Wet and Verdant in Wild Mongolia

[Kitsafari]

Alternate title - Slip Sliding Away, and why the doors don't lock

Mongolia. 
Full of nothingness

 

Loud in silence

Empty and rich in life

Floods in a desert 

Modern in traditions

Wetlands next to sand dunes.

 

It's the little things that linger in memories. Unforgettable moments. 

 

 

[Kitsafari]

I think there will be limited interest in far-flung Mongolia here. A mysterious land, little explored by safari-goers, and not the most easy to get to. It's not like African safaris - bounding with animals at every bend or corner and the iconic cats just simply sitting there and yawning with boredom and exhaustion at the stream of humans that ride by in their noisy contraptions. You really have to work for wildlife. But it has pulled me for many years. 

 

Eight years ago, I tried to find a tour agency that would offer me a wildlife safari of Mongolia. It was either punitively expensive, or was a very touristy tour. I had signed up with a more adventurous-sounding tour that included a ride on an old Russian helicopter but it got cancelled because no one else was that adventurous. And getting to Mongolia wasn't easy then. So I gave up chasing itineraries, but never gave up a dream to go. 

 

Retirement does funny things to you. You start to think beyond the usual holiday locations, like Africa (at least for safari-goers like you and I), and the feet gather rally wheels, as a friend describes it, as you make up for all those years grinding at the desk dreaming of endless leisurely travel. 

 

Now at the beginning of my road to the penultimate end, perhaps Mongolia is more accessible? 

With the brain cells unfettered, I do the unthinkable - read mammalwatching.com and come across a handful of trip reports on Mongolia. All those tempting morsels come rushing at me - Snow Leopards! Pallas's Cats! Cute little Marmots! mystical Saiga. I mean, come on. Those reports make it sound so easy to see them. 

 

Late last year, OH and I attend a talk about migrating birds hosted by a local ornithologist. I mention my dream of going to Mongolia and he says, oh I can introduce you to this guide Tumen who had taken him around. He neglected to say that was decades ago. But I jump straight into it. The stars are aligning, no??

 

I exchange emails with Tumen, and he comes up with an itinerary that includes searching for the snow leopard in Gobi Desert instead of the Altai Mountains in western Mongolia. His emails are written in good English, which persuades me to think that Mongolians speak good English. (They sing in perfect English on The Voice Mongolia!) 
 

Tumen's a Gobi man, with a passion and dedication to conserve nature and wildlife in Great Gobi region. Seeking that ghost of a cat at around 2,000-2,500m above sea level in Gobi will be easier on my fast-ageing body than 3,500m in the western region. If I dip on the ghost, well, I will just go again - to the western Altai mountains instead. 

 

His quote is far lower than what TOs based in Europe and Americas charge. That seals it for me, despite a caution from a UK-based TO, whom we know fairly well, that communications is very challenging with local Mongolians. I should have heeded that warning. But Tumen's tour comes with a translator, so it can't be all that bad...right??

 

A couple of birding friends join us as they share our dream to catch the Ghost too.

 

 

 

Edited September 30 by Kitsafari

[Kitsafari]

The itinerary, finally complete in March after going through several drafts, is this -

1 day. 1 Aug. UB. Mongolica hotel
2 day. 2 Aug. UB-Baga gazar. Baga Gazyrlin Chuluu Tourist Camp
3.4.5.6 day. 3.4.5.6 Aug. Yol valley, Khanbogd Ger Camp (Snow leopard camp), Flaming cliffs 
7 day. 7 Aug. DZ-UB    Mongolica hotel
8.9 day. 8.9 Aug. Mongolica- Bayan lake - Khustai NP tourist camp
10 day. 10 Aug. Khustai NP - Terelj  tourist camp
11.12 day. 11.12 Aug. Terelj - Khurkh  tent
13 day. 13 Aug. Khurkh - Mongolica hotel
14 day. 14 Aug. Departure

 

With a qualifier - Tumen stresses that the itinerary is very flexible. any changes will be discussed before they are made. 

 

I read up about Mongolia. One thing that is repeated often is, You Never Know What Will Happen. Anything Can Happen. The Weather can Change Anytime. You Can Have Four Seasons in One Day. Be Flexible. Yup, we can be flexible. as long as we get what we are targeting. 

 

Another thing that is repeated and emphasised on the internet is BYOTP - Bring Your Own Toilet Paper. In the end, it wasn't as bad as feared, only because Tumen is very mindful about promoting tourism, and using "public" toilets in the rural areas is a Big No-no - it will not help promote tourism. So we do the "bush" loo thing, although along the highway with no bushes or trees to hide behind, you try to imagine you're all alone and no one can see you flashing your fat bottoms.
 

Blue skies one minute...

 

heavy rain with hailstones the next

 

[Tom Kellie]

~ @Kitsafari: Love, love, love Mongolia!

 

Your adventuresome trip report is a welcome surprise.

 

Reading about how you dreamed of a visit and made it happen post-retirement is inspiring.

 

Thank you so much!

 

      Tom K.

[Atravelynn]

Limited interest in Mongolia?  Heavens no.  I've been wanting to return since 2005 so am very interested in your experiences.  Nice looking itinerary.  This will be exciting!   Thanks for sharing the "path "you took to Mongolia, with retirement tucked in there.  Congrats!

 

One comment on BYOTP, I just had to follow that rule last week when my mother hosted our book club that is 10 years running.  It is the first time she has been able to host since leaving her home where she spent 50 years.  The senior living community she is in now just got a party room, so there is now space for 9 ladies for comfortably commune.  But the host must BYO Toilet Paper.  So we did.

 

The 4 seasons in one day is something I can relate to, being just a couple degrees latitude lower than Mongolia.  But no takhis, snow leopards, Pallas's cats.

 

Let the adventure commence.

 

 

[Kitsafari]

 

 

The route planned in March. Ignore the days as we had decided to go to Yol Valley at the start and end with Khurkh when we finalised the itinerary in March. 

The March itinerary focuses on Gobi Desert - we give ourselves at least 4 days in Yol Valley and the Altai mountains to catch the ghost. The Altai mountain range stretches from the border with Russia and Kazakhstan to the Sayan Mountains in the northeast of Mongolia, and tapers to lower altitudes towards the southeast range where it merges into the high plateau of the Gobi desert, sometimes called the Gobi Altai. Then it's a 9-hr gruelling drive back to Ulaanbaatar for a night stay before going westwards on the steppes to Khustai National Park and spending half a day at Bayan Lake. The last three days are to be spent eastbound towards Terelj National Park and spending a day or two at the bird ringing station at Khurkh. 

 

That is the plan. 

 

[Kitsafari]

Thank you @Tom Kellie @Atravelynn for the encouragement! 

 

Mongolia is indeed something totally different from what I've known. it was quite fascinating. 

[Kitsafari]

People often confuse Mongolia with Inner Mongolia. They give us puzzled looks and tell us Mongolia is part of China called Inner Mongolia. It is not. 

 

Inner Mongolia, or more accurately, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, falls under the rule of the People's Republic of China. Its capital is Hohhot, and the majority of its population is made up of the Han people. 

 

 

 

Mongolia is an independent country that declared independence from China in 1911 after the Manchu rule collapsed. Its independence was only complete in 1921 with the help of the USSR to drive out the Chinese army and forces; thereafter it became a socialist satellite state and relied heavily on Moscow. 

 

Mongolia was in great turmoil then. Monglian People's Revolutionay Party's leader Khorloogiin Choibalsang ruled with an iron hand from the mid-1930s till this death in 1952, leading to a period of fear and destruction that instituted collectivization of livestock, and he destroyed Buddhist monasteries and killed numerous monks and other leaders. In Mongolia during the 1920s, approximately one-third of the male population were monks. The collapse of the USSR in 1989 opened the path for Mongolia to move to democracy in 1990 with a new constitution and free-market economy established in 1992, breaking away from its heavy reliance on the Moscow regime. 

 

The country has modernised since, and is developing at a fast clip but not without the requisite development pains (debt and budget deficits). Mongolia is a vast country with a total area of 605,000sq miles that's lived in by an estimated 3.5m population - even Singapore's population of over 6m is bigger but much denser on a total land area of 283 square miles. 

 

Traditionally, its herders have been nomadic in nature with its animals, families and accommodation but increasingly these herders have installed permanent homes and turning into animal husbandry. The discovery of natural resources especially rich layers of minerals has also led to several mining operations. 
 

Yet, the rapid acceleration of climate change has made weather unpredictable and climate patterns are fast changing. Precipitation has declined and there was less than average rainfall in the last decade in the Gobi desert. The number of domesticated grazing animals, far surpassing the carrying capacity of grasslands, have stripped the plains and steppes of grasses, contributing to a worrying increased desertification of the country. There are now over 60m livestock, triple the number just three decades ago, providing huge competition for grazing lands with the wildlife.

 

But pictures of Golden Eagles soaring into the clear blue skies and landing on the nomadic hunters' wrists, and free running wild horses on rolling never-ending steppes frame an idyllic view of a remote and little-travelled land. It appeals and pulls you towards it.

 

 

At first I was excited seeing the Bactrian camels, but these are domesticated ones, distinguished by the different colouration of their skins The wild camels are mostly found on the other side of Gobi Altai in the dry desert sands that lie close to the Chinese border.  

 

 

 

 

 

Mongolian cattle roamed freely wherever they want. This lot was in a valley. 

 

 

 

Domesticated yaks

The traditional and famous scenes of Mongolian herders riding their favourite horses are also fast fading. Mongolian herders are switching to motorcycles to herd their animals, in this case goats and sheep. 

 

[TonyQ]

I am pleased you are doing a trip report for your visit to Mongolia.

A great start. Retirement does have advantages!

[pedro maia]

I´m curious about this trip, looks promising!

[pomkiwi]

Looking forward to this. I've been to the Altai Republic in Russia on the other side of the mountains but never got to visit Mongolia.

Edited September 30 by pomkiwi

[Treepol]

Looking forward to seeing more of this little known safari destination.

[soleson]

I was able to visit Mongolia this summer over a long weekend with my son.  I was totally fascinated and definitely want to go back for a longer trip later.  The people, scenery and culture are incredible.  My son loved the "Mongolian Throat Singing"...  Looking forward to your report for ideas when I go back.  Thanks for sharing.

 

Example of the Mongolian Throat Singing... 

 

Edited October 1 by soleson

[Kitsafari]

@TonyQ @pedro maia @Treepol @pomkiwi @soleson Thank you!

 

@soleson We didn't have a chance to experience the cultural side of Mongolia. The thing that we realised quickly was that driving to the next destination can take an incredibly long time, and that is because we were almost entirely on off-track roads or dirt roads that don't look like roads, so one can't drive

fast on them.  The only tarred road was the one between DZ and UBN, and then westward toward Hustai National Park. 

 

14 hours ago, Treepol said:

Looking forward to seeing more of this little known safari destination.

 

@Treepol I think this may very well be the first TR on Mongolia as I couldn't find any trip report on it. 

 

Edited October 1 by Kitsafari

[Miss Biscuit]

Very interested in reading this as well. My husband and I have been wanting to go Mongolia for several years to see the eagle hunters. And just to clarify, they are falconers that hunt with golden eagles.

[xelas]

Mongolia, a worthy destination to celebrate moving into the golden years (aka retirement). Full of nothingness I am familiar with, BYOTP is not an issue, but what about self-driving options ?! Not on a horse or camel .

[Kitsafari]

14 hours ago, Miss Biscuit said:

Very interested in reading this as well. My husband and I have been wanting to go Mongolia for several years to see the eagle hunters. And just to clarify, they are falconers that hunt with golden eagles.

 

@Miss Biscuit from what I understand too, some of these falconers set the eagles free after 10 years or so but they also take the young from the nests in the wild to train them as eagle hunters. What I've read is that this practice is mainly in western Altai regions in Mongolia and mainly among the Kazakhs who have lived very long in the Bayan-Ölgii Province.     

[Kitsafari]

We fly Air China via Beijing. There are several routes into capital city Ulaanbaator - mainly through Beijing, but you can fly via HK and Seoul or the Middle East as well. I am initially apprehensive about transiting in Beijing. It turns out to be better than expected, other than finding that at least one of two transit entrances is always shut. It is also a shorter and more convenient route - no change of airlines (except for a change in aircraft in Beijing) so we can book the luggage straight through to UBN. The Singapore-Beijing is a 6-hr flight, with a 3hr layover and a final 2+-hr flight to UBN. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we fly out of Beijing, I look below to seek out the arid desert of Gobi. Little tufts of white clouds dot the landscape below that changes from low green mountain ranges to brown flat lands that slowly morph to green rolling hills. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 2 by Kitsafari

[Kitsafari]

We make good time into Chinggis Khan International Airport in UBN, which is not very big. BTW, the Western and the rest of the world called the most famous Mongolian conqueror as Genghis Khan but in Mongolian language he is Chinggis Khan. 

 

The first thing I learn about Mongolians are - they have absolutely no compunction about cutting any queues. A group of buffy young men cut in front of me at the X-ray machine, and I let out " what rude Mongolians are these? I can't believe how they just cut in front of the line. Just unbelievable." One of those guys clearly understands what I am yelling, because he waves us to go ahead of him. The cutting queues continue in supermarkets and restaurants. You either let them cut in or just tell them (all men) to go back in line or you move your body forward just enough to block him, which I do well. 

 

At the airport, there is Tumen, Sugi, Bagi and Gaegi waiting outside for us. Sugi is the freelance translator, although her full-time job is with a European NGO responsible for, among other things, reforesting the desert. Bagi and Gaegi are the drivers as we four guests are split into two Lexus 4-by-4 land cruisers - a very essential tool to get us up and down mountains, over rivers and flooded land, and what is to come. 

 

Tumen in the forefront, Sugi to his right, OH on his left, Bagi left at the back, with our two friends and Gaegi on the right. Packed lunch in the mountains of Gobi Altai.  

 

 

We can't find any compatible ATM machines that will spit out cash. Luckily our friend has a youtrip card and draws out some Tugriks. In the end, we don't really need the local currency since the entire trip includes accommodation, water and food. In the city, credit cards are generally accepted.

 

The airport is a short drive to Mongolica Hotel & Resort, located just outside the city centre of UBN. Birders seem to stay in this hotel - there is another large group of Westerners, all wildlife and birdlife seekers travelling with NatureTrek while we are there. the hotel is located next to a river and lagoon that is usually dotted with shorebirds, and the hotel has a large garden that sees Azure Tits flying through. 

 

 

 

Birding around the hotel grounds can be productive but not on a grey cloudy morning!

 

The hotel is reasonably comfortable but liable to blackouts. Food is acceptable but order early! They take about an hour to 1.5 hrs before you get your food. the next day, I employ the method that @michael-ibk had taught us in Gabon - order the food early in the day so you don't need to wait that long, and it works - kinda - here too. 

 

Giant Mongolian dumplings

 

Inedible overcooked dry pork chops

 

Noodle soup with chicken which tastes the best. 

 

Edited October 2 by Kitsafari

[Kitsafari]

I say the river and lagoon are usually filled with birds. Except that Mongolia has for some weeks, prior to our arrival, been blessed with heavy rainfalls. The day we arrive, the track to the lagoon is muddy, and in parts, flooded and we have to detour to take a longer route. even then, we have to cross a low section filled with rushing waters from the overflowing banks. Our cruisers make it through with me holding my breath which makes me think it will make the car lighter but of course it doesn't.

 

Few birds are out on the lagoon. a pair of Great Crested Grebes is in one pond, and a cormorant with a tern is in another. further down, four common mergensers are drying on a sandspit in the river. The rains have dispersed the birds.

Amur Falcon

 

Common Merganser

 

Greater Scaup

 

A wet Black Kite waiting for the sun

 

Azure Tit

 

Mallard and chicks at the lagoon

 

Great Cormorant at the lagoon

 

Eurasian Tree Sparrows

 

Pied Wagtail at the lagoon

 

While at the lagoon, a group of Korean tourists in a minibus on on the way to the airport stop to appeal to us to help them navigate flooded sections. Lost in translation, we are not clear what they want - use our cars to get across the flood, or use our cars to pull them through. Whatever, Bagi and Gaegi speak quickly to their driver and the van follows us as we head back to Mongolica Hotel.

 

The level of water in the flooded section seems higher and flowing much faster! and we find a sedan stuck in the flooded low section of the track. One look at the flooded sedan car, the minibus driver is convinced to make a wise decision to turn back and find another way.

 

Bagi takes the plunge to drive across and then takes a thick rope from our cruiser to hitch to the stuck sedan to pull it out. Copious volumes of water pour out from the front seats - the driver and passengers aren't going anywhere for a long while. That thick rope comes in very handy over the next many days....

 

 

 

 

[Kitsafari]

13 hours ago, xelas said:

Mongolia, a worthy destination to celebrate moving into the golden years (aka retirement). Full of nothingness I am familiar with, BYOTP is not an issue, but what about self-driving options ?! Not on a horse or camel .

 

Plenty of horses and camels if you need transport! but oh boy, you'll forget you have a bum after one day.

 

I'm not sure if self-driving is easy around the country, although there are a few who have attempted it even in the remote mountainous region of Gobi desert. There are no clear roads or tracks in the mountain passes. One day we find ourselves driving in a valley that was clearly a dried-up river - how is that a road, I'm not sure, especially since when the rains fall, that dried-up river becomes a rushing body of water and mud. One night in pitch blackness, we drive in circles looking for our lodging because Tumen takes a short-cut or what he thinks is one, but gets completely lost. There are no signs and no landmarks in the flat flat open plains in pitch blackness. And he's a Gobi man. 

What we have concluded is that the safest thing is to always drive with another car especially in the remote areas. Then if anything happens there is always the other car as a backup plan. Throw away the phone as there is no signal when you probably most want it....

 

 

[pomkiwi]

2 hours ago, Kitsafari said:

 

@Miss Biscuit from what I understand too, some of these falconers set the eagles free after 10 years or so but they also take the young from the nests in the wild to train them as eagle hunters. What I've read is that this practice is mainly in western Altai regions in Mongolia and mainly among the Kazakhs who have lived very long in the Bayan-Ölgii Province.     

There are also eagle hunters in Kyrgystan especially along the south of Lake Issyk-Kul. It is possible to visit them , watch a demonstration of the eagle hunting and hold them (dressed in national costume if one wishes). Kyrgystan always used to be relatively easy to visit. Both Turkish Airlines and Emirates/flydubai still fly daily.

[Miss Biscuit]

7 hours ago, Kitsafari said:

The first thing I learn about Mongolians are - they have absolutely no compunction about cutting any queues. A group of buffy young men cut in front of me at the X-ray machine, and I let out " what rude Mongolians are these? I can't believe how they just cut in front of the line. Just unbelievable." One of those guys clearly understands what I am yelling, because he waves us to go ahead of him. The cutting queues continue in supermarkets and restaurants. You either let them cut in or just tell them (all men) to go back in line or you move your body forward just enough to block him, which I do well. 

Omg, you are so much braver than me. It drives me mad to visit countries that do not have the concept of waiting in line. 

[Kitsafari]

12 hours ago, Miss Biscuit said:

Omg, you are so much braver than me. It drives me mad to visit countries that do not have the concept of waiting in line. 

 

 

I think though I should correct myself - they aren't really rude. they are opportunistic, that's more like it, i think. I was watching a couple of guys trying to cut the Q in a cafe and some people sent them to the back of the line. those guys went to the back of the line, but then they tried their luck again with other people and got sent back again. They seemed good natured about it and didn't raise any ruckus. 

[michael-ibk]

Oh goodie, I had been looking forward to your report. Definitely a destination that appeals to me, so will follow this with great interest.