Days 31-34 Gorkhi-Terelj national park

Day 31, road to the park and finding accommodation

We took the bus towards 12:00 in front of Narantuul hotel in Ulaanbaatar. It’s not a coach, it’s a bus, nowhere to put our backpacks except between our legs. Tight.

As the bus keeps going east on Peace avenue, I realise UB is a big sprawl. Three lanes becomes one. The state of the road reminds us of the road to olkhon island from Irkutsk, however our bus driver is chill and slows down a lot on those bumpy patches.

Now and then, a bus or lorry going the other way appears on our side of the road, not overtaking, just avoiding the potholes, waiting until the very last moment to pull over. Scary.

Gradually the sprawl gives way to green hills, herds of cows and horses roam free, gers are more common, although it looks like they're there permanently.

A control post marks the entrance to the park. Soon after, groups of gers are seen left and right, these are for tourists. We haven’t booked anything and so stay on the bus until the last stop, but decide that an earlier stop was better and ask the driver who, without a word of English, nods, points and shows four fingers and then one. He will go back the same way in an hour at four o’clock.

We wait here a while, eat some and then off we go.

We get off the bus at turtle rock. I don’t see much of a turtle but people stop here to take pictures, there a two minimarkets, a souvenir shop in a ger, and spread out in the valley behind it are groups of gers.

We head towards one of them, hesitantly walk in towards a small hut. Long sign language conversation short, we can sleep here, great.

The host also cooked our meals. Unable to read the menu, I mainly just got what I was given, but the first night I chose lamb dumplings which were tasty.

It’s quite hot during the day, we mostly had clear skies, but once the sun goes down it gets quite fresh. We were holed up in our yurt with our fleeces on when the host barges in with a box of firewood and a lighter. She then proceeds to starting a fire for the next five to ten minutes.

Within 20 minutes it got so hot in the ger I went outside to cool down! The became our routine for the three nights we stayed here.

Day 32, Aryabal Meditation Temple

We got up quite late and didn’t plan on having much of a breakfast, but here came our host with plates full of food, so I guess we had brunch.

We headed towards the temple some 3 km away, when on the way I noticed the beginnings of a dump.

Garbage is a serious problem, they don’t know how to deal with it. On the last day I even witnessed a Mongol throwing a glass bottle 5 metres behind him ☹.

The path to the temple has signs by the side like the following.

I decided to photograph them all, and began regretting this decision after the twentieth. There are over a hundred. I’ve grouped them all in this Google photos album.

Inside, we sat down for a while. I’m the only idiot who took a right upon entering the temple. One must visit the temple clockwise.

And the view from the temple.

Back at our ger-camp, we read and relax until dinner. Our new neighbour is a Spanish woman who was on the bus with us yesterday, so we begin chatting. She speaks eight languages and we invite her to have dinner in our ger. She had advice to offer about various buses to other parts of Mongolia, as well as funny stories about her travels.

Day 33, Turtle Rock & panoramic views

Another late start, made even later by waiting forever for our breakfast meal. Something got lost in translation but eventually we eat and then leave to go walking and climbing.

First stop: turtle rock.

We then walk the long way around some trees to get to the other side of the valley and go up a path to have a view of the next valley.

Since arriving in Mongolia, I have seen many swastikas, including this one painted on a rock next to these spiritual poles.

Maybe it doesn’t mean the same thing to them as it does to us, I must investigate.

Day 34

We leave for Ulaanbaatar this morning and we decide to hitch a ride. It takes some time, but it payed off.

The guy drops us off at a bus stop in UB, where we take a bus for the train station. I hand money to the bus driver who refuses. Free bus ride, great!

We buy our train tickets for Beijing, leaving on the 14th of September. 150€ each. Still cheaper than Paris-Biarritz.

At our hostel, our host buys coach tickets online for us to go to Khatgal, where we will be doing some “woofing”. We leave tomorrow.