Mongolia by Jeep – Days 6 to 10

Day 6 – 10

Leaving the sand storm and the Gobi behind we headed north and watched the landscape change yet again – still vast and open but more green and mountainous. The route was still no better, bumping along paths that had only seen a few vehicles when suddenly we hit our fist piece of tarmacced road since we’d left UB 7 days ago – ahhhh the smoothness (well it was still bumpy but felt great!), didn’t last long though! We stopped to re-stock on food in a mad little town where it seemed lots of nomads and locals went to sell their goods out of big ship containers, we then moved on to old capital town to check out a monastery. After 8 or 9 days of all being a little bit scanky we finally decided it might be time to wash so we hit our one and only tourist Ger camp next to some hot(ish) springs and took a much needed shower and a nice long soak in the bordering on tepid spa! Our small slice of luxury for the adventure. Shona’s allergy is still hitting her hard and to add to things she has also caught a gooey chesty cold – as we’d headed further north the temperature at night was dropping lower and lower so for the first time we’d started needing to light the fire in the Ger to keep warm.

Soup – very nice, yes?

Ok, so I knew the day would come! Being in Mongolia it’s hard to ignore meat and I’d accepted that somewhere along the route I’d inevitably be served up something not too pleasant! Us camping had meant so far we’d cooked most of our own meals with only the odd invite into Gers here and there where generally I could pick around any meat and just munch the noodles. However day 6 and we are camping outside the first small town we’d come across in a few days, Botsanaa says in his bestest English “Soup, very nice, it’s possible, yes?” which we took to mean fancy some soup! So later that evening we are all dished up a very big bowl of merky dish-water soup with big bits of mutton floating around in it….nothing else but mutton, mutton fat, mutton dumplings and mutton soup – not a potato or anything else that was once underground insight! Now a nice spag-bog or chilli I might of been able to cope with but this we a tad too far and after sipping at some of the stock had to politely pass on actually eating anything! Very rude of me but thankfully this wasn’t a Ger and we were in a small cafe so it seemed easier to get away with! But hey at least it wasn’t eyeball or yak’s testical soup!

Milk, milk and more milk

Goats milk, cows milk, yak milk, even fermented horse milk! Plus a few funny tasting sour cheeses and creams had all been offered to us over the course of the first few days. Now Shona being allergic to all this put on a brave face and nibbled, sipped and smiled politely whenever it was placed in front of her! It took 5 or 6 days but finally it all got too much and bless her little trekking socks she became poorly! Sitting in a 4×4 van bumping along roads was hard enough but add to this feeling sick, having a headache and the odd bout of shivers and it can’t have been any fun at all! It got to the point on the 6th night when she just had to take her mums advice and downed a glass of cheap red wine (sorry, not that Shona’s mum would advise cheap red wine!) took a couple of aspirin and then tucked herself up in her sleeping bag in the tent for an early night! Seemed to help a little bit but there is still a week or so left of being offered more strange and tasty dairy delights!