Day two at Khongoryn Els

We camped in Juulchin Ger, right against the dunes. The place is stunning and silent. In the morning Erica went out into the vast, surrounding lands to meditate, I went out a bit further to do yoga and Michelle woke up hungover. As I stretched and strained, I could see our camels from far away, being led to our camp for the morning expedition.

The camels, it turns out, don't like fresh peaches or dried apples. Only after I kicked up a thorny cactii and held it out did they show any interest. The ride to the dunes on the backs of our strange, knobby kneed steeds took us across a barren, rocky landscape that led into sandy, windswept mounds. Our camels were named. Erica: Stuart, Michelle: Pochahontas, Kim: Alaadin and mine was Cocheese. We were led in a line, each camel's nose-pierced rope tied around the back hump of the camel in front. Cocheesy was sneezy, enough that his snot was caught in Alaadin's hump fur.

Jaga, our driver, met us at the dunes and produced four red sleds. We then hiked to the top of the highest dune in the Khongoryn Els. Erica made it to the first rise and let us go on ahead. Over the next rise was an incredible view of the plains, and Michelle stayed and kept watch on our sleds as we went up the final, steepest rise.

Scrambling up on all fours, the sand makes a deep thrumming sound as it slides down. An incredible hum followed us up all the way to the top. Once there, we saw an incredible panorama of the dunes on the other side, the play of the clouds' shadows as they crossed the golden floor, dust devils in the distance, a hawk above... every time i put my camera away i'd take it out again to shoot something else- Kim sitting on a distant dune, the black and white specks of goats below.

Finally we jumped our way down to Michelle, the sand thrumming everytime our feet hit the slope. Then Jaga sent us off down the sandy decline on our sleds. Kim was a natural and could steer her sled. We reached Erica and went down the final, steepest slope- then into the Russian Jeep and back to the ger camp for lunch. Even though it broke down on us, that jeep is one of those rough and tumble vehicles that's just built to cross a desert.

Tomorrow we go to the Flaming Cliffs.

camping fiasco

(see the girls on the mountain?)

made the decision to get out of UB for the weekend. we hit the terelj park after i negotiated a tent and a bed roll from tseren tours in exchange for a talk on mining and health at the cafe amsterdam (same owners) to be given at an as-yet unspecified date later this summer.

After negotiations with a taxi driver for the ride, we pulled up friday night and the camp grounds, were unfortunately unimpressive. I mean the landscape and gers were amazing but somehow i don't think the UB urbanites who come out here don't care about their amazing countryside, maybe it was the heaps of garbage piled everywhere or the astounding amount of broken glass strewn about our camp spot. That and the sweet Mongolian pumping beats two tents down until 2am didn't really help.


Yesterday was great though, we scaled this ridiculous hill/mountain, then found our way down and had a nice picnic on the riverside. Then the weather changed ridiculously fast- one second it was sunny and hot, and then the clouds appeared on the horizon, the winds came up and we were heading back to the campsite in case we had to take shelter from the coming storm. After an afternoon where the warm weather flirted with clouds and rain (making for some cool photos) eventually the miserable cold and clouds took over.



Erica and I made the decision to bust a move while Kim and Michelle stuck it out. It was pretty awesome, within twenty minutes of deciding to get out the tent was collapsed, we were packed and had flagged down the first minivan to pass us. The minivan broke down about half an hour later. So we flagged down a really nice Mongolian who was working on renewable energy for the World Bank and showed us a picture of the rather frightening 150 kg boar that he'd killed last year in his first hunting trip. One more taxi and we were home. And of course, the weather had cleared up and it was beautiful and sunny by the time we made it into UB.

Something happened with Michelle and Kim, details unknown. All I know is they woke me up around 2am, pounding on the door in UB to be let in. Evidently they had some problems with drunken Mongolia arses who wouldn't leave them alone. To make matters worse,his morning as Erica and I brunch at Nayra, the girls are back in terelj because Kim forgot her camera. Bollocks. That's real bollocks. I hope she finds it!

1 Canadian Dollar = 1,293 Tögrög

What this means is that the 10 Tögrög note in my wallet goes for less than one cent. There is no such thing as coins in Mongolia (although I've noticed they have a predilection for medals). Because of the pick-pocket, I've now emptied my wallet of all variety of credit cards (one), identification (like a PADI license and my Nepal VSO ID) and miscellany. It is conspicously un-Canadian. Mostly because the coin pocket isn't so cumbersome and heavy that if I ever fell off The Queen of Coquitlam I'd sink like a stone.
This enormous wad of cash? Probably about $20. I'm not kidding.

Passport pick-pocketed

Today I had my passport pick-pocketed. Was heading down to the Ministry of Visa Registration (that may not be it's exact name) with Michelle when we took a detour into the Post Office, which is apparently a pretty bad place for pickpocketing. As we went into the revolving doors one of the Mongolians was making no effort to get out of my way, which was odd to begin with, in fact he even made an effort to move into me and as we chest bumped I felt my passport slip out of my back pocket (ok yes, passport in back pocket is a *bad* idea. I wasn't thinking at all. it's the first time I've pulled my passport out since arriving, and we'd been in a rush to get out of work so I'd just grabbed it and thrown it in my back pocket. I didn't even zip up my pockets. Normally I am incredibly diligent about these things, and I think today was the first time ever I pulled a no-brainer and didn't think about security).

So yes, the classic bump and pick. I credit my knowledge of this maneouver with endless hours of aimlessly surfing the web because there is in fact a website that outlines pickpocketing techniques. And I have read it.

So I turn around and grab the guy, and there's a very brief moment of oh f**k because I immediately see that he doesn't have my passport. Luckily, very very luckily, Michelle happened to turn around at this moment to say something to me and saw me having words with this guy. I'm still not sure what happened but either he dropped the passport as soon as I turned or he dropped it because it wasn't a wad of cash, but my passport was on the ground (between another suspicious dude's feet) and Michelle grabbed it.

The security guard at the post office, who came sauntering up five seconds after this happened, was utterly useless. Everything happened so fast that by the time I thought of popping the pickpocket in the nose we were inside looking at post cards.