After a long night at the Chinese-Mongolian border we woke up to the sights of Mongolia. Already quite tired of eating instant noodles we opted to get “brunch” in the Mongolian train car.
Quite tired of instant noodles (it doesnt take much), we decided to try out food in the Mongolian dining car. It was a sparse menu, but seeing as we’d only had processed carbs for the past day, we opted for what vegetables we could along with some lamb sauteed with onions. It wasn’t the best meal we’ve ever had, but given our state quite delicious!
Although Ulaanbaatar would be considered small at 1.8 million people is small to us fancy New Yorkers, it houses nearly half of the population of the entire country, and sprawls wider than you could imagine. With more than an hour until reaching the station the reach of the city became evident as sparse Gers became tightly packed shantys with tin roofs, and horses were replaced by Priuses.
We arrived in Ulaanbaatar just after 2pm, where we were greeted by our AirBnb Ger host Sainaa who would be taking us to the Genghis Khan monument before the camp site.
It’s incredible to think that less than 1000 years ago Genghis Khan and his sons lead the peoples of this sparsely populated country in a conquest that would have them close to taking over the entire Eurasian continent. Mongolia, now much quieter on the global scene still holds Genghis Khan to great esteem to the point where insulting him could put you in jail.
After checking out the monument we hopped back into our host’s Prius and headed to the camp, about an hour and a half from the city and close to the national park. When we arrived we placed our bags down in our home for the next two nights and headed to his “Ger Restaurant” where we would have our first true Mongolian meal of our trip. Tsuivan a traditional type of Mongolian stir fry noodles with beef and or lamb, and Khusshur a type of meat patty wrapped in dough and deep fried. Both were delicious.
The climate was a pretty significant departure from the endless heat and humidity of Taipei, Shanghai, and Beijing. Quite a relief, but it would mean that the nights could get below 10C. Fortunately (for us and not the environment) our Ger was equipped with a wood and coal burner which kept us more than toasty overnight.
After our late lunch we headed to a nomadic family where we tried Airag, a mildly alcoholic beverage made from fermented horse milk. Definitely a unique taste, slightly fizzy, a bit sour and an aftertaste that I would probably rather not experience again. It’s the national drink, and beloved by locals, so maybe with due time I could learn to enjoy it (who liked beer their first time drinking it?).
At this nomadic family I also got the chance to ride a horse for the first time. Not something I’ve ever been particularly interested in doing, but coerced by our host, I present to you Dan on horse.
After getting walked around on the horse for about 5 minutes, I got off and the family’s young daughter no older than 13 hopped on and showed me how it was done. Across Mongolia you see this everywhere, young teens on horse back herding sheep and cows, it’s quite impressive.
The next day was spent at Terlj National Park, which we both have to say was a bit of a disappointment. The term national park seems to have a very different meaning in Mongolia, having entered the park we were greeted by Ger resorts, restaurants, and various other capitalist enterprises that would never be seen in a “national” park in the US or Australia. There were two man attractions in the park, Turtle Rock, which you can guess is a rock formation that resembles a turtle (which neither of us had the foresight to take a picture of). You could also climb it which meant navigating a very narrow opening.
After hanging out there for a bit we headed to the Aryaval monastery, a temple that sits at the end of a long hike and is something of a spiritual destination for Mongolian buddhists.
The inside of the temple was colorful in a way that is common in Mongolia and makes it distinct from Chinese buddhist temples which are typically more subdued in decor.
After a long afternoon in the park we headed to Khaan Jims by the river where we had a nice lunch before heading back to the Ger camp to hang out by ourselves in the vast fields before heading to Ulaanbaatar the next morning.
