It is time for exploring Mongolia more.
After waking up from a quite rough night, I started checking out the surroundings. The distance to the street was massive, but it was just a small distance to our final destination.
Around the tent were many yaks which just went for a walk and ate grass. For me it was the first time seeing a yak without a fence, so it felt quite exciting.
Also in the distance I could see some yurts, to whom the yaks belonged. So let’s do some exploring in Mongolia!
Visiting the nomads
After Marla was up, we decided to drive to one of the yurt, to ask for yak milk. It is important to approach a yurt from the left side of the back, when approaching the nomads from behind the yurt.
We talked with them and one liter of fresh yak milk was 2000, which is roughly 55 cents.
Milking the yak
They took us to the yaks, where the wife was preparing the yaks to be milked.
Tying the yak babies up and then just milking the yak, it looked so simple, but still it was probably a lot of practice.
After getting the daily dose of yak milk for the day, the baby was freed and received the rest of the milk from the mother.
They had many yaks running around and I was even able to touch one of them. Per day they get between 0,5 – 1 liter of milk from one cow.
There was a lot of milk already in the pots and we received roughly two liters which were now heated up on the fire inside their yurt.
Inside the yurt
The couple is living alone with a little cat in their yurt. They are having three kids, who are all living in the city and are not interested in becoming a nomad in the future.
We put our pot on the stove and waited for the milk to get hot. It was taking some time, in the meantime we were invited for some homemade products.
The woman was making yogurt herself, from the yak milk, which is more fat than regular cow milk. Adding to the yogurt she had some homemade marmalade which added together tasted amazing. We also received some dried milk products to try. Exploring Mongolia and it’s traditions is really interesting for me.
They were very interested in life in Germany and thought at first that Marla was my translator and driver. Even though I am driving most of the time.
After we told them the truth, they were a little bit shocked, but were still treating us nicely.
I was also with my traditional deel, which was a plus point.
Helping with the sheep
I helped the husband outside with the sheep. He killed the sheep that day and wanted to prepare it together with his wife, to send it to their son in the capital of the country, 800 km away. He is studying there.
It was a bit weird holding the legs of the dead sheep. He took the sheep completely out and got first the wool off, to have only the underneath skin left.
After some time the wife came with a huge metal plate on which we were putting all different organs. These organs were cleaned from the wife, especially the ones involving shit.
Even though I would not want to eat it, it didn’t felt as fucked up as I thought and he seemed to be happy, that I helped him.
We were having good conversations and I believe they liked us to visit them as well.
Driving the last bit to the lake
He was helping us to find the right street and escorted us out of the huge field.
After being back on the street, we saw camera teams of Nas Daily and MonGOlia, which was interesting to see. It seems like they were reporting about bikers., who were traveling with their motorcycle through all of China and Mongolia, before returning to Australia. Didn’t feel like such an amazing special story, but the Australians were nice to talk to.
We continued driving to the huge lake.
When arriving, there were not the best roads. We approached the lake, after paying a 10.000 entrance fee. There were old military trucks and a shipwreck, which all seemed like they didn’t belong there.
After a while we realized that we drove wrong. To go closer to the lake and to the place most people would go, we would need to go all the way back and drive for another 30km to get really around the popular side of the lake.
Getting to the real part of the lake
We drove back and finally found the real road to go. First the road was in such amazing condition. Just a good new road, after a few kilometers that changed and it was hard to call it even a road, it was just dirt, sand and rocks for over 25 kilometers.
I had the whole time feeling that the tires would explode or something like that, it was not the best road for the car.
They are about to build better roads, they said they would be done this year, but I doubt it.
After arriving at the lakeside we couldn’t find any good spot to put the tent up. There were no good parking spots and only signs that said that camping isn’t allowed.
Which makes sense, because there were only located resorts and nothing else. It was not the way I expected it.
Still the lake was super beautiful and very clean. Also it was not the tourist season, which made the whole place a little bit quiet.
We decided to find a place to put the tent up the legal way, but they didn’t like it, so we thought of getting a place to stay for two nights.
The resort we stayed in
The resort we stayed in wasn’t that expensive.
We paid roughly 52 Euros for two people, for two nights and we had our own house with a fireplace. It wasn’t something fancy, but still comfortable.
Adding to this, it was a huge place and we were the only guests the first night and on the second night there was also a Korean family.
The place was near the water, with a little pier right there as well. Also there were many attractions at the resort, like table tennis, pool, volleyball, kayak and so on, for quite high prices.
The first time table tennis was for free, so that was cool.
We were just relaxing there and did not do that much, it was mainly to find out how we cross the border to Russia from there. The problem was, that it wasn’t a border where I could cross with my e-visa, so replanning.
We went once in the lake and were mainly trying to relax, so we did almost nothing.
Driving back to the capital
After the two nights at the lake, we decided to drive back to the capital of Mongolia and leave the car there, to try a different attempt.
We drove the whole 900 km in one hit, it was a long way, but it felt quite faster than the road before. On the way I was enjoying the landscape a lot, it looked like it was painted in some places.
Also many animals were there on the way and I saw one time a dead goat laying around with eagles and other birds eating it, that felt quite special for me, because I haven’t seen it like this before in real life. I wanted to capture it, but sadly they were all flying away, quite a bummer.
Nothing super special happened on the way back, just driving, driving and driving. Marla also drove a bit.
We sometimes sang some songs and just enjoyed the landscape.
Also buying special fish, which was only found in a specific region and I have to admit, it looked super disgusting, but was super tasty.
Our plan was to drive the next day to Russia, by a shared ride for around 30 Euros, which seemed fine.
Back in Ulaanbaatar
We went to a supermarket, in which I bought very nice looking plates, sadly they had not more than 2 of the ones I liked. They were very good quality and cost in Europe more than double the price, so I had to take them.
I learned from Iran, where I still regret not buying the tea set I saw one day. Also I would have regretted not buying those plates, I just hope that not one of them is breaking.
We surprised Marla’s mother by arriving a day earlier than mentioned.
We ate the fish together and like mentioned, it tasted amazing!
What is up next?
Next week, you will be reading *hopefully* About the trip to Russia, as of writing this article, we are sitting in the car on the way to the border, so I am just hoping for the best.
Stay tuned and read next week about how it continued!
To see something from my old trips check out the blog or Instagram.
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