From Ganga Nuur we headed towards the Ikh Naart National Park known for its population of Ibex and black vultures. We did not see any of the Ibex but saw some black vultures – and they are really black, black, black!
In the same park there was supposed to be a spring and we now tried to make our way there hoping to fill up our water tank. We eventually found the springs and encountered another, completely surreal scenery: It was in fact three mineral springs and they are supposedly good for your health: one for your skin, one for your inner health and one for your legs (!?!). How we know this? Well, once we had made a very deep descent from the plateau the NP is situated on a vast plain full of nothingness opened up and at the bottom of the plateau was a camp. It must have been some sort of health camp. There were several huts, a canteen and a medical complex. One guy told us about the springs and their healing qualities while other people played basketball. Some guy in a very loud shirt tried to usher us into the canteen as apparently something was about to happen but we decided to check out the springs first to see if maybe we could fill up our water tank. We decided against using the water because it tasted of the minerals and we were not quite able to identify them (the surrounding stones were discolored in reds and browns, so maybe iron was involved). While checking out the springs some sort of entertainment scheme for the inhabitants of the camp must have started because all of a sudden 70s disco tunes bursted very loudly from the canteen, followed by some orchestra piece sounding like a melody from ‘Dr Shivago’ again followed by some ‘Love Boat’-esque tunes. All the people had disappeared and seemed to be in the canteen and it was surreal beyond words. All this vast nothingness and then this loud pumping music…
From there we made our way to Choir in the hope of finding a hotel. We usually stopped once every 4-6 days in a hotel to take a ‘proper’ shower (in contrast to our solar-camp shower which is usually a pretty quick affair) and to wash our clothes. On the way we took another hitchhiker with us, a woman who wanted to get from her ger to her daughter’s in the nearby town of Dalanjargalan, she was very happy that we took her with us and we communicated as best as we could. Another reason we went to Choir was the deserted Russian Airforce Base and its accompanying ghost town some 20 k outside of the town (also the Road Atlas promised us asphalt :o)…) – LP was again a bit outdated here because the airbase is still there and you can still see the shells of apartment blocks and some military buildings but apart from one which was mounted on a pedestal in the town’s centre we did not see any other MIGs. In fact the town was not even a ghost town anymore as Mongols had set up gers among the ruins and utilized some of the buildings and shacks (one of the few times where old and broken stuff is re-used and not replaced by new but poorly build things).
We were not able to get to the actual hangars because they were fenced in and a guy kind of chased us away – Bummer, Holgi was quite excited about the prospect of scrambling into one of the fighter planes… Our luck that day had left us as the only guesthouse in Choir was under renovation and the communal bathroom was out of work. Hence we ventured on and camped again under the stars :o) Oh, and there was a few k’s of asphalt and we truly enjoyed them!!!!!
While in Mongolia we also wanted to stay in a ger camp and LP gave us the coordinates for a camp in the Ikh Gazryn Chuluu NP which was to have showers. We easily found the camp and were really happy to find it to be a) still open, b) empty and c) run by an extremely friendly crowd of young people. The camp was a vegetarian camp and the family who run it, with the assistance of some friends of their son, raised their own vegetables in a green house, used solar power to power the camp and to heat the water. Our ger had two beds (unbelievably hard), a table and two stools – all in lively orange colors (which is a color of good luck I’ve been told).
As soon as we had settled we enjoyed an unbelievable tasty meal of soup and noodles and salad (oh my god – SALAD!!!!). This was sooo good, we did not have that many vegetables since we had left Russia (or maybe even Australia). And believe it or not, while we having lunch a car with some other tourists arrived who had done a guided tour through the NP which is known for its stunning stone formations – and that group consisted of a Mongolian driver, a Mongolian women, her German partner, their son and (we presume) the woman’s stepdaughter. That was so funny, sitting in the middle of Mongolia and talk German :o) Imagine how much more weird it got when the women asked us, how we were getting along because her driver constantly took wrong turns and had to ask people for directions :o))))
In the afternoon we did some maintenance on troopy, had a chat with the family’s son who ran the camp and watched the crew dismantle some gers as the season was coming to an end. Sundown was spectacular and the crew sat in the canteen for dinner (we skipped because we were still stuffed from lunch) and listened to some sort of Greatest Hits by Celine Dion (a weird situation to be sitting in the desert while the ‘Titanic’ song is playing).
Next morning saw us rise early to wander the park and its bizarre granite rock formations before we had another tasty soup for breakfast. After a farewell from the lovely crew who gave us some more veggies for on the way, we started to go towards Mandalgov, the place from where to venture further in the Gobi. We really enjoyed the camp and its atmosphere and hope that their vegetarian camp really hits it off!
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