Wednesday, July 9 - The trip to Choibolson continues

Wow, what a day! When I ended yesterday with the statement that we had a lot of travel ahead, I had no idea. We got up very early this morning, after a somewhat restless night of sleep. The ger was very comfortable, but the family staying behind us had brought a very young boy for treatment in the healing waters of the lake, and the poor little guy clearly doesn’t feel well and cried until 4 a.m. There’s always someone like that in the campground!

Anyway, we ate breakfast at 6 a.m., which was a delicious omelet with bread and jam, and then packed up to leave. We also had the ever-present milk tea. We were presented with the parting ceremony, much like the welcoming ceremony where everyone is given a drink of milk for a safe journey. Milk was then sprinkled on all four tires of the car for luck before we left.

We headed out across country on the trails, and had to stop a couple of times to ask directions from herders when the road would fork or wander. One of them didn’t know quite what Erdene had meant, and he sent us the shortest distance back to UlanBator! When we finally reached the highway, we had to backtrack 27 kilometers to where we wanted to be.

We had a little bit of paved road before that ended. This highway is less than 5 years old, and is still being built. Only about half of the road between UlanBator and Choibolson is paved, despite it being the major route to the eastern side of Mongolia. Even before the paved road ended, we had a lot of detours. These aren’t like American detours that are groomed and obvious. We just wandered wherever we could before getting back on the road.

The paved road did finally end, and the real adventure began. Most of the time the road was little more than a path, and sometimes we were driving through the grasslands themselves trying to make our way. There are absolutely no signs to indicate where you are, and where a fork in the road may take you, so you have to take a guess and hope you took the right fork. We stopped several times to ask herders or other travelers if we were on the right path, and for the most part we were.

We stopped for lunch at a riverside where a herd of horses was standing in a bend in the river. Bolor had packed food for the trip, which was supplemented by boiled beef, potatoes and carrots they had sent with us from the tourist camp earlier in the morning. We spread a sleeping bag out on the ground, Daryl and Erdene lit a small gas stove, and we had lunch. It was very beautiful here, and there were small herds of cattle nearby as well. Khuslee played with his new Frisbee, which ended up in the water twice, much to his dismay. He thought it was very funny, though, when his dad rolled up his pant legs and went in after it.

At one point during the afternoon, we followed a herder’s directions and ended up off track again. We had stopped to take pictures of a herd of camels, and Daryl and I both thought we should backtrack to the camel herd, but Erdene decided to simply leave the trail and head off across the grassland. We stopped at two gers along the way to see if we were on the right track. The ground was kind of muddy in places, and the thought of pushing the car out of the muddy grass wasn’t all that appealing! We did finally get back on the main road (it sounds crazy to call that trail a main road!) and things were good.

As we drove along throughout the entire day, we saw cranes, usually in pairs. Erdene told us they were husband and wife, and it was the same ones we were seeing over and over. They were flying faster than we were driving, and kept ahead of us. Daryl told him it was more likely

we were driving around in circles!

We saw many herders throughout the day, tending their herds on horseback and motorcycle. The size of the herds was amazing sometimes, and many flocks contained cattle, horses, goats and sheep all mixed together. We saw fewer camels, and only one herd that was just camels.
The cattle are raised for beef and milk; the horses for milk and racing, and occasionally meat; the goats for their cashmere wool; the sheep for their wool and meat; and the camels for transportation.

The number of herders has been reduced by half since the end of Socialism. They no longer are provided for by the government, and the life is too hard. The herds are taken to market in the cities, or more and more often brokers are coming to them in the countryside and buying their livestock. Bolor told us these brokers take advantage of the herders, and frequently cheat them.
Erdene was raised in a large family of nine boys by a widowed mother after his father died in a car accident. His mother was a doctor, but the life was very hard he told us. He has an older brother he considers to be like a father to him. Because his mother was paid by the government, she has no pension now under capitalism, and her children all provide for her.

We traveled through two different aimag centres today, the equivalent of a state capitol. We knew we were definitely in a different world! There were no paved streets, the housing was very poor, ramshackle fences surrounded homes to indicate ownership, and animals roamed the streets freely.

These were very small settlements, but they were among the few permanent settlements in the countryside. We only passed through a half dozen settlements in the 11 hours we were on the road today, and most consisted of a half dozen houses. Planning for food and gasoline when you take a trip like this is absolutely necessary, or you will find yourself stranded and unable to go on.

We finally arrived in Choibolson at 7:00 p.m. Erdene and Bolor took us to our hotel, the Kherlan Hotel, and helped us check in. We are not going to find English speaking people in the hotel here, so their help is necessary.

We left the room to go to dinner, and a huge thunderstorm blew in while we were at the restaurant. When we got back to our room, the rain had come through the open windows (no screens) and soaked some of our things. Erdene sent a fan and a coffee pot up with us to our room, but we couldn’t tell whether it was the fan that wasn’t working, or the electrical outlet. We fell into bed exhausted, and ready to attend the Nadaam ceremonies the next day.

We had spent a total of 17 ½ hours over two days traveling the 400 miles to get here, and what a trip it had been!