As mentioned last week, I wanted to buy a traditional dress for myself which is being worn in the countryside. Our plan was to visit the countryside, so I had to get one.
Marla and I went to drop her cousin after returning from the countryside. It was super crowded in that section of the city, so we had to drop him off. After we arrived, we chilled for a little while at his parents place to relax for a moment and think of the next plans.
We were supposed to meet her brother, which got canceled. Now the real holiday in Mongolia is starting.
Buying the Deel
We went to a big shopping center which was crowded due to the first day of school, which is always on the 1st of September. In this case it was a sunday, so they had one more day time to prepare.
I wanted to negotiate prices in general, but Marla is not liking the concept of it. She thinks when people are telling a price, that it will be the final price. This is just most of the time not the case, as we found out. I tried on many clothes which were all above 100 Euros, some even above 200.
We ended up with a woman who took good care of us and dressed me with many different Deel’s. I could negotiate the price a little bit with also having a fitting belt for free.
The price was okay, which also Marla’s mother agreed to.
In the shopping complex there was also a German Shop in which there were only German products from the own brand of a famous supermarket in Germany which I found quite funny.
Birthday party
It was Sunday and time for the birthday party of one of Marla’s cousins. It was her first birthday and for that the whole family came together, which is crazy for me. Adding to that, it was also the day which was for us the last day in the city before taking off.
In general I wasn’t notified before, so it was news for me which I wasn’t excited about, but for Marla I did it, because it was important.
We were preparing most of the things, for myself it felt like we did prepare everything, because it is more than I would do usually.
The birthday party was at a nice location. Like mentioned last week, at a house with a garden where they also have a yurt, electricity, but no running water. That is for me no problem though. It was on a hill with a shitty road to get up from.
We were eating many things, they even prepared a meal for myself. At the end Marla made for myself a pizza, which tasted great. To be honest I didn’t remember most of the things at the birthday, because I fell asleep. It is quite overwhelming to be around so many people with whom I sadly do not share the same language. I am still learning Mongolian, but it is not enough to speak yet.
Everyone enjoyed the party, as I have realized.
Summerhouse
After the party Marla and I were going to the family’s summerhouse. It is not so far away from the city and is inside a privately owned forest. The summerhouse has electricity and has a big garden.
Before arriving we bought some food, but not as much.
While wanting to relax we have been called many times by her family because they wanted to help us to drive the way we were thinking. Marla sadly wasn’t clear about it, that I didn’t want help. Marla also stressed a lot with the same topic.
It really annoyed me a lot, because I didn’t feel heard, I just wanted vacation and I trusted myself by driving in a foreign country, even with bad roads.
I understand that they were worried about us not making it or something, this is nice and everything, but I just didn’t want it at all.
Beginning of the trip
We started before 7 in the morning, to drive towards the north west of the country.
We were driving in the direction of the Russian border with the goal of reaching Moron, a city at a big lake.
The street started to be quite good with some holes here and there. We were driving to Darkhan first and then only west of it. The streets to Darkhan were amazing and sometimes even better than back home. I could drive around 140 most of the time, besides at the roundabouts which were quite often at the street.
In Darkhan we were doing some shopping to buy all the food we would need for the upcoming days. It wasn’t super cheap, but at least we were decently prepared now. Besides the tuna with chili, I didn’t look well and regretted it later on.
We were driving and driving and I even had the feeling, that we could make it at the same day to the lake. It was 900 km from the summerhouse and we were making many kilometers very quickly.
The streets were getting a little bit worse over the time, but even there it was still possible to drive 100km/h. One time it was Marla’s time to shine to drive herself. I was sleeping, so I had no idea how it went, but when I woke up, we were surrounded by beautiful surroundings.
In general the surrounding was very beautiful wherever we drove, besides when driving through a city, it was the complete opposite.
Helping strangers
While just driving along the street a woman jumped on the road, so obviously we stopped. She wanted to deliver something to her friend a few hours in our direction. We took care of it and brought it to him, who had to wait for us quite a while due to traffic.
Still, that was a good feeling.
In general the 900km had special patterns. In the city there was a high amount of traffic and there was literally nothing out there. Sometimes a yurt and then just a whole lot of nothing in between. Animals sometimes were crossing the road, or you could see them in the distance, but that was basically it, so surreal but very amazing.
This is what I like, a change of scenery with positive vibes in between. I need to admit that Mongolia, like expected, has a lot to offer and a lot of potential.
Being almost at the destination
We were quick, besides some painful overseen holes in the street we made it very far, over 800 km in just one day. The streets were decent and I still don’t understand why the trouble beforehand.
We made it to the capital of the district in which we met a friend of Marla’s uncle. He was friendly and offered us food and drinks. Sadly he wasn’t offering us to stay at his place, which our idea before meeting him was.
We were about to camp somewhere 100km before that stop, but ended up continuing for the hope of staying with him.
We had to continue, because staying in the town wasn’t our ideal imagination, especially because we had in mind to put the tent up and do some camping.
Night time
The night started to slowly appear, the road was harder to see and we decided to go first to a smaller lake, like 50km before the final destination. We could see it from a distance and it didn’t look that far away. We drove over grass and dirt, also I tried to not drive against any rocks which are harder than they sound.
It was taking forever driving there, due to the darkness it felt like not getting closer at all. We drove for such a long time there. When arriving at the lake it smelled like the Baltic Sea, but worse.
We put the tent up and while doing that, we realized that I missed things to stabilize the tent. Due to that, the wind was super loud and it was a rough, but at least warm night. Also such a nice night sky!
What is up next week?
Next week I will continue the story with a great surprise at the beginning of the next day, so stay tuned!!
Leave a Reply