Kharkhorin, Mongolia (8-9 August): Climb Every Mountain

8 August 2014

Kharkhorin (Karakorum)

 

The road caught up with us eventually. Eggy, changing a flat.

Mongolia Roads. Our path continued southwest. The major Mongolian highway is a two lane, paved affair. Despite the middle line we drive down the middle unless there are oncoming vehicles. The edges have been lost to erosion. Still, the van breaks sharply every minute when wash out or pot holes threaten. Two of us in the back had no seat belts and we missed them dearly. After lunch I grabbed the front seat: seat belt and the opportunity to film the road as it got even worse. The paved highway is so bad there is not one but often several dirty, dusty tracks that parallel it for kilometers. The driver is simultaneously a creative and a destructive force, dodging potholes yet contributing incrementally to the washerboards. It is poetic. So much appropriate background music.

The occasional towns along the highway are soviet-inspired heartbreaks. They consist of 8 to 20 charmless buildings arranged in a row parallel to the road. They are more strip mall than town. Each building has a Cyrillic-painted sign indicating its contents, mostly chipped and faded. If they’re tourist traps, the tourists have ample warning.

Horseback. “They’re Mongolian horses. They’re half wild. They don’t speak any language.” Ainaa, our Mongolian guide, answering Skye’s question.

Yesterday, before folding ourselves into the van for our trip to ancient Karakorum, we mounted up for our morning steppe pony ride. Carrie wrote about it this way.

Carrie’s Journal: Earlier that day (8:00 to be exact) we tooka 3 hour horse ride until 11:00. I named my horse Milky, like the Milkyway candybar because he had a cream brown beige skin tone. He was very lazy and just wanted to go back and eat. He was also super stubborn so after the first hour, because that was the normal tour, he kept turning back. I switched with Liam because his stirrups were uncomfortable and too low. I named his Duke because he “felt” higher than everyone else. So it practically refused to go at all and kept going toward the camp. At one point we were going forward and Duke jumped back and I literally almost fell off. The funny thing about Duke’s name is that’s what Liam had named him too. I was really enjoyable on the ride because we got to lead our own horses. Most of the time we spent trying to get the horses to trot. We all had a silent race to be the horse in front. But Milky didn’t like to be the horse in front so he kept on following everyone and wouldn’t trot. Later we climbed up a hill and the view was amazing. We took lots of nice pictures. Climbing down the hill was the scary part, though. When we got off the horse my butt was sore from all the trotting I had to do to catch-up with the other horses.

Considering the roads to get here, Karakorum doesn’t have too much to offer the itinerant tourist. The ancient Mongol capitol is a largely unexcavated archeological site, many of the rocks of which were repurposed for the neighboring monastery, Erdene Zuu. This was the monastery first in Mongolia, in the 1500’s, a status which allowed it to be spared the destruction of the Stalinist purges – in the reduced status of a museum. The grounds still hold power, particularly the striking wall surround the grounds which, instead of towers, has stupas every few feet.

Inside the walls of Erdene Zuu

Pots big enough to boil a whole cow to feed... wait for it...
the monks.

9 August

Ger Camp, Tov Province

Marched Up The Hill, And Then Marched Down Again. Gracie’s Blog: Today we had a lot of exciting activities but I will only talk about one thing and the thing is climbing up a really hard, rocky mountain. So we started like this, dream of a very beautiful mountain with a very pretty valley JJJJJJ So anyway do you get the idea that the mountain was rocky?????? Because of you don’t then get off this blog forever or you can just look at the pictures dad posted but I suggest you do the first idea just to be sure JJJKKKK Sorry I’m getting carried away not literally. Uggg. So anyway the mountain was rocky blagh blagh blagh. Dad and me had to find a spot that was not rocky. So we went to the side of the mountain and figured out what spot on the non-rocky area to go up to. Then we figured out where to go to and the amazing story begins. So dad and I went up the spot we wanted to go up to and let me say it just rained and the plants where WET LLLL So all of our cloths were soaking wet when we got to the first ledge. We finally caught up to Liam, Carrie and Skye my cousin. I forgot to tell you that Liam, Carrie and Skye went up the mountain like 20 minutes before dad and I KL So we broke up a few seconds later because they went the hard way (show off) and dad was making a time lapse so I don’t think I shouldn’t call them a show off (tee hee) anyway dad took about 7 min. doing a time lapse and I got a head start when he was finishing up J but he caught up to me so I should turn that into a L anyway we walked up some distance and then it started raining and suddenly we saw a rainbow in front of us the funny thing is that once dad got our rain coat out it stopped raining on us LK

Carrie, Liam & Skye on the edge. White dots are gers, below.

I was so thirsty and dad said when we get to the top we can drink from a puddle on a rock. As some people know and don’t know that you can drink from a high place because animals pee and poop in a low places and don’t bother with the high places. So well I was drinking dad when to the top to help Carrie, Liam and Skye. After I drank I went up to dad and I yelled to him he didn’t answer. I was scared and cried for dad but he didn’t answer but finally he answered and he told me to go back to where I drank the water. And I did what I was told. Dad as I could see was helping Liam go down a hard part but not as hard as getting down but I’ll get to that later. When we all got to the place where I drank the water we started going down the mountain. We finally got to the place where there are two paths going up. Dad, and I went down the path that Liam, Skye, and Carrie went down so they knew the terrain better and we got a whole new view. And then Dad and I thought that path would be easier so when it got hard we were surprised. It started raining. Then I couldn't take it so I started crying because the path got slippery and hard! Even one time we had to use plants as a rope to get down a slippery part that was difficult. Finally we got down the mountain and we met Liz in a little forest next to our ger camp. We had a wonderful dinner in an amazing restaurant that was warm. When we got to our ger the fire was set and blazing and we cuddled in for the night after our long adventure. 

Chess on a felt board in a felt room. Ger.

Liam's Report of the Same Event. Liam's Blog: I have an ear ache that really hurts so I decide to climb a mountain with Skye and Carrie. It is really rocky and challenging. We talk to each other and help each other up hard areas about half way up we meet Dad and Grace and then they stay there and we go up.  When they keep going they go an easier way.  We almost got to the top and then Dad saw rain coming so we head down. When we were heading down it starts raining on us I go to an overhang the two girls to another and Dad and Grace catch up we start heading down we slip and fall a lot and laugh and talk when we get down. It feels so good to say “I AM DOOOONE”. We completely change clothes and head to dinner. We are half an hour late and they reheat the food then I take a hot shower it feels so good to be in it. Then we go to bed.