Mongolia - Tour day 3

We told you about the beds... The construction of the Mongolian lath floor is quite adventurous..

 

But princess Eva from the bean had a good sleep on her mega monster throne. 

 On the third day we visited the Buddhist monastery in Karakorum. Karakorum is the ancient capital of Mongolia. We post only one photo, as this place was also destroyed during Sowjet communistic regime. So there was not so much to see. But it must have been a very big monastery!

 

 

After that we entered the Gobi dessert on really lonely roads 

 

Eva is always searching for something in her "Saustall" 

Mongolia - Tour day 2

 

During our driving on the second day we saw the first holy Buddhist stone hill. You have to walk around three times and have to say thanks to gods! The colorful rags are standing for special things in Mongolia: What we remember: Blue stands for the sky, red is for the earth and yellow is for the milk.

Eva after a pee break... ;-)

 The river Orkhon... On this place were 200 Buddhist monks killed during the communistic Sowjet time.

 

At the second day we had a horse riding trip from our hosting family to the Orkhon waterfall and around that area... Some impressions you can see in the next pics... 

 

My horse had fun on the trip with me... Or is he just laughing on me? 

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... 

Mongolia - Ulan Bataar

Hey friends... We are just sitting in front of our chalet on the west cost of Malaysia, it´s 20 past 10 pm and we are still sweating and the mosquito bites on our legs and arm are really itching. But we have Internet access and now some very amazing pictures from our trip through Mongolia will follow... But first lets start with some pictures about the cold, smoggy and not very nice capital city of Mongolia: Ulan Bataar

 

The Buddhist monastery in Ulan Bataar. One of three touristic spots in this city.   

 

The city is at an altitude of 1400m and on the same latitude as Munich! But it was already very cold. Day temperatures at around 3°C. A lot of people are still living in gers (ger is the traditional tent of the nomadic families). In some places you see gers also right besides normal houses. Very interesting is that you can buy in the supermarkets a lot of German articles like chocolate, peanuts, can food and also Haribo stuff. We heard that Mongolian people thing that German products have a high level of quality! The favorite brand is "Gut und Günstig!" 

 

Some Mongolians also know some word from Kronach ;-) 

 

The famous Mongolian rally (London to Ulan Bataar in a tiny 1 liter engine size car)! It was always a dream of Joram and his friends Pofti and B to join this rally. The cars arrive some weeks before.  

For those who want to know more or also want to participate should have a look here: http://mongolrally.theadventurists.com 

By the way... When I see the link I remember to a story that you only hear when you travel: We meet in our hostel in Ulaan Bataar a guy from Argentina who is traveling with his bike around the world now since 9!! years. Crazy guy! If you don´t believe have a look here: http://www.theworldbybike.com/

  

Olchon II

After three days of hiking with our heavy bags we were exhausted...puhh 

 Horses were drinking from the lake

Mhh... one time we had "Outdoor-Kaiserschmarrn" for breakfast - thanks to Martin

The view over lake baikal. It's so big that it seems like a sea, not a lake... 

Broke down car in Chuschir - the biggest village on the island 

Russian firefighters car (for Andi ;-)) 

This cat was following us during a walk in Chuschir 

 Public toilet in Chuschir

The view over Chuschir

Nikita's homestead: We spent our first and last night here. All lodges were individual and designed "with heart". 

"Normal road" with big holes 

All of a sudden it started to hail! 

Jo on the right and "Gaf Gaf" on the left (Gaf gaf is the russian word for "wau wau"). This was the dog which followed us during 2 days and protected our tent in the night ;-)

Olchon - the beautiful island of lake baikal

After arriving with the transibirien train in Irkutsk, we were looking forward to our 6-day trekking tour on the island Olchon.

The shaman rock is the emblem of the island

The trip from Irkutsk to Olchon was an advanture itself: the minibus was totally oveloaded and the driver was much too fast on the bad roads.

But we were rewarded with great weather during the first three days and so we could enjoy the beautiful landscape...

  Eva in her "kitchen"

All cows and horses could go wherever they liked to go, as they were not surrounded by any fence.

Eva "taking a shower"

Jo cooking in our "kitchen"

At night the temperatures went down to 5°C...brrr