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Judy in Mongolia
Our Rippler friend Judy from Melbourne, owned by Freddie and Chloe (above), Here Judy shares some of her travels and many pics. I tried yak cheese in Mongolia!! Went on a bike ride there a few years ago and
we were invited into one of the nomad family’s gers and fed yak cheese and other concoctions made of yak and mare’s milk. The cheese was very hard and salty, and as I was just recovering from a bout of delhi-belly from the chicken the night before, the yak cheese didn’t make a very good impression. Lol! The Mongolian nomads make the cheese in big trays and cut it into rectangular
blocks which they then dry first in the trays and then by hanging for months around the walls of the ger. Ayrag is the alcoholic drink they make by distilling the liquid from the mares’ milk yoghurt they make. You can see the cheese blocks in the tray in the first photo and hanging up in the next two photos. We flew to Beijing, had a few days there and then caught the Trans Mongolian express to
Ulaan Baatar, the capital. An amazing train journey through China, across the Gobi desert and on to Moscow, even having a stop at the border to change the bogies, crew and restaurant car to Mongolian (I think it took about 4 hours for the changeover – in the middle of the night!). We flew back to Beijing from Ulaan Baatar. I don’t think you have to go through China. I think you may be able to fly direct to Ulaan Baatar from Seoul and Osaka (it was Outer Mongolia we were in not the part controlled by China). You can also fly from Berlin and Moscow. This might have changed recently as Mongolia is getting more popular as a tourist destination and for mining. It was an amazing place to visit. We went up into the Arkangi mountains and rode mountain bikes through
a couple of passes and along some river valleys. The scenery was magnificent – huge big skies and open spaces and not a fence in sight – and the people were very friendly. Not too good in winter though –one of the van drivers was a nomad who had lost his herds in a very bad winter so was driving for tourist groups. One of the most interesting places I’ve been to. And they all just about worship Ghengis Khan who they call Chingis. He was pretty fearsome.
In fact according to a book I read when we were there, about 1/8th of the world’s men have his DNA! He was pretty good at rape and pillage. I’ve got quite a few photos of the horses too. I’ll post a few of those too. Their horses are small, chunky horses. As we rode through the countryside the herdsmen (often children) would ride up to see us and swop horses for bikes. I felt sorry for the horse Adrian had a ride on – Adrian’s feet almost touched the ground! We also visited the Christina Noble orphanage ger village in Ulan Baatar. A great place but the culture is pretty brutal to widows and orphans. I had more Mongolian horse photos than I thought so I some on Picassa on the web.
Here’s the link if you are interested: I’ve put a selection (it seems an awful lot) of photos of the Mongolian trip on the web. My mother, and a few other people, have been wanting to see them for a couple of years (we went in July in 2008) so your interest prompted me to get to work. I separated them out into Gobi desert from the train, UlaanBaatar, travelling to the Arkangi Mountains,
the bike ride and Mongolian horses. We had an overnight trip on the Trans Mongolian express (in name only!), a couple of nights in Ulaan Baatar,
the capital, we then drove 800 km to the west to the Shargaljuut River near Bayankhongor where we started the 480 km ride. On the ride we rode for a day up the Shargaljuut River and across to the Tuy River valley, across a
quite steep mountain pass (altitude was quite a problem). The next two days we rode up the Tuy River valley, again crossing a steep mountain pass. After that the ride was easier and more undulating, riding for two days along the Tamir River valley to Tsetserleg and finally along the Tsenegr River valley and the Orkhon River to Kharkorin, the ancient capital of Mongolia, which has an amazing monastery, and best of all, as the last day and a half it rained and was very muddy, a ger tourist resort with HOT showers. I don’t know how much they cost the bike tour operator but they were worth every cent.
OzYorkieRipples Yetholme, NSW, Australia Email : yorkies@yetholmeyorkies.com |
