Old capital and White Lake
Trip Start
Jul 21, 2008
1
7
23
Trip End
Ongoing
Ulan Bator,
Mongolia
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Our driver looked a lot like Fred Flintstone and had one of the best laughs ever heard, also he was asking us if it was ok if his wife! come with us for the first half of the day and then she will be droped off. Of course we had no probems with this neither did the two lovely koreans that woud be joining us on this trip.
before we set off we asked the driver to take it easy for the first two days as Helen had food poisoning... typical... we found our first english restaurant and Helen got food poisoning there.
We arrived at our first stop which was the "Old capital" this place was amazing it must of taken such a long time to build as the detail on some of the smallest things was amazing.
By this time, maybe 6hours into our trip, Helen is feeling no better and the drivers wife has taken Helen under her arm and is looking after her, always checking her temperature and making sure that she is taking in plenty of fluids, she also invites us all back to stay at her family ger, so of course we take her up on her offer and set off.
17th August we arrive at White lake, before we left we were informed that there was going to be a traditional family wedding here, so we were all very excited as apparently they would love us to be there guests.
Merlin went for a snoop around some of the family gers to see what we would be in for, he walked past the ger where they are preparing all the food for the wedding and was so happpy to see loads of sweets and fruit.
Later on we were invited to watch the bride and groom arrive, the groom looked very smart in his traditional gear if a little drunk well more like legless, as for the bride she looked lovely, also in traditional gear, not drunk but crying, sreaming and desperatly hanging on to the car that dropped her off at the ger! we didnt know weather to laugh or cry, so we laughed.
Later, we would be invited back for some food and drink, Merlin had flash backs of the family ger in the gobi with the horrible cheese stuff so he decide to wear his jumper with the pocket on the front " easy access for smuggling horrible foods"!! we all sit down and they start handing out vodka after vodka after vodka, Merlin kept giving his to another korean man we met called jay , this was so funnny as he was too polite to say no.
After the vodka then home brewed warm vodka then vodka with goats milk we had the very salty milky tea which takes a bit of getting used too, we get offered the goodies which consist of a large plate piled high with SWEETS, breads and some other lovely looking things,of course Merlin managed to swipe a hand full of sweets, but also get given a huge lump off the dreaded dryed goats cheese stuff ,thank goodness for his jumper! he had one small nibble to keep our hostess happy then it went straight in the pocket " it now sits at the bottom of the lake", as I sit here typing this I still have the horrible taste in my mouth! there were family members everywhere some were being sick others were just slumped up against each other, so all in all a very sucsessfull wedding.
18th August Volcano
we woke up and some people were talking about hiring some horses and going for a ride, we really weren't that bothered on going until we found out that we would be going to a volcano, then Merlin's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets, so we booked the horses.
To pass some time we went off to this very small blue shed thing which was supposed to be a shop, when we got there, inside the shop was a bed! it turns out the lady who runs the shop also sleeps in the shop " the shop is roughly 8 feet by 10 feet in size" while we are out side the shop Helen some how manages to make freinds with a very crazy mogolian lad who spoke a little english and had a high pitched laugh, we say our goodbyes to him and have a few photos then watched him make his way over to the lake, we stood out side the shop for about 10mins when we realised that we were being called over to he lake by the crazy guy all he was doing was pointing, jumping up and down while laughing .
Our russian transport
We made our way over and looked down to the lake where there were two male mongolian students trying to swim in the very shallow part of the lake with their girlfreinds watching. Mongolia is a massive country with 4million people living here there is only 1, thats right 1 swimming pool, so you can imagine that every mongolian sinks rather than swims, they started to splash the girls and they got pushed in and some how managed to get quite far out then they both sunk, at first we thought they were playing but when neither of them surfaced Helen like a bolt of lightening ran down the bank and into the lake swam out and grabed the first one then swam out and somehow managed to find the other girl, and bring her to shore, both girs were very shaken and fine and very lucky. Well done Helen
We set off to the volcano at about 11am its not very long before everyone gets the hump with the two young tour guides, for somereason they kept on whiping the horses to get them to hurry up, the horses did not like this one bit and every time it got whipped it tried to buck us off, as you can imagine a few stern words were said and the boy stopped whipping the horse, but instead he picks up a handful of stones and started to throw them at my horse " this was much better.... NOT " this time more stern words, quite a bit louder.
we eventually got to the volcano and it was amazing, after a fair climb up you could look right down the inside, down there you could see kids picking something and it turned out that they were picking blackcurrents which they would then crush and sell to the tourists.
Comments
Helen's Heroism
Well done, Supergirl!
You'll always be welcome in Mongolia.
Love, V&J xxxx
Mongolian Music...
Jz,s father has just been to an evening of mongolian music. Each song was introduced as 'a song about a horse' - suddenly there came: 'This next song is about a prince'...
The prince learns to ride a horse, the prince travels through his kingdom on his horse, eventual death of the prince's horse.....
I thought it was funny.
Love V&J