On our way to Choibalsan, we were stopped by a motorcycle: a rider and two passengers, his wife and daughter. I don’t know how they knew but maybe they had seen us at the shop, in any case they gestured that they would show us the way to Choibalsan and took the lead. And boy, the guy was not a timid driver, the lady’s handbag went flying high a couple of times! He was obviously experienced, knowing the track quite well. We now made several stops: to help a broken down driver, to talk to a goat-herder and then after a good hour and a bit we got to a hold in a little settlement. We were confused because this was obviously not Choibalsan. The guy ushered us into his hut where there were two more kids and two grannies and we were fed with Milk-tea, bread, butter, Dickmilch (something that happens to milk before or after it becomes Joghurt!?!) and Aaruul (dried curd). The grannies were very excited and could not stop staring and giggling. This all happened very quickly and we could hardly believe it, they even made us a care-packet with butter and Aaruul:
WOW! We were so glad that we had our presents: Kuemmerlinge, little Koalas, sweets, and pens. And off we went, this time with the lady of the house and a big bag of wood but minus the daughter. Again we stopped on the way this time at an ovoo. After another hour the guy stopped and as his ride ended at the ger camp close by, he showed us how to proceed.
We thanked him again and were still pretty shaken by this absolutely unexpected interlude! Needless to say that the next possibility we lost our way and made a somewhat exciting but long detour along a way which ended at an ovoo on a really steep hill…
Once we found our way again, we were now entering the steppe and camped in the middle of a grassy plain, the Toson Khulstai Natural Reserve, which was fantastic. The area we were now entering is one of the last steppe on the world which is nearly untouched. It is inhabited by gazelles and their herds can apparently grow up to about 20000 animals.
The one’s we saw maybe had up to a thousand but nevertheless it was a stunning side. They painted the hills in all shades of brown and moved like a wave of color over them. At some point later on we met a group of three gazelles who were racing the car, we were going 60 and they were still gaining on us before they took a turn.
Choibalsan proved to be a useful stop: There was internet at the hotel, the one and only time outside UB we ever had this rather luxurious circumstance. Holger found a garage (the mechanics seemed to be very fond of large hammers) and we were lucky that the owner wanted to do the job himself and he proved to be somewhat less brutal and enjoyed talking to us in English, because he had lived in Ireland for some years. Apart from that the city was very dusty and the city centre was mostly made of concrete blocks.
Most cities in the East and South looked like this, and you could find huge manholes or the worst streets possible. But Mongolia is growing and beside the ruins of an old unused building a new one is rapidly build and so cities trend to be a bit chaotic. Most of them sport the usual town plaza and government building but apart from that many areas look neglected and a bit dismal. Towns are, however, good to get supplies: there are usually heaps of little convenience stores, a couple of supermarkets which are a bit bigger than the stores (their outlay is a bit like supermarkets as we know them from Europe or Australia but they do not necessarily have more goods to sell than the scrambled convenience stores) and a market (where you can get everything). It’s really funny that you can get goods from Germany here, there is a brand called “Gut & Guenstig” which is a bit like ‘Black & Gold” which you can find anywhere, they also have a huge selection of Haribo-sweets!?! Hah, good for us :o) Nevertheless, we have to admit that we always feel much more comfortable in the countryside.
In Choibalsan we managed also to get the park pass for the Dornod area which is a Strictly Protected Area because it is one of the last steppe and of the gazelles (and heaps of other wildlife). The next couple of days we drove through the region and saw some more gazelles and camped again in the open steppe.
By now we were getting much more experienced in navigating with the GPS and also choosing paths (not before having spend one afternoon going with 5 k through the middle of a valley on a barely recognizable path in rather hot conditions looking for the right exit to the valley). I would not go as far as say that we are experts now, but we have just a bit more experience to draw on, which makes it easier to bare detours and to make a somewhat better judgment about paths… still we often end up on tracks which are on neither of the maps we have with us but sometimes turn out to carry us through magnificent landscapes :o) One evening a herder came by on his motorcycle with his son. He first stared at us in disbelieve and was obviously unsure what to make of this but Holger went over, shook the guy’s hand and as we were just having dinner we invited them over and offered them some food and drink: cordial and rice pudding with fruit (not our best concoction, tinned fruit salad and the rice pudding was made with milk powder). I think the boy said the whole time to his father while looking at the food ‘Dad, I don’t like this’ but the father hissed something back and the boy kept on eating… Next morning we were attacked by vicious cows whose intention it was to cover everything with earthy slime while checking out whether a swag is indeed edable :o)
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