Think of the most remote place on this earth, (besides maybe
the North Pole) add subzero temperatures, and throw in 26 Americans and you
have a great Mongolian adventure. The
past 4 days have been the most unique, adventurous, and unbelievable of my life,
oh and also the coldest. We arrived in
Mongolia mid-afternoon after a 2 hour flight.
We were immediately greeted by the cold as we walked to our bus at the
airport. We stopped at an ATM and a
grocery store to get snacks and then headed straight for our first destination,
Terelj National Park. On the way to the
park we were informed by our guide, Bata, that it would take about 3 hours to get
to our yurts (pronounced gers) where we would be staying for the night. He also told us it could take plenty longer
depending how many times we would have to shovel our bus out. A fresh snow fell about a week before our
arrival so the roads, more like paths, had not been cleared. No one really thought much about it… until
about 3 hours later, when our bus got stuck for the first time. Before I go any further, I should give you an
overview of Mongolia.
Mongolia is the second least populated country in the world. So that means there is pretty much nothing outside of the city, Ulaanbaatar, except for nomads. Mongolia is also one of the coldest places in the world with an average winter temperature of -5 to -10 degrees Celsius. One last thing, the country as a whole has a small concept of tourism. Our group makes up 26 of the 25,000 people who visit the country per year, which is a very small amount compared to other countries. To put this number into perspective, about 140,000 people visit Shamakmak State Park every year.
Ok back to our bus stuck in the snow. The only thing I can think to compare this bus ride to is four-wheeling with a coach bus. As you can imagine the smallest incline gave the bus trouble, even with chains on the tires. Each hill required a running start, often failing the first couple times. If you know our group at all you would figure out that the smallest things have to be a big deal, so hill climbing in a coach bus was turned into much more of an ordeal than it probably would have been. By the end of it we were chanting, “Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!” for encouragement like in the movie, The Mighty Ducks. It was all fun and games until the bus got stuck for good!
Our next order of business was getting to our yurts before dark. Luckily we were within walking distance of our camp, and unfortunately, we were in walking distance of our camp. We walked a quarter of a mile uphill in -5 degrees Fahrenheit through a foot of snow carrying 50+ pounds of luggage. No exaggeration. At least three people fell down on the trek to the camp. It seems so crazy looking back on it. Also, Mongolia is about 3,500 feet about sea level. Compared to 800 feet above sea level back home, the oxygen was in short supply. Thankfully, we all made it safely!
We were greeted with a traditional stone roast lamb dinner and hot delicious tea. Later we got our yurt assignment and were released for the evening. Yurts are round insulated tents with a coal-burning stove in the center and beds situated against the walls. Camp workers come in throughout the day and night to stoke the fire and keep it warm. Nomads in Mongolia still use yurts as their home, which is amazing to me. My yurt was pretty cold throughout the night, but I did not mind it too much. Better cold, than hot.
That evening a bunch of people gathered in one tent and drank and played cards. Dan, Adam, Devin, and I decided that we would rather just chill for the evening so we watched a movie on Dan’s iPad. I stepped outside the yurt to get our drinks that were chilling in the snow and looked up. The stars made up the most beautiful sky I have ever seen. I have never been able to see the constellations in such a clear and crisp sky. I felt like I could reach out and grab the moon; what an experience I will never forget. It was a much-needed relaxing time, and for the first time in a couple weeks I got a solid night of sleep.
The next morning I woke up freezing with a stuffy nose; it was a pretty inconvenient time to have a cold. We stuck around the camp most of the morning. Several of us rode Mongolian horses while the rest went on what I hear was a sketchy rock climb. The horse ride was awesome except for the part where it was freezing outside. I came back with numb fingers and toes because they were so cold! My horse was the most stubborn of the group. At one point he decided it would be fun to stand and not move at all. When he started moving again, he kept walking in circles doing doughnuts. At least the experience was memorable.
Around noon we loaded up the bus, which was now unstuck, and headed to a nearby nomadic family. They allowed us to enter their home and learn about their traditional lifestyle. This gave me a great topic for my upcoming colloquium assignment. The mother of the family served us a warm milk tea and what appeared to be cookies. I bit into a “cookie” and almost broke a tooth; it was dried curd. Yeah, gross. I slipped it into my pocket to dispose of later because I did not want to be rude.
We loaded up the bus again and headed towards another national park where we would stay the night at another yurt camp. A couple hours into the ride we stopped on the side of the road where you could pay to hold an eagle. Naturally, I had to do it! I mean, who would not want to hold an eagle? Even Bailey and Kathleen who are deathly terrified of birds held the oversized bird. In order to hold it you had to move your arm up and down continuously so the heavy weight of the bird would not hurt your arm.
We had lunch in the city and began our adventure to Hustai National Park, a park even less established for tourism than Terelj National Park. I fell asleep on the bus just as we were leaving the city and woke up to a violently bouncing bus driving through no-man’s land. I am still not convinced that the driver was actually using a road. We got stuck once or twice but we were able to get out with little trouble. The third time though is what turned our Mongolian drive into an adventure. For the two hours that we were stranded, only two signs of civilization passed us, one guy in an SUV and one guy riding a horse. The whole group dug and pushed and dug some more until we ran out of daylight. That is when the guide called for help. A while later, a small flatbed truck showed up and all the ladies, including myself, piled into the back. We huddled together to stay warm as the truck sped off to the tourist camp. 5 minutes later we arrived hungry and cold. The men were able to free the bus after another hour of labor and returned as heroes to the camp with our luggage. Finally it was dinnertime!
Some of my favorite meals on World Tour have been in Mongolia. Before we settled in for the night, our guide taught us a few ankle-bone shooting games, traditional to Mongolian culture. Ankle bones of sheep are used as dice for several different games. After an hour or so Monica and I returned to our yurt to find the temperature inside a scorching 110 degrees Fahrenheit. It cooled down a bit throughout the night, but it still did not stop me from feeling like I was sleeping in an oven. It did not matter too much though because I took a Nyquil to help with my cold and it knocked me right out, the second time in a row that I got a full night’s sleep.
Mongolia is the second least populated country in the world. So that means there is pretty much nothing outside of the city, Ulaanbaatar, except for nomads. Mongolia is also one of the coldest places in the world with an average winter temperature of -5 to -10 degrees Celsius. One last thing, the country as a whole has a small concept of tourism. Our group makes up 26 of the 25,000 people who visit the country per year, which is a very small amount compared to other countries. To put this number into perspective, about 140,000 people visit Shamakmak State Park every year.
Ok back to our bus stuck in the snow. The only thing I can think to compare this bus ride to is four-wheeling with a coach bus. As you can imagine the smallest incline gave the bus trouble, even with chains on the tires. Each hill required a running start, often failing the first couple times. If you know our group at all you would figure out that the smallest things have to be a big deal, so hill climbing in a coach bus was turned into much more of an ordeal than it probably would have been. By the end of it we were chanting, “Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!” for encouragement like in the movie, The Mighty Ducks. It was all fun and games until the bus got stuck for good!
Our next order of business was getting to our yurts before dark. Luckily we were within walking distance of our camp, and unfortunately, we were in walking distance of our camp. We walked a quarter of a mile uphill in -5 degrees Fahrenheit through a foot of snow carrying 50+ pounds of luggage. No exaggeration. At least three people fell down on the trek to the camp. It seems so crazy looking back on it. Also, Mongolia is about 3,500 feet about sea level. Compared to 800 feet above sea level back home, the oxygen was in short supply. Thankfully, we all made it safely!
We were greeted with a traditional stone roast lamb dinner and hot delicious tea. Later we got our yurt assignment and were released for the evening. Yurts are round insulated tents with a coal-burning stove in the center and beds situated against the walls. Camp workers come in throughout the day and night to stoke the fire and keep it warm. Nomads in Mongolia still use yurts as their home, which is amazing to me. My yurt was pretty cold throughout the night, but I did not mind it too much. Better cold, than hot.
That evening a bunch of people gathered in one tent and drank and played cards. Dan, Adam, Devin, and I decided that we would rather just chill for the evening so we watched a movie on Dan’s iPad. I stepped outside the yurt to get our drinks that were chilling in the snow and looked up. The stars made up the most beautiful sky I have ever seen. I have never been able to see the constellations in such a clear and crisp sky. I felt like I could reach out and grab the moon; what an experience I will never forget. It was a much-needed relaxing time, and for the first time in a couple weeks I got a solid night of sleep.
The next morning I woke up freezing with a stuffy nose; it was a pretty inconvenient time to have a cold. We stuck around the camp most of the morning. Several of us rode Mongolian horses while the rest went on what I hear was a sketchy rock climb. The horse ride was awesome except for the part where it was freezing outside. I came back with numb fingers and toes because they were so cold! My horse was the most stubborn of the group. At one point he decided it would be fun to stand and not move at all. When he started moving again, he kept walking in circles doing doughnuts. At least the experience was memorable.
Around noon we loaded up the bus, which was now unstuck, and headed to a nearby nomadic family. They allowed us to enter their home and learn about their traditional lifestyle. This gave me a great topic for my upcoming colloquium assignment. The mother of the family served us a warm milk tea and what appeared to be cookies. I bit into a “cookie” and almost broke a tooth; it was dried curd. Yeah, gross. I slipped it into my pocket to dispose of later because I did not want to be rude.
We loaded up the bus again and headed towards another national park where we would stay the night at another yurt camp. A couple hours into the ride we stopped on the side of the road where you could pay to hold an eagle. Naturally, I had to do it! I mean, who would not want to hold an eagle? Even Bailey and Kathleen who are deathly terrified of birds held the oversized bird. In order to hold it you had to move your arm up and down continuously so the heavy weight of the bird would not hurt your arm.
We had lunch in the city and began our adventure to Hustai National Park, a park even less established for tourism than Terelj National Park. I fell asleep on the bus just as we were leaving the city and woke up to a violently bouncing bus driving through no-man’s land. I am still not convinced that the driver was actually using a road. We got stuck once or twice but we were able to get out with little trouble. The third time though is what turned our Mongolian drive into an adventure. For the two hours that we were stranded, only two signs of civilization passed us, one guy in an SUV and one guy riding a horse. The whole group dug and pushed and dug some more until we ran out of daylight. That is when the guide called for help. A while later, a small flatbed truck showed up and all the ladies, including myself, piled into the back. We huddled together to stay warm as the truck sped off to the tourist camp. 5 minutes later we arrived hungry and cold. The men were able to free the bus after another hour of labor and returned as heroes to the camp with our luggage. Finally it was dinnertime!
Some of my favorite meals on World Tour have been in Mongolia. Before we settled in for the night, our guide taught us a few ankle-bone shooting games, traditional to Mongolian culture. Ankle bones of sheep are used as dice for several different games. After an hour or so Monica and I returned to our yurt to find the temperature inside a scorching 110 degrees Fahrenheit. It cooled down a bit throughout the night, but it still did not stop me from feeling like I was sleeping in an oven. It did not matter too much though because I took a Nyquil to help with my cold and it knocked me right out, the second time in a row that I got a full night’s sleep.
The next morning we piled into 3 smaller vans and headed out
on an excursion to see wild horses. We
had to take the vans because according to our guide, “the terrain was a little bit rougher than the
roads we have traveled previously.” This
is such an understatement because this ride was what we call 4-wheeling at
home. The terrain in Hustai National
Park is more desert-like, whereas Terelj is more mountainous. A ton of snow drifting happens at Hustai, making
the paths dangerous and unpredictable.
We were just driving along most of the time when we would hit a drift
and get completely hung up; a couple times we almost rolled over. We eventually found several horses but had
to hike quite a ways to get close enough to photograph them.
We returned back to our yurt camp to have lunch. While we were eating, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show came on the television, proving that American culture is everywhere in the world, even in a yurt camp in Mongolia. We said our goodbyes to nomadic tent camping, packed up, and headed for the city. Ulaanbaatar is not the most impressive city we have seen so far, but it is the weirdest. We visited a cashmere factory, a museum, and the most interesting thing yet on the trip, a traditional Mongolian concert. I now know that Mongolia is famous for throat singing, where they use their throat noises as just another instrument. It sounds as ridiculous as it sounds. The dancing and singing together was neat, but as the show went on it kept getting more weird. They even threw in a contortionist to add some spark, not that the show needed anything else. The throat singing was enough.
Our hotel in Ulaanbaatar that night was not the greatest, but we were all so glad to be in a hotel that it did not seem to matter too much. The yurts were awesome, but I was ready for my own bathroom and normal sleeping temperatures again. Plus our hotel had free WI-FI so I was able to communicate with home again. It was long overdue. This morning we woke up and had a pretty chill breakfast, visited some stuff in the city, and returned to our hotel and enjoyed some downtime before our flight left for Beijing.
Flying is just one of the many things I am starting to get sick of. Regardless I had a pretty great flight and got to our hotel in Beijing at about 8p.m. I met up with Dan, Adam, Devin, and Sarah for dinner in a restaurant at our hotel. I was a pretty great dinner for several reasons besides the food. For once in a very long time, I got to choose what I wanted to eat, instead of dinner being chosen for me. The highlights of the night included Sarah jumping off the bed, me shocking Devin almost to death, and endless venting sessions about button-pushing on this trip. A boring day turned into a pretty great night in Beijing! I am going to miss Mongolia’s minimal population and crisp, clean air.
We returned back to our yurt camp to have lunch. While we were eating, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show came on the television, proving that American culture is everywhere in the world, even in a yurt camp in Mongolia. We said our goodbyes to nomadic tent camping, packed up, and headed for the city. Ulaanbaatar is not the most impressive city we have seen so far, but it is the weirdest. We visited a cashmere factory, a museum, and the most interesting thing yet on the trip, a traditional Mongolian concert. I now know that Mongolia is famous for throat singing, where they use their throat noises as just another instrument. It sounds as ridiculous as it sounds. The dancing and singing together was neat, but as the show went on it kept getting more weird. They even threw in a contortionist to add some spark, not that the show needed anything else. The throat singing was enough.
Our hotel in Ulaanbaatar that night was not the greatest, but we were all so glad to be in a hotel that it did not seem to matter too much. The yurts were awesome, but I was ready for my own bathroom and normal sleeping temperatures again. Plus our hotel had free WI-FI so I was able to communicate with home again. It was long overdue. This morning we woke up and had a pretty chill breakfast, visited some stuff in the city, and returned to our hotel and enjoyed some downtime before our flight left for Beijing.
Flying is just one of the many things I am starting to get sick of. Regardless I had a pretty great flight and got to our hotel in Beijing at about 8p.m. I met up with Dan, Adam, Devin, and Sarah for dinner in a restaurant at our hotel. I was a pretty great dinner for several reasons besides the food. For once in a very long time, I got to choose what I wanted to eat, instead of dinner being chosen for me. The highlights of the night included Sarah jumping off the bed, me shocking Devin almost to death, and endless venting sessions about button-pushing on this trip. A boring day turned into a pretty great night in Beijing! I am going to miss Mongolia’s minimal population and crisp, clean air.
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