Via Zuun Nuur to Moron, 7.9.2010-10.9.2010

Despite this apparently being a common route we were surprised by the road: It took us through the most imaginable beautiful valleys which cut through by a million little water flows, spotting lush meadows, trees starting to spot autumn’s colors, much life stock everywhere, picturesque outcrops and gers, we had to go over a few steep passes which opened up to more stunning views – the road, however, was one of the most difficult bits we came across and we hardly left first and second gear, sometimes going down the mountains meant basically going through one dried up riverbed after the other.

Fun but also hard work for driver and Troopy, although this is where he is most comfortable. It took us all afternoon to do about 40 k’s! We ended up camping along the banks of the river Ider and, after the usual visits by herders, retreated to a peaceful night orchestrated by the wind in the forest and the gurgling sounds of the river.

Next day we made it to Jargalant and on our way to Shine Ider messed it up – again! Normally all paths intersect numerous times before they leave the valley and in case of rivers there will be a few river crossings or bridges. When leaving the place we made a long and difficult drive over dry mudbeds, through a bit of a swamp, through a river just to find that for some weirdo reason we ended up on the wrong side of the river, and once we had realized this tried to make our way on the other side. The river by now was a substantial river and there were no more bridges to find so we had to follow it (we have a bit of a ‘Only go back the same way if track is not otherwise do-able’-policy). So, we ended up with a detour of about 40k’s. Does not sound much, does it? Well, it can be if you can only do between 10 and 30k an hour and have to snug around cliffs with an angle and an ice cold river hovering about half-a meter away and 3m down from you (nothing like the South American Road of Death but surely enough to disconcert little Sandra) .
We were rewarded by the beauty of the valleys we drove through and this surely was off the beaten track, again by pure chance :o) On the way we were stopped by a Mongolian driver who got stuck in a riverbed. He was driving his Sedan(!) through the waterway when he got stuck, lost his battery due to this circumstance and now the motor wouldn’t start. Holger pulled him out and tried several tricks to get the car running again but to no avail. I do not know why the guy thought that we should first try the recovery with his bright orange scarf (Mongols use them as belts for their riding coats), maybe he did not want to cause any inconveniences, I don’t know. But it is probably not too difficult to imagine that the scarf was less than impressed by this rescue mission and gave in after 3 seconds.

Thank goodness he then agreed to use something more sturdy and the car was out in no time – the battery issue however, was not to be so easily solved and after an hour or so of trying to jump start the car Holgi gave up. Not much we could do apart from that… Much to Holli’s dismay crossing the river later on was over a bridge ;o} We then camped at Zuun Nuur another pretty lake.

Next morning we were woken by a shepherd and his flock of goats and sheep who came by grazing. It was a funny moment when, after Holgi had announced that we were surrounded by sheep, we opened the Swag, sat up – and found a rather old herder sitting on his horse looking at us and gesturing at the sun which was already high up. I take it he was wondering what kind of people we were sleeping in a green canvas bag until 9.30ish – what he did not know was that we had already been up at 5.30ish to watch the sunrise, which was awesome! Mongolia gave us so many great sunrises and sunsets, I hope some of the pictures come out quite alright and we can make some large prints.

Unfortunately the road to Moron (the Aimag capital) and the one later on to Khovsgol lake proved to be quite bad as well, heavily corrugated and with big holes and dips. A new paved road is under construction but by the looks of it, preparations have been going on for some time and bits which are just waiting for tarmac have already started to deteriorate again – sad, it’s a waste of resources to let them fade away. Anyway, in Moron we stayed at the 50-100 Hotel which was quite alright although a bit overpriced. On our way back from Khovsghol we had a half-lux instead of a lux room which proved a) much nicer and b) a bit cheaper. The hotel also had a pretty good restaurant attached where we had dinner and breakfast. Breakfast was a funny thing: You could not choose between different items but there was a set breakfast menu scheduled for each day, fair enough it all sounded fine. The staff was very adamant that there was only today’s breakfast available (whatever the day was) however both times we ended up with a good and hearty breakfast, which did not fit any descriptions on the menu :o)
As per usual after arrival we first started to do some washing (Holger and I are now experts in hand washing an entire large load although our T-shirts start to resemble shapeless canvas bags by now) before we set out for food and internet. If we arrived early enough that is - sometimes we were too late and neither found food nor internet after 8pm. Days in Mongolia start and end early… Therefore we were so happy that the hotel’s restaurant was open until 11pm! We were a little less happy when we found out that the town’s loudest (and only!?!) nightclub was directly opposite our hotel room :o} The mixture of bad house music (how many frickin’ versions of ‘Hermes’ Houseband’s take on Country Road are there!?!) and DJ announcements (‘Are you ready to rummmmbblle????’) made for an interesting backdrop before which we wrote postcards and then tried to find some sleep.