Mongolia - Wild and Wonderful
- 20 hours ago
- 5 min read
We arrived at the Mongolian side of the border crossing to be told they were on their lunch break for the next hour, so we put our feet up and had our lunch in Lolly.
It was a reasonably easy process once lunch was over - there were signs in English and the lady officers were friendly and helpful (the customs guys not so user friendly according to Colin).
We headed off past the lines of lorries waiting to cross into China. As always the landscape felt so different again. We stopped in the first town of Bulgan to get currency. The ATMs were empty but a lady in the bank (a customer) changed money for us in the bank. We picked up some basic provisions - the mini-markets looked very basic after Almaty and China.
We immediately loved the scenery - endless wide open views and dramatic skies. After a few hours driving we pulled off the road for a peaceful park up spot.
Mongolia is our 18th country on this trip and our 9th new one. Mongolia has always been high on our wish list to visit, so after all the uncertainty with Lolly's repairs, as well as the fuel shortage issues, we were very relieved to be here, if not suffering with range anxiety due to the ongoing fuel supplies issues. Mongolia is totally dependent on getting it's fuel from Russia, so the recent hits on Russia's refineries have had a severe impact on Mongolia while they struggle to find alternative supplies.
Some facts about Mongolia:
Mongolia is the worlds most sparsely populated independent country. It has a huge land area (roughly 6.5 times larger than the UK), with only 3.5m population, with 2.3m of them living in the capital Ulaanbaatar.
There are roughly 13 horses for every person in Mongolia, with horses being central to Mongolian culture and nomadic life. Mongolians have the 'five snouts' which are key to their life - horses, camels, cows/yaks, sheep and goats.
Mongolia has two-humped camels - the Bactrian camel is native to the Gobi desert and is adapted to the extreme temperatures.
Mongolia is dinosaur country. The Gobi desert has produced some of the world's most important dinosaur fossils finds.
A traditional Mongolian home is called a ger, not a yurt. A ger can be erected and dismantled with ease for transportation with the livestock as many as four times a year.
Roads in Mongolia can be more of a suggestion than a real road. Tracks can often split into multiple directions across the steppe and signs are a rarity.
After our delayed crossing through China we only had 17 days to explore Mongolia which isn't nearly enough for such a vast country. We had now booked a 10 day tour from Ulaanbaatar so that we could get around the main sites in Central Mongolia and the Gobi in the limited time we have and not to have to worry about obtaining fuel ourselves. This meant we had over 1,000 kms to cover in the next 3 days to reach the capital.
The road condition was very variable on the second day - some smooth tarmac, a 50km rough section under construction and some paved stretches that look good but were deceptively bumpy. I was worried that after the Central Asian Stans we would feel we'd seen it all before, but the scale of the herds and flocks and the views into the horizon were staggering.
With the fuel shortage still ongoing there were many empty petrol stations and big queues at others. Thankfully we found places which still had diesel so we could jump the queue and we topped up wherever we could.
We drove until the light was fading only having brief refreshment stops and found another nice peaceful park up for the night.
Day three and we were still loving the wide open landscapes and huge herds and flocks of horses, cows, camels and sheep. We had a fright today when we hit a small cow. It started to walk out then changed its mind, but at the last minute spun round again and with a car close behind we couldn’t brake fast enough. We heard a thud and pulled over as quick as we could, thankfully, to see it clambering to its feet and walking off - we were mightily relieved but it was going to have a big headache. We found a clump of hair on our mud flap later in the day.
The queues at the petrol stations were getting bigger. When we stopped at one the attendant seemed to be hiding and when he finally came out to serve us he had a big group haranguing him.
It started to rain heavily at the end of the day so with the light fading we parked up by a river.
We had a final days push to reach Ulaanbaatar. We stopped in a village to get water. They have water houses that operate with cards. When we pulled up a friendly lady popped home to get her card and waited patiently for us to fill buckets to funnel into Lolly. She called out her daughter who spoke some English and was home from university in Moscow. A lovely gentleman came to ask if we needed help - he was a retired school teacher. I gave the lady a bar of chocolate to say thank you which she shared with all the others around the water house
We still struck lucky getting diesel at queuing petrol stations. We started to feel more comfortable that we would make the capital without any issues.
After the empty scenery of the past 4 days, the sight of Ulaanbaatar in the distance looked daunting.
We fought our way into the city centre and parked up in a car park surrounded by apartment blocks and a small mall of coffee shops, boutiques, a pub and most importantly a launderette.
We met up with Rich who we’d booked our tour with. We’d met him twice at a travel exhibition in London in recent years. He had worked in China for a while where he met his Mongolian wife and they set up their tour company called Absolute Nomads in Ulaanbaaar together. They run trips (both group and private) in Mongolia and all the Stans as well as the Cauccuses. They also operate all of Explores Mongolian trips as Rich used to work for them. We were grateful that he'd managed to organise a private tour for us at such short notice and with the current fuel shortages. He had cancelled several of his organised tours in August because of this.
We couldn’t get Lolly’s number plate to work on the car park APN, so we ended up using Rich’s Mongolian plate and met our guide who was accompanying us on our tour called Jason or rather Onoh (his Mongolian name).
We met up with Rich again over a coffee the next day and discussed our travels and the tour we were about to do.
We moved into a city centre hotel for the night where we could park Lolly securely while we’re away. UB was very busy with the COP 17 summit going on - a bit ironic it’s being held in a city with some of the worst air pollution in the world. We ended up having a bite to eat and a drink in a lively bar near our hotel.
After over a week of long intense driving days we were pretty exhausted, so were relishing the prospect of a break from driving and having to plan our days. It was definitely time for a holiday.
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