Mongolian Steppes

Ah, Mongolia – land of fabulous adventures and what can only be called unique experiences . . . Mongolia kicked off with a much more reasonable start time wise as we arrived in Ulaanbaatar at 6:30 and were met off the train by our amazing tour guide, Bolod. 

Bolod was concerned that we should start off with breakfast and took us to a local canteen type establishment for breakfast.  Fern was sensible enough to order black tea, which turned out to a wise move as we discovered later in the day.  However, due to the early start, apparently they only had dumplings ready.  No problem we said, having lived off dumplings in Russia.  A little odd for breakfast, but delicious all the same . . . let it be said that Mongolian dumplings are rather different from Russian dumplings!  Some rather greasy, mutton dumplings appeared.  Let’s just say that picking the gristle out of your food is not the most enticing prospect when it’s the first meal of the day . . . We then headed out of the city for a tour of Terelj National Park before heading to our end destination of staying with a nomad family in a yurt.

First stop was a supermarket to pick up some water and some chocolate for our host family.  Also, Alice managed to pick up a new spread which made her very happy – score!

We then stopped off at a monastery in a mining town outside of Ulaanbaatar.  It was fascinating to get an opportunity to see a working monastery outside of a tourist area to get a sense of how they operate for local people.  We also got to see some baby monks in training! Properly exciting.

Bolod then started talking to a woman waiting outside the inner chamber and translated her responses to us.  She was waiting for the chanting to finish so that she could get the Lama to say a prayer for her.  Apparently this is how the monasteries operate, people pay for prayers to be said.  Further conversation revealed that she wanted a prayer for her dead husband who had recently died of a heart condition at the age of 24, leaving her and her  month old baby.  It was definitely a situation where it felt that our limited words and gestures were not enough and obviously touched both of us.

We drove into Terelj National Park and saw the amazing Mongolian Steppes . . .  It reminded us of a cross between what we imagined prehistoric landscape looked like and also the wild, wild west – but that last view may have be tainted by us seeing a man ride up to a cantina, tie his horse up outside and walk inside!  The eagle hunters were also pretty impressive.

Some goats, who were being herded by goat herders in sunglasses . . . Some yaks (who feature quite heavily in Fern's top ten of animals) . . .

Plus some camels – check out the pushmi-pullyu!

And the most unique pony transportation we’ve ever seen!