I stopped last
Saturday before my visit to the Erdene Zuu monastery in Karakorum. The morning
started beautifully and my visit to the monastery area and the museum took 3
hrs, much more than I originally had anticipated. It is the oldest Buddhist
monastery in Mongolia and once housed about 1500 monks within its walls.
Here is the link for
those more interested in the details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdene_Zuu_monastery
I hope I can put a
series of pictures in this blog soon… ;-)
Early afternoon I
got back on the road with the intention to stop at the Khustain National Park
on the way which has some wild horses to see that once were extinct but were
reestablished in a project using some horses that were in zoos in some
countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khustain_Nuruu_National_Park
To get there though,
I had to get to a camp about 5km from the main road reachable only on tracks
that partially were very sandy. Promptly I chose one that eventually got me
stuck as I don't have 4-wheel drive. I immediately got my Yamaha down and within
about 1km I found a Mongolian with a Hummer who pulled me out and would refuse
any compensation. Thank God I had some Austrian sweets still which were gladly
accepted by his interestedly watching kids…
On the other track I
easily made it to the nice camp where I was friendly accepted and later in the
evening my motor home became an attraction for the local staff.
I got up at five and
by daybreak was on my two wheels going into the park where I saw plenty of wild
horses who let me get fairly close. I also saw some deer but only from a
distance. My iron horse took me to almost the top of one of these mountains,
but about 200m below the summit the trail simply became too steep and stony so
I turned around also as I didn't want to take unnecessary risks being alone and
without telephone reception…
By noon I was on my
way back to UB which was easy, save for the last about 15 kms which again took
almost 2 hrs… The rest of the week I spent (again) improving my motorcycle rack
which now should be good for the rest of the trip regardless of road condition,
having dinner with Professor Sharii and the CEO of Golomt Bank to whom Martin
Lee-Warner had introduced me, 'doing' my pictures for the blog as many of you
might have realized by now and yesterday I even went to see the Winter Palace
of the former ruler of Mongolia till the Communists came (and a little longer).
Palace might not be the right word as the whole complex including the temples
may cover an area of maybe 2ha and the "palace" is maybe a little
larger than 'normal' villa of a mid-size industrialist.
I did spent quite a
lot of time talking with many people here from Germany, Austria, the US and GB
as well as France and other countries. This place here is a real oasis and good
as a resting place. Tomorrow, however, this time will be over as I was informed
Friday night that my final ok to get into China should come by tomorrow and
that means I have to start going towards the border as the road will be rather
bad and the distance is almost 700 kms… Originally I had planned to be on a
motorcycle excursion today but rain and low temperature (it is 4 C as I write
this) prevented me from doing this and instead I was able to catch up with my
blog…
So I hope that my next
contribution will reach you already from China…
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