Mongolia - Tour day 1

 Now it´s time for the pictures of our most exciting part of our worldtrip so far: The pictures from our tour through Mongolia and trough the Gobi dessert. It was like diving into another world... Far away from everything we saw before!
After a few kilometers away from Ulaan Bataar we saw the first real inhabitants of Mogolia: A herd of sheeps and goats that was just standing on the street. By the way: Mongolia is 4 times the size of Germany but has only 3 mio inhabitants. 1 mio is living in Ulan Bataar. Most people are still living as nomads in gers (tent).

A very common way of getting around is still the horse and not the car. You can see everywhere people on Mongolian horses. Mongolian horses are very small and tiny. But never ever say pony!!! The Mongolian will kill you! ;-) By the way: Nearly every Mongolian man is a wrestler and can sing very well. Eva fall in love with the Mongolian music that we heard nearly every minute in our bus.

 

Here our Russian bus together with Joram and Baira our driver. For the insiders: The bus was a kind of Pofti Mobil but even more reliable. But it needs a lot of repair work every day. But Baira (we called him the Mongolian Michael Schumacher) was besides a very good driver that knows all roads without a map also a good mechanic.  

Sealed roads... Not in Mongolia! Only some kilometers around Ulaan Bataar are sealed. The rest of the Mongolian roads is a confusing system of dirt roads without any signs. The condition of the dirt roads is generally worse than comparable German dirt roads. 

 

Our first station was ca. 200km west of Ulaan Bataar somewhere in the nowhere. But we after arriving we found the time to climb up this little mountain. 

 And the view from the top was just great! In the background you can see the gers where we were sleeping the first night.

No comment... We are still alive! 

 

That is a ger! I don´t know how often I hit my head on the small entrance door. But inside it was very nice. But not every time  the beds! Hard, harder, Mongolian ger bed. 

What else: Almost no electricity, a wood oven as a heating, no shower, no fridge, no big chairs only small children like chairs... Just a different world!

 

In the evening after a great dinner (homemade noodles with goat meat cooked on the wood stove) we had some vodka (Gingis Khan vodka is the best vodka I ever had in my live) together with our host family father... After a while he took out some real Mongolian Sunday clothes. But I think the pictures explain more than our words. 

Here our tour guide Oyunaa and our driver Baira... Great, lovely, nice people.

 

In this pictuere with the host father on the right side...