Irkutsk and Lake Baikal 2.09.12

We arrived early in the morning to meet with our new honcho Anya, she took us to breakfast for some much needed pancakes and then on a city tour. Irkutsk is not a huge city but really has that Russian feel that you all in vision when you think of this country, there are Lenin statues all over the city and old wooden traditional houses with intricate designs around the window arches. I really wonder how these houses have survived in -40 degree winters!! It was 5 degrees when we arrived and we were all shivering cold....even Anya was urging us into the tiny bits of sun that existed on the pavement to warm up even the  tiniest bit.

Finally the sun had decided to warm up the city and we had a coffee and doughnut break while we waited for our driver...and so the silent disco began, once in the back seat in went the headphones and up went the music...dancing to whatever was in our ears in complete silence with the driver wondering what the hell we were doing in the back, constantly checking his rear view mirror to check our level of sanity.
As we rounded a bend there it was....the deepest freshwater lake in the world stretching for 600kms, this body of water sparkling bright blue that completely freezes over in winter....incredible. We reached our gorgeous chalet just a little way off the shore line and Bec beelined for the front room with the most amazing view of Lake Baikal between the mountains. We all had an easy day and relaxed and caught up on some sleep and had an amazing meal cooked by our host.....home cooked goodness.

Tonight we Banya'd, we stepped into the furnace and tried to continue breathing.....what's that we need more steam? Cheers Bec, we all nearly passed out. Anya in true stereotypical Russian form, beat us with branches which was quite refreshing if not a little strange....we were in hysterics as she would join in with, "you will enjoy it..." with her deepest accent. All de-toxified we got out into the crisp air and quickly dashed to shower....we had a pretty chilled night in and got to know a Dutch boy who was with an older tour staying with us, Bart.

Irkutsk

Lake Baikal

Vodka, Vodka, Vodka.......giggles, bed!!!!

Ulan Ude 1.09.12

The first Saturday in Autumn.....freezing this morning but warmed up during the day. Sveta our honcho for our short stay took us to the BIG Lenin head in the centre of Ulan Ude, such a small city but it definitely has a lot of character and a story to tell. We also visited this huge outdoor museum with an unfortunate zoo that really had me upset but they also had to scale models of traditional houses in Russia prior to the soviet era, it was a beautiful place and the surroundings were those pine forests you see in the movies.
We visited Lenin Street, without knowing we had arrived on 'Education Day' even though it was a Sunday all the kids were out in full school uniform celebrating the freedom to learn, pony rides and performances and even later on that evening we saw fireworks and could hear a concert from our room.

In the afternoon we took ourselves to an Irish pub on Lenin street and had a snack and a beer, we were lucky to find ourselves aided by the interpreter who worked at the pub. He was very excited because he wasn't a waiter his sole job was to assist english speaking visitors, his name was Sava, he was so nice and he sat down and had a chat with us while we drank and were entertained by an extremely drunk homeless man and his dog who was apparently a regular out the front of the bar. The man attempted to serenade us with freshly plucked flowers from the nicely manicured flower bed nearby, he thought we were German at first and when we advised him otherwise lovingly shouted "I LOVE YOU!" . After our evenings entertainment we chilled out in our hotel room until 10pm when we were picked up by our driver for our overnight train to Irkutsk.........Lake Baikal awaits.

Ulaanbaator 30.08.12-31.08.12

This morning we visited the oldest and most important Buddhist temple in UB which was interesting, we saw the 26 metre high Buddha which prior to the war was melted down for bullets and post war was rebuilt, they are currently in the process of building a Buddha that is 56 metres tall....that's taller than the statue of liberty!!!!!! Due to be finished in 2014...we headed back and braved the Black Market where you could buy absolutely anything that you wanted, Aimee and I of course bought Mongolian boots which we have fallen in love with. When we made our way back we made a last minute shopping dash for souvenirs the all important cold and flu meds which we all seem to need now and tried to exchange our last Togriks back.....a huge wad of notes amounted to AUD $3.00 not worth the effort then I guess.
We had dinner and left for the station......a very sad moment saying goodbye to our beautiful Aagy :( I really hope one day we will get to see her again......we already miss you Aagy!!!!!!!!!

We settled in to be rocked to sleep by the clickety clack of the Trans-siberian to Ulan Ude Russia.

On to Russia

Twins being Twins :)

Ulaanbaator 29.08.12

A bit of a short blog for today we spent 6 hours or so journeying back to UB from Kharkhorin and stopped a few times to take some really pretty photos my favourite part was when we stopped at a little valley and there was a tiny shop with a little local girl inside who was selling drinks she was holding a ginger cat with green eyes, she was so sweet.

We had an easy night and made our own hotdogs in the room which were pretty good and then just lazed about for the night recuperating from the last two days.

Kharkhorin 28.08.12

Did not want to get out of bed this morning.....so tired but no mozzie bites. I was so cozy in my lovely soft bed in my ger, I really did not want to get up. We had some breakfast and packed up to leave for Kharkhorin city and Ger camp. Aagy had said we would go for a camel ride but I didn't realise it was first thing this morning!!! We drove back to the nomadic family we visited yesterday and jumped straight onto our lovely camels for a ride to the Gobi sand dunes.......the older children in the family led the camels but oh my goodness it was so painful and uncomfortable so there was a lot of shifting happening from all parties involved. The camels were so cute though, they were stretching their necks back and rubbing against your leg trying to have a scratch, even when they drank it was amusing....sluuuuuuurp sluuuuuuuurp!!!!!
Now have successfully checked off two items from my bucket list, camel riding in the Gobi and horse riding across the Mongolian steppe :)

We jumped back into our van and headed out to Kharkhorin, Mongolia's first capital city and  the home of their very first Buddhist monastery. We arrived at our new ger for the night and the three amigos were back together again, it was like the first day of school, mucking around, laughing and acting like complete idiots.....I think we missed being all together. After lunch we headed to Kharkhorin monastery and city to explore, this place was huge,  surrounded completely by a white wall with golden tipped turrets every few metres. This monastery had been in existence since the 13th century and was still in original state, the temples were beautiful and the people still come here everyday to pray and pay their respects. The artwork was incredible and some was from the 13th century as well, so incredibly detailed you could spend hours staring at some of the murals and still not find every detail that had been hidden in the paintings.
I should read into Buddhism perhaps, it sounds really interesting, Aagy told us that for every face of a Buddha there are 16 deciples each one different and there are 1000 Buddahs or more which is insane when you think about it.
The girls and I tried to do our self portrait, 'I'm not looking but I know the camera is there' photos with my tripod and we got a couple of good ones whilst being eaten alive by phsycotic mosquitoes and after dinner we watched a traditional musical performance which was beautiful to listen to. The idea of the Mongolian throat singing (deep growl almost with a whistle at the same time) originated from the traditional nomads who attempted to imitate the sounds of nature and then incorporated their own sounds and instruments which they still use today at weddings and special ceremonys....I invite readers to google or youtube Mongolian throat singing, it's incredible to listen to, I was mesmorized.....

We were headed off to bed when thunder clouds rolled in and gave us an impressive lightning display before we couldn't stand the mozzies anymore and retreated to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and had a look outside, the sky was clear and those stars were back, stunning as ever with a near full moon illuminating the sky.......I love this country.....

Best Friends

At our Ger camp as many as 15 eagles and kites were perched here waiting for brave mice to show their heads

Our beautiful Honcho Aagy :)

Traditional Music

New Friends

Dreams

Bayangobi 27.08.12

Five hours in a seatbelt free van, rattling around avoiding massive pot holes we zig zagged all over the road through the steppe and finally arrived at our destination.....Bayangobi Ger camp, a peaceful little Ger village with amazingly electricity and running water, though not always hot.
Sitting in my little pagola looking out over the seemingly endless steppe........ complete silence.........all I can hear is the distant bleeting of sheep and goats as well as the occasional motorbike hum.
It's beautiful here, I feel nothing but complete contentment in this moment...absolutely beautiful.
I'm sharing with Talida tonight as per our schedule and lucked out with the most gorgeous view from our little door....

It's so peaceful, the cool breeze is moving the long grass aside me and it's completely silent.......just my watch ticking, that's all I can hear.

Later we went for a horse ride out on the steppe after meeting a nomadic family and visiting their Ger. It was so homey inside with photographs and a tiny kitchen and table, we tried some more fermented mares milk...the Mongolian version this time 'Airag' a lot more alcoholic and not so foul tasting. We had some hardened goat curd which was interesting to say the least, a really strong flavour and really tough. Also some yummy pastry home made which was nice. The ladies in the family showed us how they milk the mare, they sort of trick her into thinking the foal is feeding but letting it stand next to it's mum and have a tiny bit of milk then pulling it off the teat but keeping it's head out of mum's sight so she thins it's still feeding and they do this with each female 5 or 6 times a day and retrieve half a bucket of milk which is a LOT of milk every day. They had two beautiful kids and twins on the way which we learned is quite uncommon in Mongolia but we seem to find twins everywhere!

We got a very quick lesson in riding which consisted only of the word 'Chu' which means go basically. We donned our chapps and off we rode to the top of a mountain overlooking the landscape....absolutely gorgeous. On the way back we assisted the father in the family to round up his huge flock of sheep, goats, cattle and a few horses which was a lot of fun, practically a jillaroo now :) We rode back into the now setting sun and back to the families camp, where we remembered how painful riding can be on your backside, we unhinged or locked knees to get off the horses. Completely worth it.......,
I learnt some really interesting facts about Mongolia today, though this country is massive they only have a population of 3 million people and 1 million of them live in Ulaanbaator their capital.

The entire steppe is not owned land, there are no fences and no boundaries. The nomadic people move as they need to which really only depends on the seasons, they move underneath the mountains in winter to protect themselves from the extreme cold.

The animals they own are tagged however they are allowed to run free, wherever they wish to roam and graze as they please. When it's getting close to sun down the male of the family will go and collect them on horseback or motorbike, round them up and bring them closer to home but they are never fenced in. Aagy said they never go too far because they know that the family are their home.
It is such a beautiful concept...complete freedom for the animals and they are all fat and healthy. They don't really have any vet services they just let nature take it's course which is fair enough I guess as that is what was intended, even the dogs that roam the steppe are not desexed or anything, they seem to be few and far between. Families don't own a dog, one will come and they will feed it and it stays close by. The dog in turn protects the family and the livestock but Aagy said rarely do they if ever attack the animals or chase them, their job is to protect if they choose to stay.

The temperature has dropped tonight and my bag just got a lot lighter, our Ger is cozy and warm and the mosquitoes have backed off with the temperature drop...time for bed.

Taking it all in...

Nice Photo Bomb :)

A beautiful moment this Mongol man happily let me capture.......

Out in the cuds with the sheep...Baaaaaaa

Ulaanbator 26.08.12

Digging in my backpack attempting to fish out the long forgotten about jumpers and long sleeve clothing. Ulaanbator is a little chilly today we had met up with two young guys from Germany at a random stop yesterday who were heading in the opposite direction on the train back to Beijing they had said Mongolia was between 0-10 degrees at night and probably similar to Sydney winter during the day, though I admit I'm enjoying the change.
There's a half half feeling here some high rise in the city and backing onto fenced off Gers and then the city sort of spills onto the landscape as you could kind of see in the below photo.
We met with Agy our honcho, loaded up on Turgriks and had a nice shower in our lovely little hostel. Agy took us to the Mongolian History Museum which was really interesting as we had a guide to explain and give us a tour. We also visited a humongous souvenir store and then made our way back for some relaxing before dinner...pizza.

After dinner we met up with another Honcho and her group to go out we ended up at an underground nightclub called 'Dorgio'. Such an awesome experience mixing with the locals and our Honchos Ana and Agy danced along with us most of the night, when we decided to leave around 2am as soon as we had left the club one of the guys from the other group tripped on a bike rack and immediately our Honcho Agy tried to help and tripped on the exact same thing...quite a good laugh.

Bottle of water and bed....Ger camps tomorrow!!!!!!