Mongolia is full of not just Horse Milk, but goat and yak milk, too. We also had some great douching experiences. Douche or dusche, as you know, is French and German for shower. The Mongolians know this term and we silly Americans naturally thought it was hilarious.
After spending a day in Ulaanbaatar to figure out what was we where going to do, Wendel and I decided to take a five night trek into the Mongolian wilderness/countryside. It’s not really wilderness because people live all over the place, but there is certainly no running water and very little electricity.
At our guesthouse we met a guy from Iceland named Gunnar. We arranged a trek with Bolod, the guy who runs the guesthouse, that would include tank driving and horseback riding. Remember, to see all the photos check the photo page.
Day 1
First we had to buy food for six days. We loaded up our Russian jeep full of all our stuff and food. Our drivers name was Billick. He’s a bad-ass Mongolian dude. It took us a little while to get out of town but soon we were off paved roads and bumping around over dirt and grass.
Our first stop was a Mongolian Army base. We just drove up to the gate, got out, waited for little while, handed over some cash (only after figuring out how much by speaking German) and waited for our tank to drive out. Waiting outside the walls of the base (that looked just like a base you’d encounter playing some army computer game) we could hear the tank start up. It was really noisy. We paid 25,000 Tourig (like 20 bucks) for 1 kilometer of driving. The army guys said the tank eats five liters of diesel gas per km.
Out drove the tank and we walked over and hopped on. It wasn’t until the army guys started pointing out the clutch, gears, gas and break did we realize we would actually get behind the wheel of this 40-ton war machine. Gunnar drove first up a hill. Then Wendel and I shared the way back down.
The tank was pretty simple to drive. The T-55 has five gears and drives just like a car – except for turning. Good thing we knew how to drive stick because that how the tank worked. I just sat right down in the seat and started driving. To turn, you have to pull either a right or left handle that changes the speed of the caterpillars so it will turn. It was pretty fun.
After tank driving we tried to shoot some military weapons but the place was closed so we would return later. (See? There’s me in the dank driver seat below.)
Our first night we slept in a Ger – basically a yurt where a family lives. We were cruising across the Mongolian steppe when all of a sudden Billick hangs a sharp right. We drive over a hill and just pull up to a random yurt, get out and walk in. As soon as we entered we were offered some hot sheep and goat milk. We had a great dinner of mutton and noddles in a soupy mixture. Everyone slept in the yurt. Mom, dad, grandpa, some little kids and me, Wendel and Gunnar on the floor. It was great.
There was great wildlife, like this cool looking bird. We think it’s a Kite.
Day 2
After leaving the Ger, we checked out an ancient city. There were ruins from the city that was around between the 8th and 10th centuries. The we stopped by a cool lake called Olgy Nur and ate lunch on its bank. Most of the day was spent in the jeep.
For the night we camped on a random hillside and were literally in the middle of nowhere. We left a small dirt road and just bounced over the grass up this hill to our campsite. It was a great spot. This was about the time we realized we were really in Mongolia. I’m not going to try to describe the place. Just look at the photos.
There’s our jeep in the corner.
Cool face shadow:
Stay tuned for more posts about the rest of the Trek and the Russian Federation. Yeah, I guess it’s a federation.
Are you sure your tank ride was with the Mongolian army and not some rebel militia?
Sounds like you need to do a lot more douching!!