Sunday, August 19, 2012

My second week in Mongolia



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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