tour #3 part 1

I signed up for my second ger to ger tour knowing that I’d have time for one more tour after returning…since ger to ger only had those two options, I knew I’d have to find something else for my last few days in Mongolia...my guesthouse seemed to be pretty good about getting travelers together who had the same interests in touring…they had a big map in their office, and you could leave a note saying where you wanted to go, when, and for how long, and other people could join up that way…of course, the guesthouse also had all sorts of tours available, and you could book any of them, starting on any day…I met a dutch couple at the guesthouse who were in Mongolia waiting for their Russian visas to come through so they could continue on the trans Siberian railway…while talking to them we figured out that we were interested in the same touring ideas, which was great…I told them to pick a tour, and that I’d pay as soon as I got back from the ger to ger, and we could leave the next day…it worked out wonderfully…I returned from the ger to ger, found the couple (and their adorable – most of the time – 19 month old son) and found out what was to be my next adventure…a Frenchmen had decided to join the group as well, which was great because it brought down the price of the tour for everyone…most tours in Mongolia (excepting ger to ger) are based on the number of people in the group, so the more people there are, the less it costs everyone each day…of course, there is a limit to how many people you want to travel with…anywho…

The next morning we all paid around 0900, and were driving out of the city by 0930…we stopped to get close to an ovoo, and could see horse races going on in the distance…maybe people were practicing for the summer nadaam? Its crazy how you see ovoos just about anywhere and everywhere…kinda like irish castles…you see one, and can’t help but wonder how someone decided to build it just there…what made that particular spot so good for a big pile of stones? A little while later we stopped for lunch at a random roadside hotel/restaurant…given that the restaurant was in the middle of nowhere, I don’t know how many people would spend the night there but who cares? The food was decent…(as I’ve mentioned before, you don’t go to Mongolia for their fabulous cuisine)…taro had a few bites, then cried, then had a few bites, then cried, etc…he’s young enough that you don’t always know why he’s being fussy…oh well…

A few hours later we got to kharakhorum…(when pronouncing the name, don’t say either of the Ks…they’re silent…so I don’t know why they’re in the word…and the H is pretty hard)…it was, for 40 years, the capital of the great Mongolian empire…and now there is nothing left of the former city…it was mostly destroyed at some point, and then when the monastery was built, they used the ruins of the city to do so…we arrived too late to go to the monastery, so after checking into our guestger, we piled back into the minivan to check out the other sights of the town…

The first was a big penis…a rock…the original is smaller, and was first put up a while ago…a rock in the shape of a penis, it was balanced on another rock, and pointed toward a nearby valley that is could be imagined to be in the shape of a woman’s hoo-ha…legend says that the rock was put up to deal with the horniness of the monks, and to keep them from having impure thoughts, and to protect the women of the town…who knows exactly…a couple years ago, the powers that be in the town decided they needed a newer, and bigger penis…so they paid the equivalent of 2 million euro to have another one carved, it’s set higher up on the hill…and it’s big…legend said that women who wanted children could come sit on the penis, but that definitely won’t be happening with the new rock…hmmm…from there we drove (straight across the land, we weren’t on a road almost as soon as we left the guestger) to the king’s monument…it’s basically a huge monument honouring the former Mongolian empire…there are three mosaic pictures, depicting the empire at various points…when the huns were in charge, when the turks were in charge, and when the Mongols took charge…it was the biggest when chinggis khan, a mongol, was in charge…HUGE…the biggest empire the world has ever known…most of china, Russia, india, and parts of eastern Europe…go figure, the Mongols were better at increasing the size of the empire than they were at keeping a functioning government alive and well…the view from the monument all around was fantastic…a valley with a river running through it on one side, the city on the other, and we could see the monastery in the distance…

Having been cooped up in the minivan all day, the Frenchman, renaud, asked if it was far back to the guestger…our guide told us it was only 3 or 4 kilometers, which seemed like a nice walk…so I walked home with renaud and koen…(the dutch guy)…it was a great walk…kim went back in the minivan with their son, taro…we arrived at just the right time, our guide brought in our dinner fairly quickly…overcooked spaghetti…hee hee…I like my noodles more smushy than al dente, but believe me, she’d let the noodles cook too long…oh well…

After dinner, we went into another ger, where a Mongolian man, dressed in traditional clothing, gave a mini concert playing traditional Mongolian instruments…one was a horse head cello…the other I can’t exactly describe, so I won’t try…figure out what you can in the photo…he also did some of the traditional throat singing…apparently there are four different ways of making the sounds, but I could only distinguish two different sounds…still, it was a nifty concert, we were all glad we got to see it…renaud figured out that one of the other members of the audience was someone he knew from uni, so they talked for a while after the concert was over…almost all travelers have a small world story to tell…

The next morning when taro woke up at 0600, it was cold in the ger…kim and koen figured it was probably partly the cold that woke him up, though apparently he wakes up every morning around that time…I heard him wake up a bit, but I didn’t hear koen take him out and go for a two hour walk while we continued sleeping…they came back around 0800, knowing that breakfast was to be served at 0830, and that we’d all be awake by that point…fortunately, someone had started a fire in the stove, so the ger was warm again by that point…the stoves keep the gers warm, but when they go out, it gets really chilly…

After breakfast I went with our guide, kim and renaud to the nearby monastery…koen and taro stayed back, so taro could take a nap…he’d been up for four hours already…as I mentioned earlier, it was built with the ruins of the former capital city…erdene zuu khiid was once one of the most important monastaries in the entire country…unfortunately, most of it was destroyed during the Stalinist purges, just like so many other monastaries/places of worship around the country…there were three temples that had been left alone, so they were great to see…I’d try to recount what was in each one, and what each figure represented, but it wouldn’t be that interesting unless you’re really into Mongolian/religious history…we spent a couple hours wandering around the former monastery, as well as the current monastery that is also on the grounds…we got to hear monks calling each other to the “service” using horns…very cool…and we got to hear them all chanting together inside…even though I don’t understand what is going on, there is something amazing about hearing their voices all together…we sat for a while, just absorbing everything around us…

Lunch was served back at the guestger…after lunch we got back in the minivan, and started driving again…we weren’t on a road for very long this time…we followed tracks and trails, and it didn’t take me long to start wondering how the driver knew where he was going…our path twisted all over, and never went straight…sometimes we weren’t following anything at all, at least, not that I could see…and yet I could tell he knew exactly where he was…all of a sudden, we pulled up to four gers that seemed to appear out of nowhere…a family ger, and their extras, which were used for groups like us…

After having our milk tea and bortzog, we went for a walk…our guide led us to a beautiful waterfall…she said it was less than 500m from the ger, but we couldn’t see or hear the waterfall until we were almost walking into it…the gorge just opened up like a big hole, and it would’ve been really easy to walk right over the edge…it really was that hidden until you were right there…our guide showed us how to hike down into the gorge…kim had taro strapped to her back, I have no idea how she got down…that descent had me twisting all sorts of ways, but she didn’t really have that option…I followed the river as far as I could, the scenery was amazing…and after climbing back out, I was tempted to keep following the gorge and see how far I could go…instead, I just walked up from the waterfall a little ways, sat down, and enjoyed the scenery, and quiet…Mongolia has this way of being incredibly quiet…quieter than anything I’ve ever experienced previously…amazing…

The stars that night were incredible…sooooo many stars…