A Dusty, Snowy Off-Road Trip Through Mongolia

I can’t say that any dining experience we had on our trip was good. Most of our meals consisted of dried beef mixed with noodles. We also tried some "Beef Tea" which was basically a mixture of hot water, tea, milk, salt and dried beef and a few cow bones. It was about as appetizing as it sounds.

However one highlight was our lunch stop in Karakorum in the ger of Nassan’s friend. We started with tea and cookies. The cookies were more like hardened doughnut fingers, which were impenetrable when dry but sweet and soft when dipped in the tea.

Next came dried beef again but with Fusilli pasta. As bizarre as it sounds, it made a welcome change from noodles. After the meal we were served a full mug of port. We were somewhat taken aback by the generous pouring and quietly sipped it whilst Nassan and our host put theirs away in about ten minutes flat.

The food however was upstaged by the entertainment we were treated to that day. A gentleman by the name of Shuteen Ayalguu entered the ger in traditional Mongolian garb and proceeded to entertain us with throat singing and playing various stringed instruments in a private 40-minute concert. We sat in awe throughout as he sang traditional Mongolian songs and switched effortlessly between three different instruments (four if you include the spoon he played on his mouth, cheek, nose and forehead!) We eagerly purchased his CD for 15,000 Tugrik ($12.88), not bad considering the concert was a mere $2.50 per person for front row seats. Shuteen then sat with us for a while answering questions. Apparently the best way to get started as a throat singer is to learn how to hold your breath for an extremely long time.

On our journey across Siberia and Asia, Mongolia was the only country where we relied fully on the services of a tour guide. Had we had more time we may have done things differently but given the vastness of Mongolia and our inability to speak the language signing up for an organized tour was definitely the best option for us. Although the tour felt improvised Nassan was able to customize the trip, taking into consideration the places we wanted to see in the limited time we had.

Nassan was a competent guide although at times we suspected that her desire to catch up with family or to sit and listen was more attractive than translating our hosts stories into English. That said, had we gone with the driver-only option we would have learnt a lot less. If someone is serious about learning more about the country I would advise researching multiple companies to make sure that they not only speak decent English but that they travel regularly outside of Ulan Baatar. Nassan was a self-confessed city girl and seemed unfamiliar and at times uncomfortable out in the wilderness.

We used the Lonely Planet and Bryn Thomas’s Trans-Siberian guides for suggestions on tours and accommodation in Mongolia. They’re a good place to start but I’d recommend doing further internet research as there are many tourist companies popping up in Ulan Baatar, some of them charging extortionate prices for even short tours.

I don’t think a map would have done us much good in Mongolia and I’m still in awe at how Batmunkh managed to negotiate his way around 1070 km of dirt tracks. His way of getting directions was to drive from ger to ger and ask the next family if we were going the right way – and it worked.


Quick tips or suggestions

Having pre-booked with Nassan, a driver picked us up from Ulan Baatar train station and delivered us directly to the youth hostel. If you want to get out of the crazy crowds at the station and get your bearings faster then this is the best way to arrive. We had a couple of hours to kill before we left on our road trip which was just as well as Nassan presented us with a list of gifts that we should buy for our prospective hosts. Doing this made perfect sense and we were obviously more than happy to do so, we just wished that she had emailed it to us before we left home, as we may have been able to be a little more inventive. Arriving into Ulan Baatar at 6am on a Sunday morning doesn’t give you much scope for a shopping expedition.

The suggestions were mostly basic home items such as toothpaste, candles, washing up sponges although it was recommended we bring vodka for the male members of any host family. Be warned that when you do hand over the vodka gift, they immediately open the bottle and pass cupfuls around the room until it’s all gone. It’s apparently taken as an offense if you don’t take a drink (tough for me as I can’t stand vodka!)

For your own comfort and sanity, I’d recommend taking some basic camping gear such as a sleeping bag, toilet paper, a small torch, hand sanitizer and cleansing wipes, some food (bowls of noodles, biscuits, crisps and other snacks) and plenty of bottled water. When we got back from the trip we found a tick so before you jump into the shower, do a once over on yourself to make sure you didn’t bring back any unwanted critters from the desert.

The irony about this entry, and this journal, is that apart from Khangan Khan and Karakorum, I can’t provide any other place names. Although we were paying for a guide / translator, driver, a Russian Jeep and accommodation, our entire trip was highly improvised. Initially this baffled and irritated us a bit but we soon realized that a) we were getting the trip of a lifetime and b) it’s impossible to plan ahead on accommodation in Mongolia when your hosts are nomads.

Our second night’s accommodation was a few hours south-east of Karakorum and when we left the following morning our driver Batmunkh headed to the north of the Gobi Desert. Nassan was born in this area of Mongolia and wanted to search for relatives of her mother’s family. On the way there, we happened upon what I can only describe as an outcrop of rocks. I have no idea how Nassan identified them but even she was excited to find them. At Doht Khaht (spelling is probably grossly incorrect) we found a small group of rocks inscribed with original Mongolian script. Nassan told us that the tablets were created in the 17th century by a Mongolian warrior wanting to incite peace and unity in Mongolia after bloody wars in the region.

I hope the story Nassan recounted was true. It made the already beautiful rocks seem all the more poignant as they stood silently in the middle of the now peaceful desert, somewhere on a dirt road between Karakorum and Ulan Baatar.

Favourite cities and towns along the way

Every stop on our trip was special and unique in some way. Karakorum was the only place I could actually call a town and even that is a stretch. When we arrived the place seemed deserted but we soon discovered that people were hiding from the bitter cold and snow in the snug safety of their gers, some of which were walled in to small compounds.

Even though we only saw the gers and Erdenezu monastery we were exposed to the generosity of our hosts who provided us with a big lunch as well as organizing the wonderful and impromptu throat-singing performance.

As we drove we saw few shops or cafes and most of our meals and even brief refreshment stops were taken at people’s homes. Families generously opened up their gers and served us tea and Mongolian cookies, although we had brought some cookies with us from the city and Nassan advised us to bring them in to share with our hosts.

Khangan Khan was also a favourite stop. The camp was nestled into the mountains and climbing up to the monastery buildings provided wonderful views over the ruins below and the desert beyond. It was also a very calming place. This was in part due to our host Alta who despite living in such isolation had found contentment back in the land of her ancestors. She made the effort of dressing in a traditional Mongolian coat before embarking on the tour of her monastery to share with us not only the history of her family, but also a few fundamentals about Buddhism.

One of the most impressive sights on our trip was the Erdenezu monastery in Karakorum. When we arrived it was covered in snow and more was falling. A friend of Nassan works at the monastery and took us around the various buildings that are still standing. Sixty-two buildings were originally built in the compound of Erdenezu. Communist destruction over the years left them with just three temples.

The walls of the temple comprise 108 posts, which is the number of Buddhist scripts. We were left to visit the last temple on our own where we found a large group of young boys serving up a lunch of rice and beans from a bucket. Nassan spoke with one of the elder monks and asked him to pray for our safe journey back to Ulan Baatar. The ceremony lasted about five minutes and followed a continuous chant accompanied by the occasional bell ring. The incense lit at the start of the ceremony was then handed over and we were instructed to waft the smoke towards us and then pass the dish around us in three complete revolutions. Odd numbers are considered luck in Buddhism. At the end of the prayer Nassan gave the monk some money and we left.

We left Karakorum in a flurry of snow but as we pushed on it gradually cleared until we were out of the snow altogether and we were left wondering about the power of the Buddhist monk’s prayer.

The most comfortable camp of our trip was in Khangan Khan. At the base of Khangan Khan is a group of monastery buildings run by a sweet lady named Alta. Alta moved from Ulan Baatar in 1995 and is in the process of reviving the monastery of her ancestors. She treated us to a personal tour around the monastery buildings, which was originally founded by a Tibetan monk in the 14th century. The monk was forced to flee Tibet after shooting the King, who wasn't a big supporter of the Buddhist religion. Despite destruction by Western Mongolians in the 16th century and then later by the Russians, the monastery of Alta's great grandfather is slowly being restored by her efforts.

Alta lives below the monastery in her own beautifully decorated ger. Next door, she has erected a "guest ger" with four sturdy and comfortable beds, a central stove for heating and a small table with miniature stools. We stayed in the guest ger with our guide Nassan, and our non-English speaking but all-enthusiastic driver Batmunkh.

That night Alta cooked us a pot of noodles with some vegetables that Nassan brought from the city. Outside all you could hear was the wind, the birds and the goats. We cleaned our teeth whilst being watched by a pair of curious Bactrian camels and made a trip to the toilet, which was a doorless wooden hut about a minute walk from the main camp. That night I slept really well. It was the first time I had slept under so many layers, the top one being a thick and heavy rug.

The next morning the sand dunes were covered in snow, backing up Nassan’s theory that springtime in Mongolia is the most unpredictable season.

We had heard that to travel in Mongolia you need either a lot of money, or a lot of time. As we had neither, we were relieved to learn that Nassan’s Guesthouse would accommodate our needs at the reasonable price of $500. For two of us, that would cover a 4-day round trip to Kharakorum. It seemed like an adventure of a lifetime and every day seemed more memorable than the one before.

Highlights of our trip included a personalized tour of a small monastery in Khangan Khan, in the mountains of North Mongolia as well as a chilly, snowy tour of the Erdenezu monastery in Karakorum. It was in Karakorum that we were also treated to an intimate concert given by a wonderful Mongolian throat singer and musician.

One particularly memorable moment was on our final night in the desert, which also happened to be our third wedding anniversary. We stayed with the poorest shepherd of our trip. His ger was very basic and that night he sacrificed layers of wool from his bed for us to sleep on. As the sun was setting we drove out to a cave not far from his camp. We climbed up the face of the rock, which was like a giant’s staircase until we reached a small shelf. A small wall had been built and there was residual candle wax and a signature blue silk scarf. The shepherd told us that eight years ago a female lama brought a group of students out to this cave in these sacred mountains for 48 days of prayer and instruction. Hardly anyone knew they were there.

That night we fell asleep in his ger and looked up through the hole around the chimneystack as the moon illuminated the snowflakes falling through it.

If you decide to book onto one of Nassan’s tours it obviously makes some sense to stay at her hostel too and whilst the amenities may seem basic, Nassan and her staff work hard to maintain an efficient and comfortable facility, which is centrally located within a stone’s throw of Sukhbaatar Square.

We arrived by train into Ulan Baatar and although we were not spending our first night at her hostel, we were allowed to take a shower, store our luggage and get directions to the nearest ATM and convenience store. There were a couple of entertaining men hanging around; one claiming to be Nassan’s cousin and the other was her brother who worked for her company as a tour guide. Like our effervescent driver Batmunkh, Nassan’s brother was immediately friendly and extremely humourous.

The hostel dorms are spread across different floors of a short tenement block. It certainly doesn’t look like much from the outside but inside it is bright and clean and each dorm area had a small bathroom and kitchen available for use.

After our road trip through the desert we arrived back into Ulan Baatar feeling very dusty, dirty and in need of a European-style toilet! We decided to splash out for our final night in Mongolia and took a private room as opposed to a dorm bed. This was the most expensive option but only cost 19,600Tukrig ($16.84.) We hauled our bags up to the fourth floor of one of the blocks and opened the door to find that our double room was in fact a room off of a dorm room. However, the dorm room remained empty that night so we had the whole place to ourselves, which was probably a good thing considering the amount of time we spent in the bathroom trying to wash off half of the Gobi Desert.

Our bedroom was massive, with large windows making it wonderfully sunlit. One curious element was that all the heaters were turned up high, making the place almost unbearably hot. We managed to turn some of the heaters off and the others we used to dry hand-washed socks! The bulk of our desert clothes we handed over to one of Nassan’s staff, who for $3.44 ensured that they were machine washed and dried by that evening. Their usual laundry turnaround is a day but they made a generous exception for us, as we had to leave the hostel at 6.30am the following morning.

Later that evening, Nassan and Batmunkh invited us to Batmunkh’s apartment (in the same complex as the hostel) to share some sweet Hungarian wine. His room, like the rest of the place was fairly sparse, decorated only by essential furniture and a horsehead mandolin on top of a cupboard. The mandolin, Batmunkh told us, is a feature of all Mongolian homes. Akin to a religious icon, it’s not necessary to know how to play it, it just helps ward off evil spirits.