by our new-crowned chef Ian (see pic in David's posts).
And then it was over, the bumpy luxury of cushioned minivan seats, and we were on horseback. Surprised? Never seen me on a horse? Well, actually, all of us but David were novices on horseback but here in Mongolia nobody really seems to care. They simply give you a horse (pony-size), you get up there and off you go. Well, or at least you try to make the horse go - Jesper's and mine were really lazy beasts - or you try to stop them running all the time - Ian's and David's were quite challenging and fiery horses! Besides our four horses, there was our luggage horse who had to carry the two tents, the sleeping bags and the food for three days, and there was our guide Gana, who didn't speak a word of English and was the laziest guy ever. We figured he did consider the whole thing rather like a vacation to get away
from his family and didn't bother much about us, but we nevertheless spent a very fun time. The landscape we went through on our first day (8 hours on horseback) was very empty like about anywhere in Mongolia, but is truly beautiful: wide prairies, dark fir woods, little creeks, a wooden house or a ger here and there, many, many horses, yak, and cows rambling freely over the plains,... it felt like perfect Rohan country.
Our "destination", if you could call it so and didn't consider the trip itself as the destination, was a region know for the beauty of its interconnected eight lakes; however, nobody had told us that there was basically no water at this time of the year and so we had to drop the idea of taking a nice, refreshing swim (and wash, which I replaced by a rather complicated wash in a small creek
). After the first day, we also started to suffer from some severe aches at certain sensitive parts of our bodies but I am not allowed to complain because I was still seated a little more comfortable on my saddle of iron and cushion than the guys on their wood and leather (see pic of David's saddle in his post). Jesper had already decided on the first day that riding was not for him so he basically just took his horse for a walk for three days.... but I did get along quite well with my horse and it was great fun to explore the countryside like that! I could imagine doing that much more often and it just felt so "Mongolian"! I would not have wanted
to miss out on it for anything as people here still live so very close with their horses. Ah, we also met some very sweat and curious Mongolians who made all possible efforts to communicate with us with their three words of English and David actually ended up playing volleyball in the middle of nowhere and the guys were challenged to wrestle about 10 times a day! Mongolians are truly fun-loving people!
After three days out in the complete wilderness, even we field-tested experts started to feel the lack of comfort and we were quite happy to find our wonderfully friendly, fun, communicative, and attentive Shaggar - our good angle - back. Definite indication of a serious addiction to our modern consumer world: our first action after a meal of boiled mutton was to rush into a small store and buy coke, chips, Snickers...
. Afterwards our tour changed quite a bit
as we started to get into more developed regions again. In general, our roadside stops had been single gers or maybe a lonesome house (see pic) but now we were actually getting into cities. Those do look quite funny here in Mongolia because they consist of a mix of European style houses or gers in wooden enclosures, all painted in different colors which gives a very friendly and inviting tough to the whole lot!
We then decided that it was time for some culture as well as nature and wilderness and thus we visited the oldest monastery in the country - it had been destroyed almost completely during the Soviet occupation and only recently (1990) been reopened for monks. Contrary to most Tibetan monasteries, we were very positively surprised by this one, its simplicity and unobtrusiveness in the middle of the Mongolian plains rendered it particularly beautiful and seemed to convey the religious believes in a much more sincere and true way. Also quite fun to see, even so a little out of place, was a photo-shoot of local students in traditional costumes. The costumes were very beautiful to look at but the way the students were laughing their heads off making fun of each other was even better to watch!... During our last evening we had another surprise waiting for us: a local guy came to give us a show of traditional music and musical instruments in our ger. It was a great
experience! The guy spoke quite a bit of English and was able to explain to us the different instruments he used (horse-string fiddle, harp, and a Korean violin - see pic in David's post) and the subjects of his songs (horses, a certain mountain, horses, Genghis Khan, horses, love, horses,...). He also gave us an impressive demonstration of the famous Mongolian throat-singing - that is really funky!! In the end, it was a wonderful last evening with us comfortably installed in the ger and the guy playing some very nice music that took us back out into the Mongolia plains!
Every good thing has to come to an end, apparently, and so, after 14 long-short days, we also arrived back in Ulaan-Baatar and received a very warm welcome from the family of our hostel, a nice shower, some good Western food without mutton and some good cold beers! Then, we had a week left here to relax, bombard you with new posts, and explore some more of the city and of its awesome restaurant and cafe culture. Tomorrow, we'll now be heading back to Beijing to catch our flight to Riga on Wednesday and be on our way to Europe! From the Mongolian plains to Europe's high culture and civilization - that is definitely going to be another culture shock and I have to admit that I am getting shaky knees when thinking about the approach of the end of our travels... . Mongolia, in any case, with its beautiful landscapes and its warm, friendly, and wonderfully curious people has captured our hearts and I am pretty sure we'll be back here on horseback again one day or another! Ah, yes, and the picture, that's one of those Angi specials that I'm not gonna comment!
Hello again once more and don't worry, this will be the last post of our long marathon to catch up with all that has happened those last couple of weeks! I left you in the middle of the Gobi desert the last time but our tour did not end there at all. Very sandy and sweaty and with an ever-improving odor in the van, we moved up North for about two days before starting off on a three day horse tour. After all the dry and hostile and empty Gobi landscapes, we were looking forward to some more green and some water and we soon had loads of it. The landscape started to transform into rolling greenish hills, after a while the first fir-trees indicated
huge untamed forests to come and small rivers appeared in gorges. Before we took off for our horse tour, we even had a day of rain and watched the awesome spectacle of a thunderstorm over the wide plains. The play of light and shadow, rolling clouds, and an unforgettable sunset became an unforeseen highlight of our journey. Cutes, however, where the sheep and goat that sought refuge underneath our van when we were comfortably installed in our ger enjoying the luxury of french-fries (no boiled mutton - yeah!!!!) done by our new-crowned chef Ian (see pic in David's posts).
And then it was over, the bumpy luxury of cushioned minivan seats, and we were on horseback. Surprised? Never seen me on a horse? Well, actually, all of us but David were novices on horseback but here in Mongolia nobody really seems to care. They simply give you a horse (pony-size), you get up there and off you go. Well, or at least you try to make the horse go - Jesper's and mine were really lazy beasts - or you try to stop them running all the time - Ian's and David's were quite challenging and fiery horses! Besides our four horses, there was our luggage horse who had to carry the two tents, the sleeping bags and the food for three days, and there was our guide Gana, who didn't speak a word of English and was the laziest guy ever. We figured he did consider the whole thing rather like a vacation to get away
from his family and didn't bother much about us, but we nevertheless spent a very fun time. The landscape we went through on our first day (8 hours on horseback) was very empty like about anywhere in Mongolia, but is truly beautiful: wide prairies, dark fir woods, little creeks, a wooden house or a ger here and there, many, many horses, yak, and cows rambling freely over the plains,... it felt like perfect Rohan country.
Our "destination", if you could call it so and didn't consider the trip itself as the destination, was a region know for the beauty of its interconnected eight lakes; however, nobody had told us that there was basically no water at this time of the year and so we had to drop the idea of taking a nice, refreshing swim (and wash, which I replaced by a rather complicated wash in a small creek 
to miss out on it for anything as people here still live so very close with their horses. Ah, we also met some very sweat and curious Mongolians who made all possible efforts to communicate with us with their three words of English and David actually ended up playing volleyball in the middle of nowhere and the guys were challenged to wrestle about 10 times a day! Mongolians are truly fun-loving people!
After three days out in the complete wilderness, even we field-tested experts started to feel the lack of comfort and we were quite happy to find our wonderfully friendly, fun, communicative, and attentive Shaggar - our good angle - back. Definite indication of a serious addiction to our modern consumer world: our first action after a meal of boiled mutton was to rush into a small store and buy coke, chips, Snickers... 
as we started to get into more developed regions again. In general, our roadside stops had been single gers or maybe a lonesome house (see pic) but now we were actually getting into cities. Those do look quite funny here in Mongolia because they consist of a mix of European style houses or gers in wooden enclosures, all painted in different colors which gives a very friendly and inviting tough to the whole lot! 
We then decided that it was time for some culture as well as nature and wilderness and thus we visited the oldest monastery in the country - it had been destroyed almost completely during the Soviet occupation and only recently (1990) been reopened for monks. Contrary to most Tibetan monasteries, we were very positively surprised by this one, its simplicity and unobtrusiveness in the middle of the Mongolian plains rendered it particularly beautiful and seemed to convey the religious believes in a much more sincere and true way. Also quite fun to see, even so a little out of place, was a photo-shoot of local students in traditional costumes. The costumes were very beautiful to look at but the way the students were laughing their heads off making fun of each other was even better to watch!... During our last evening we had another surprise waiting for us: a local guy came to give us a show of traditional music and musical instruments in our ger. It was a great
experience! The guy spoke quite a bit of English and was able to explain to us the different instruments he used (horse-string fiddle, harp, and a Korean violin - see pic in David's post) and the subjects of his songs (horses, a certain mountain, horses, Genghis Khan, horses, love, horses,...). He also gave us an impressive demonstration of the famous Mongolian throat-singing - that is really funky!! In the end, it was a wonderful last evening with us comfortably installed in the ger and the guy playing some very nice music that took us back out into the Mongolia plains!
Every good thing has to come to an end, apparently, and so, after 14 long-short days, we also arrived back in Ulaan-Baatar and received a very warm welcome from the family of our hostel, a nice shower, some good Western food without mutton and some good cold beers! Then, we had a week left here to relax, bombard you with new posts, and explore some more of the city and of its awesome restaurant and cafe culture. Tomorrow, we'll now be heading back to Beijing to catch our flight to Riga on Wednesday and be on our way to Europe! From the Mongolian plains to Europe's high culture and civilization - that is definitely going to be another culture shock and I have to admit that I am getting shaky knees when thinking about the approach of the end of our travels... . Mongolia, in any case, with its beautiful landscapes and its warm, friendly, and wonderfully curious people has captured our hearts and I am pretty sure we'll be back here on horseback again one day or another! Ah, yes, and the picture, that's one of those Angi specials that I'm not gonna comment! 
4 comments:
Alors comme ca il existe un 2eme Gana en Mongolie!!
Faszinierendes Land! Das waren mit die beeindruckensten Berichte von euch beiden. Ich habe gerade einen Bericht über die Mongolei gesehen, und da muss ich doch deine Frage über das Wasser am Rande der Dünen beantworten: Es entspringt teilweise sogar im Wüstensand!
Michi
Na du bist ja hilfreich! Es entspringt im Wuestensand... und wie kommt es da hin?? Und wieso ist dort dann Wueste, wenn es Wasser gibt??
na ist doch klar, es entspringt da, blubbert so vor sich hin, bis es entweder wieder verdunstet, versickert, oder von durstigen Angis getrunken wurde. warum es da nun entspring, da musst du ich mal durch die erde wühlen und nachsehen... :) nee, wird halt der einzige weg für das grundwasser nach oben sein.
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