On the (sand) road

Back on the road we drove to Harhorin (the former Mongol capital) and the Endenezuu Monastery. A bit of background to the monasteries left after the Stalin purges in the early twentieth century. Out of a many hundred, only 3 Buddist monasteries were left. Stalin orderd the mass killing of all monks over 10 years of age and their families. So over one hundred thousand monks were slaugtered or sent to gulags in Siberia (remember at that time the total population of Mongolia would have been about 1 million), and just to be more gruesome the Russians ran out of bullets and so bludgeoned most of the monks to death. Lovely. If you ask Mongolians these days about Russians, instead of hating them which is what I thought would be pretty standard, most would say how they love them. They brought education, industry, trade, healthcare. Funny really. However, ask them about the Chinese and that is another matter entirely. I have never heard such vehement hatred for another race of people as from the Mongolians I talked to about the Chinese.



The Endenezuu Monastery is the oldest one left. Built in the 16th century it used to house many monks and have countless temples and houses. Now it has only a few surviving but they are beautiful.

I haven't really mentioned our Guide yet but he was probably the most useless guide that ever existed, so is not worth the time it would take to tell you how useless he actually was. He was supposed to guide us around the monastery but didn't. Needless to say I didn't tip him well and nor did anyone else.

The wildlife I saw consisted of brown legged eagles, suslik (ground squirrels), black vultures, buzzards, gazelles, weird flying crickets, locusts and marmots. All very exotic to me. The one thing I would say about the Mongolians I was with is that they clearly respected the environment and the animals in it, which was a great relief to me. We even spent one afternoon picking up litter with the drivers who were utterly disgusted with the rubbish left by the "city Mongolians" at the side of a river in a national park. It would be like seeing Snowdon covered in a foot of litter.





That night we stayed at Totaihar Chuluu, where it began to get cold. Near to the campsite there was a sacred rock which if you were capable enough to throw a rock over, it would grant you any wish you desired. Obviously being a girl I failed miserably, but then so did most of the Mongolians there. Sadly only the Aussie men were capable of such a huge feat of throwing, although if Pete had been there he would certainly have shown them a thing or two I'm sure.








Onwards and upwards, the next day we moved on to Chuluut Canyons where we stayed for 2 nights, hiked the canyon and surrounding areas. Quite impressive really both in the canyon and from above (if anyone can tell me why the stitching programme has added the bars - let me know!).

Lots and lots of goats surrounded us here and one rascal stole my knickers which I had washed for the first time since entering Mongolia - just the info you need eh? Enji did actually catch the thief for me, as seen here.











Then probably on to my favourite site, Horgo National Park and a volcano! Yay! Tres excitement for me but no one else, so I geeked it up for the Geologists. I even picked up some "rocks" and may be willing to pass these on to certain individuals for the appropriate price, of course.

Horgo also has the White Lake which we camped next to. I swam in it and it was cold, very cold but at around 8 degrees it was probably a bit too warm for Vanessa.  However, within about 10 minutes of me leaving the lake in 25 degree balmy weather, it began hailing and snowing and the temperature dropped to about, oh, 5 degrees. Cra-zi-ness. So I sat freezing in the bus for the remainder of the day. We did get quite bored and there were murmmurings of playing a game, so I suggested "Who's in the bag?". It was a disaster. Lesson learnt: Never play  games with Swiss people, surprisingly they don't like losing. Who'd have thought it? To take the attention away from the bus I perfomed an act of heroism wading in to the freezing lake to rescue our beer before it was washed away by the storm, forever. You can call me Emma "Hero" WIlloughby. Needless to say it was lovely and cold.
Next day there was snow all around but we trooped on and went for a small hike.

The drive away from the White Lake was epic - we had to traverse 2 mountain ranges covered in snow and swollen rivers, and the craziest bridge I have ever seen.
As you can see our bus got stuck on the way back to rescue the soviet van - the driver waded into the river and moved some rocks around, it worked and after about an hour we were on our way again.

We made it to our 2nd Ger camp at Zuun Nuur and relished the first hot shower and proper bed. Steph had been so cold throughout the entire camping trip, I left her to man the stove, I quickly came back when I saw flames licking the top of the Ger chimney. The inside was like an inferno, much to Steph's glee. Unfortunately Gers are not that well insulated and as Steph had used our nights supply of wood in about an hour, we froze once again for the remainder of the night.
I need to now take some time to talk about yaks. Very odd creatures, cross between a dog and a cow. When they get excited/cross they run with their tails in the air (very hairy tails mind you). You can ride them, and milk them. They look incredibly stupid but are really very nimble. We saw one chasing a dog, round and round and round we go. We kept driving and it was still chasing. Herro.