I arrived in Ulaanbaatar at about 5 in the morning on the train. What’s up with all these early arrivals? I walked to a hostel that I had previously scoped out on booking.com and dropped my stuff off there before walking around the town.

I walked around with another guy I met at the hostel, and we discovered that the black building at the corner of Ikh Surguuli St and J. Sambuu St had no security and absolutely nothing on the top floor. We just simply walked in and clicked the highest level in the elevator, which I believe was 14. Up there, at least in June 2019, there was nothing at the top and he and I just walked around the eerily empty top floor and soaked in the view.

I later met up with a couchsurfer that invited me to hike in the Bogd Khan Uul Strictly Protected Area, just to the south of UB (as the locals always refer to the city).

The Gandantegchinlen Monastery complex is in the northwest part of the city, and I later went there and saw a giant statue of Avalokiteśvara that is 26 meters / 82 feet tall.

Then just some other random things in the city.

 

I usually refrain from taking pictures of advertisements and corporate stuff, but something about KFC selling tacos in Mongolia was so bizarre to me that I just had to document it.

I had been talking with another couchsurfer that had invited me to visit her nomad family. Since I hadn’t formulated any actual plans for Mongolia yet, I figured I would go for it and see what the rural life was like. A lot of people in Mongolia use Couchsurfing as a money-making venture, not too dissimilar to Africa. In Africa, they were always trying to get you to join their safari. It is not as expensive in Mongolia, but a lot of “hosts” do want to charge 20 USD per day. It’s not actually that much money for a traveler from a developed country, but it’s also kind of against the spirit of couchsurfing. This host had used couchsurfing in other countries, though, so I was pretty sure that she wasn’t going to charge me, and she didn’t in the end.

She was in UB at the time, so we left together in the bus.

We had the bus pull over at a non-descript spot along the highway a few hours west of UB where her father was waiting in a car. From there, we took off on some rutted trails for about half an hour before reaching their Ger tent, tucked in a small valley.

I was originally only planning on staying there for a few nights, but I ended up staying there for 5.

It was a very pleasant and calm environment. I sometimes helped herd animals a little bit. I milked one of the goats for like 10 seconds, but I just decided I wasn’t the best at it and left it to the pros. Other than that, we walked around a bit on the surrounding hills. We also foraged nettle to make steamed dumplings with. And in that time, I also managed to commit some cultural guffaws.

When we first arrived, we were greeted by the family and some neighbors. I was offered some small vials that had powdered tobacco in it. One is supposed to take a little and put it on your finger and sniff it. After being shown what to do, I did it, and I then tried to pass the bottle along. I didn’t know that you were supposed to give it back to the person who gave it to you, and I at first tried passing it along the circle, which confused everyone. After I casually handed it back, I was informed that one is supposed to hold the bottle in a certain way, like your extending your hand to shake, when giving it back, which of course I didn’t do. Oops. I think I did better with the other 2 people that also gave me their bottles.

We then had some shots of vodka. After a couple of small shots from a very nice little bowl, I noticed that most other people were still leaving about half the shot in there while I was downing me. I asked my host about it, and she told me that you were supposed to do that and to drink it all wasn’t quite proper. In addition, you were supposed to hold the glass with your right hand, and not the left, which I was doing since the person handing them to me was sometimes on my left. Oops again.

Another time, I sat in the middle of the side of the table, which I was told is kind of reserved and acts more for a spot for the spirits around. So, by sitting there, I was possibly upsetting the forces that be.

I think everyone was understanding, though, and there was no ill will from the others. Most of the others didn’t speak English, so I had to translate everything through my host, but she was patient.

The nomads mostly live off the land. They don’t grow veggies though, since the climate is often too harsh for that. They live off the goats, sheep, and cows that they herd and raise. That means that they consume milk, yogurt, butter, cheese, and dried curd, among other dairy products one can make from goat and cow milk. I think I had more butter in the few days I was there than I had consumed in the previous 10 years. That being said, their stuff is absolutely not processed and much more natural than the stuff you buy at the market. It was delicious. They also eat a lot of meat, but I didn’t eat any since I don’t eat meat.

They also drink a lot of chai. They make it like they do a lot in Africa in that it’s mostly milk with some water, and they might add some tea leaves or one packet of tea when making 10 liters of tea. In Mongolia, though, they also add salt. At first, I thought something was wrong with the tea, but I grew to like it. They drink it as soon as it’s done cooking, which means it’s almost still boiling. I would often wait for it to cool down. They also wondered why I was so silent while drinking. They slurp their tea a lot, but that was rather rude to do while I was growing up, so I didn’t do it. They noticed it that I didn’t slurp and thought that I didn’t like the tea or something like that since I wasn’t slurping it like they did.

Speaking of drinks, they don’t drink water. They drink chai, and that’s pretty much it. At one point, I filtered some water with my water filter and they seemed rather curious about the resulting water and wanted to try it.

While walking around, I saw lots of wool laying on the ground. They have a lot of sheep, and if you don’t shear their wool quick enough, they start to shed it, so you can find some on the ground. My host, Puujee, told me that back in the day before they had access to toilet paper, Mongolians would grab bits of wool and sometimes cashmere and use it to clean themselves after going to the bathroom. I had to laugh about people using cashmere as toilet paper. For some reason, I was imagining a more effective method of cleaning yourself: instead of picking up wool off the ground, why not have a train of sheep lined up in front of you. You could squat over them while they ran underneath you and clean you just like that! I told my idea to Puujee who related it to her family, and they had a good laugh about it.

I was later playing a card game with Puujee and her brother. After her brother went to do some other work, we ended up making some bets. She had a drum from the 9^th reincarnation of Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, and she wanted to bring the drum to the temple the 1^st reincarnation founded in 1648. If she won the game, I was to join her in bringing the drum there. I wasn’t sure what to make as my wager, so I said she would have to join me in China and South Korea.

To be honest, I wasn’t taking the wager too seriously since my demand was so much, but to her credit, she was taking it seriously. The game ends when some person reaches 108 points, and after the second to last game, she had 105 points, and she was quite distraught at having to go to China and South Korea lol. Luckily for her, in the last game, I messed up bad and tanked my score well into the territory of losing the game. I lost. Since I realized she had taken our wager seriously, I decided to also take it seriously and joined her on the quest to the monastery.

Before that, we left to see a local Naadam Festival (each village has a small one which might have a different date than the big one in UB), but due to some car issues, we only arrived right as it was ending. Oh well…The next morning, we started hitchhiking towards the monastery. On the way was Karakorum, which was the old capital city of the Mongolia empire when Chinggis Khaan (commonly written as Genghis Khan, but I learned that the previously written is more correct) reigned.

After that, we managed to catch a bus going where we needed to go, and we got out at the small village of Khotont. Apparently, the bus driver was mumbling about “those poor tourist” since there was practically nothing to see in that village. Little did he know that we had a much grander destination than that village. We started walking in the direction of the monastery and were shortly stopped by some locals who asked us where we were going. The short “20km” way to our destination ended up being more about 100km, and there was not a lot of regular traffic going to it from that village.

Some nomad family gave us a ride in their truck for about half the way.

From there, we walked over the next few days. We camped the first night near a village we walked by. Puujee had not brought a sleeping bag and was hoping that her thick trench coat-like traditional Mongolian jacket would suffice. It did not, despite us laying next to each other to share some body heat. She eventually asked to put her feet inside my sleeping bag, and I opened up the bottom. Since my sleeping bag is rather warm and she was laying next to me, I was broiling. I was literally sweating, and I didn’t realize how cold she was until she asked me, with an audible shiver in her voice, if she could partially use my sleeping bag as well. Her toes, like cubes of ice, made contact with my feet and sent jolts of surprise through me.

Later, we laughed about the scene. Her shivering next to me while I was sweating. It reminded me of this scene from The Three Amigos.

The next morning, we continued our long trek, and it started to remind me of Lord of the Rings. We were tasked with, in a way, returning the drum to its origins. We were also getting different advice on how to get there. At one point we were told that we had to walk to the mountains in the distance.

There, we would find some rocky outcroppings on the top, and there the monastery would lie. But we were told the path there was difficult and unkempt. As we progressed and met more nomads, we inquired further. We were told that there would be 2 rocky outcroppings. We needed to get on the ridgeline and walk past the 1^st and smaller clump of rocks before getting to the second and bigger one, which is where the monastery would be.

As we talked to more people, more pieces of the puzzle fell together. We would have to walk up a canyon. On the right, we would find the remains of a house that no longer had a roof. From there, on the left, there would be some white trees. A narrow path would bring us safely up the hill and to the ridgeline.

The puzzle was complete, and after one more night, we reached the Tovkhon monastery on the 3^rd day.

Our quest was complete. The drum was back at its proverbial home. We walked into the monastery and talked to the head monk, who had trained under the 9^th reincarnation in Nepal for a few weeks. We explained that Puujee had come into possession of the drum when she was in Nepal. The 9^th reincarnation of Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutuktu had owned this drum. There was a German monk that he gifted it to about 15 years ago, and she passed it on to Puujee when they met in Dharamshala a few months prior after she discovered that Puujee lived really close to this monastery.

The monk took the drum in his hands, played it a little bit after inspecting it, and then returned it to us. “I don’t recall ever seeing this drum,” he said. “I knew Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, and he never gave things away like this while I was with him,” he continued (even though he only knew him for a few weeks).  He finished by telling us, “I think you’re making all this up.”

Well, what a disappointing conclusion to such an epic quest. Originally, Puujee was thinking about leaving the drum there, but after that, she decided that she would just hold onto it, and she still has it at her parent’s place.

We left and started making our way back to civilization again. But first, since there was a nice waterfall nearby, we figured we’d make a minor detour to go there.

From there, we hitchhiked to a village and then back to Karakorum, where we camped one last night since it was late at night.

I had also been talking with another couchsurfer that had invited me to join him and another couchsurfer in the 2^nd surfer’s car, and I went to join up with them.

I left the next morning and hitchhiked up to Ikh-Uul, where they were at, while Puujee went back to her parents.

I met up with the guys, and we first went to an abandoned hot spring. I think it wasn’t truly abandoned but only operated in the summer months. But the state of the place sure made it feel abandoned. I guess it was made during the Soviet times, and I don’t think they really cared about maintenance. But the hot springs still worked, so we took a nice bath in some mineral water.

After that, we drove to Khuvsgul but not without an entire slew of car issues. The fuse for the alternator had blown when someone made a connection with the alternator and frame, and we had to keep shoving copper wire into the fuse slot, lest the car run out of battery. But 100 amps is a bit much for that thin copper wire we found, and it kept burning out so we had to stop every half hour or so to apply more wire. At one point, I think due to us sometimes running on battery after the makeshift fuse gave out, the car was just inoperable, and we had to wait until a car came by and could jump us.

Once we got to the city of Moron (hehehe), we got a new fuse and fixed it, and from there we had no major issues. With them, I spent a few nights in the Khuvsgul area. It was beautiful, and the water was clear. We drank straight from the lake without any issues—you just needed to make sure there were no dead mosquitoes in the water. The lake still had a good amount of ice on it in the middle of June, and while it was generally warm out, the breeze coming across the lake and ice was rather chilling.

Among our adventures was hiking up a mountain on the west side of the lake. I’m not sure what the name of the mountain was, but we had a good time trying to navigate to the mountain via the ravines and forests before finally hiking the ridge and getting on top.

And back down to the lake, with so much ice.

I decided to go swimming, and I later found out just how sharp the ice was!

In the evenings, we cooked and made a fire and also drank quite a bit. Beer was only a couple of dollars for 2.4-liter bottles (more than half a gallon), and we had purchased a few of those bottles over the few days.

At one point, an intense rainstorm came in, and we made a mad dash for the car. I didn’t quite understand why, but someone decided to move the car while I was still getting in, and my foot actually got run over. It hurt for quite a bit, but it luckily seems like there were no lasting effects.

After a fun few days of hiking and camping, we drove back to Ikh-Uul. They stayed there while I went ahead to Tariat (which on Google maps is marked as Khorgo, but it’s actually Tariat and not the small village to the west). From there I hiked to the Khorgo mountain, which is a dormant volcano.

Puujee and I had decided to travel more together, so I went back to UB to meet up with her.

I was supposed to arrive later in the evening, but it had been raining a lot the past couple days. Like, a lot. So much that the highway ahead of us was flooded by more than a meter. The road was closed, and we couldn’t continue. A lot of cars were trying to get to a different nearby road, and the driver of the car that picked me up joined them. There was supposed to be some dirt road that connected the current highway with the nearby road, but it was all but lost in the darkness and water. Dozens, nay, hundreds of cars were driving all over the country side, trying to find safe passage across the marsh that we were traversing. Lines of cars webbed out in all directions, eventually stopping at tricky spots to try and find the best way of getting by. Dozens of cars were getting stuck in the mud, and we had a couple close calls in our little car. Sometimes, other cars would come at us, seemingly coming from our destination. Our driver would wave them down and ask a few questions. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I could read their expressions, and it was hilarious. I could totally understand that my driver was asking if they came from UB, and they would say that they were trying to get there too. There was no order anymore and it wasn’t even clear which way was the right way. People coming from the direction we were heading. People traversing our paths. Lights bobbing up and down over the bumps. It was madness.

And yet, somehow, we managed to get to the other side after a few hours of traversing the maze of invisible walls. We made it! We were at the other side! Alas, we drove on it for all of 3 minutes before the way was also shut by traffic waiting to cross the flooded part ahead. We resigned ourselves to our fates and slept in the car until the morning when the floods went down just barely enough to get by.

I managed to make it back to the capital early the next morning. From UB we went to Terelj in the Gorkhi Terelj national park. It was nice, but since it was so close to the city, it was much more developed than the other more remote places I had seen in Mongolia.

After that, we went to the giant statue of Chinggis Khaan. You can pay about 12 USD to go up in the statue and get on top of the horse’s head to more closely see the great Khan’s face, but I didn’t feel it was worth it.

We went back to UB for a night before taking a train to the border of China. From there, we caught a bus that took us to Beijing. It was possible to take a train or bus all the way from UB to Beijing, but I guess it was “best” to break it up like that, for a mix of comfort and price.

I really liked Mongolia. I often say that I would like to return to many countries, but this is one that I mean it with the most so far. A friend and I have already been discussing going back together in the future. We want to do a motorcycle tour since you can buy a brand new (Chinese) motorcycle in Mongolia for about 900 USD. Drive around for a few weeks, and then come back into the capital and sell the bikes for a little hit, but it would be cheaper and more liberating than relying on busses or hitchhiking. The landscape in Mongolia is amazing and expansive. It is the least densely populated country in the world, and you really do feel it once you leave the capital. So much open and beautiful land. I didn’t make it to the mountains in the far west or to the Gobi Desert (I was recently in Namibia and felt I had seen enough desert for a while), but I would like to see it in the future. A lot of travel destinations are very touristy and built up for tourists. But I feel like I have had one of the more authentic experiences while traveling in Mongolia. The locals are friendly and welcoming, and I would love to explore this breathtaking country considerably more in the future.