Nomad land blog

Eagle Festival takes place in Bayan Olgii province, Mongolia, around October. This time 2 festivals took place at the same time, one near Olgii town and the other in Sagsai soum.

With 2 travelers from London, we took part in the latter. Our tour included visits to Lake Hoton and Hurgan, Potanin glacier in Altai mountains, Lake Tolbo and Mt Tsambagarav in addition to Eagle Festival. Here are some pictures:

Lake Hoton: driver in the middle

The car we drove: Russian jeep

Horseback ride to Potanin glacier

We made it: Mt Huiten and Mt Malchin, 2 highest peaks in Mongolia in the background. The Potanin glacier takes place from these mountains. The 2 travelers and the wrangler.

Sending the eagle down to test its skills: spectators and lunch gers are seen below the hill

Eagle hunters: Kazak people

Kazak gers we spent night in on the bank of Lake Tolbo

The ger of Kazak family near Lake Tolbo where we spent one night with the family

Lake Tolbo

Return flight to Ulaanbaatar

2 women from USA came as the second group of this year. They traveled by Russian van to Lake Huvsgul and Lake Ogii, rode horses and hiked.  More pictures will be included later.

After months of emailing 4 Italians from Torino, Italy came to us to get Mongolia highlights from south to north tour  When asked why they picked it, they said it should give the vision of Mongolia. When asked why us out of Mongolian tour operators, they said it was a “blind” guess.  They bumped into our site and were not too fussy about comparing with competition in detail.

 They wanted to spend one more day in Tsenher hot spa and one more at White Shrines, Gobi. This suggestion is quite unexpected as many companies even don’t include the latter destination. The itinerary will be adjusted.  

Our contract driver Zaya, staff Duya, guide Dulamtsetseg,  Rosanna, Max, Lela, and Jiji.

Recently we opened a forum on this website for Mongolia travelers. On the forum you can ask questions and share comments. I don’t know if too many categories were opened. Perhaps it is just better to see for a while. If you get problem using the forum, please let us know.

http://www.wheels.ca/article/30290

This article says Rallye Transsyberia organized by a group of German off-road enthusiasts “covers more than 6,200 km of roads and off-road trails through Russia and Mongolia, skirting along the edge of the Gobi desert before ending in Ulaanbaatar”.

Besides Porsche Cayennes, Suzuki’s Grand Vitaras, “which should prove to be very competitive … thanks to their small size, great ground clearance” and Mercedes-Benz G- and M-class diesels are participating.

Many Mongolian individuals and companies also want to know which of these is the best since many people prefer to own SUV for bad roads.

Once the job was done in Huvsgul province, we departed and flew by Eznis again and got some aerial pictures. These pictures show the difference in population density clearly. The following one shows Murun town which is the center of Huvsgul province. The rows of streets of ger community are visible.

The next picture shows a soum, into which a province is divided. Few administrative buildings and rows of streets are seen by the river valley.

The least density is shown in the following picture. The white dots are gers or yurts (which is tradtional mobile home) of nomadic families in the countryside. the earth roads are visible too.

Finally when one comes in Ulaanbaatar designed in 1940-50’s, the road system is outdated. Traffic is stressful during peak times.

Let me finish posting remarks from last trip. This is continuation from the last post. …After a while finally we had a chance to visit Lake Huvsgul but was caught in snow blizzard. It started as rain all night long in Murun town but became snow blizzard while we were on the road to Hatgal town on the brink of the lake. We ran into a Japanese jeep stuck in snow and a stuck Russian jeep too. Four guys from our car went out and pushed the Japanese jeep and had it released from the grip of high snow. Interestingly one of the passengers in the car was my former teacher of electrical sciences at the Technical University. We were glad to see each other.

Then a heavy duty Russian make truck passed by us leaving a little break in the snow like an icebreaker ship would. The new track left from the truck allowed us to pass through this difficult spot with our Russian jeep. But it was not so for the other Russian jeep. So our driver moved into their car and drove it through the snow again.

When we came in Hatgal, the sky cleared and we stopped in front of Agar cafe.

Agar cafe, Hatgal town

The snow started melting quickly in the bright sun.We call this type of snow or rain “oil” because it suppresses dust and let green shoots emerge making the valleys beatiful. While I dropped from the car in Hatgal my friends continued their drive to Huvsgul Sor ger camp at Lake Huvsgul. Then a stranger, a guy came and offered me a stay in a guesthouse he runs. He was a guy I was looking for. He made fire in a ger for me. The next day friends came back from the lake and we headed for Murun town again. A beautiful ride we had. The snow had melted almost, watering the plains and the plains turned green.

Then we passed by a smaller lake, Erkhel.

So we enjoyed this performance of nature which was the SHOW of the day for us, which is the Lord’s free gift. The next day in Murun was hot. In 2 days, a whole year’s  weather have happened to us. Are we going to be a speedy country doing a whole year’s work in 2 days?

 So came in Murun, center of Huvsgul province. While staying in Murun, checked the guesthouses available in my free time. Here are some pics:

 

Gan Oyu guesthouse, 6000 Tog/bed room: the most professional of the guesthouses, the cleanest, most convenient location near Dul hotel. For about 1$ you can have 1kg clothing be washed in the laundry.  One can cook in the kitchen or ask help in cooking. A pricey but nice room offers cable TV, a double bed, a nice comfy soft chair.

Bata guesthouse: they were building a shower facility and had not erected their gers yet but had nice welcome. It is in a ger community street, 8 blocks to north from the main market. Priced at 4000 Tog/bed, this guesthouse is run by a friendly, welcoming family.