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.
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.
