Chaka Khan
Trip Start
Aug 25, 2006
1
5
60
Trip End
May 20, 2007
Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia
Sunday, September 3, 2006
Were up on horsies (Ger's was a bit snotty and ruined my jeans), as the local Nomad had us herding his goats back to his family's Ger, to where his wife had prepared a few "treats" for us: drank horsies milk (sweet holy God it was disgusting but we did our best) and had horse cheese (again...sweet holy.......i sneaked it into me pocket, and was to forget about this for, ahem, three days - this was a mistake :). Lots of other mad stuff....being a million miles (well 450km actually) from anywhere....had a 5 hour drive in a 4x4 on the worst road imaginable (like it had been bombed alot, craters for potholes).....our driver kept going off road and through fields to avoid craters of potholes. Ger somehow fell asleep but woke when she whacked her head off the window. And then we were stopped for speeding!! A dead straight road for about 20 miles, not a car in sight but the police insisted that the limit was 20KPH!!! So the journey nearly killed us after only 2 hours kip on last night of train because of border checks. God it was mad. Castlerea-Frenchpark road, all is forgiven. :-)
At least it was interesting at times, with the odd vulture popping up and stranger still, seeing a woman walking through a field, despite the lacking of a town or ANYTHING for miles either side.
Anyhow, we loved the Ger (felt tent).....very snug, having our own little stove with a log fire (very cold at night). Ger made peace with the huge grasshoppers too which was impressive.
Second day at the camp, we opened our front door to miles of grassland (Steppe) with mountains in the distance. Then, we were off to Erdene Zuu temple complex in Kharkourin. Interesting spot with monks chanting and the like, and some wannabe monks too, with one grumpy young lad who just didn't want to be a monk he told his Granny (have to get this picture up!). We told them about X Factor so they are looking into this method. Off then to see a Nomad piss into the wind (rookie error) as his camels looked on. This was at sand dunes, and afterwards we continued on to a monastery up the side of a mountain which was faaantastic as Ger Loughnane would say. Here we met a bloke whose uncle is from Castlerea (of course, it's a common occurance for Castlerea people to be 300 miles from the closest city 5 miles off road, up the side of a mountain at a yellow sect Buddist monastery, of course). Learnt about how the yellow sect Buddhist and Red sect Buddhists had a big fight here, which seemed a bit hypocritical. Back to Ulan Bataar for some sleep and a tour of the town (quite rough with a nice central area) with a nod to Ghinngis Khan up on his horsie. Jaysus, they love their horsies. Saw a round about worse than the Headford one, and met some friends (the Finns and English) from the train by coincidence in the post office and, amazingly, the Irish pub. And then onward, to Beijing...
