We finally left Ulaanbaatar today! This was our first day in
the countryside and we went dog sledding.
After having been up super late and not having had much
sleep for the past few days, it was quite the challenge to get up at 8.30 am
for the day. I fried up some veggies and tofu cutlets and my husband went
scouring for bread in the neighbourhood. He couldn’t find any, so we just took
the veggies and tofu with us in little food containers and stopped for bread
and snacks on the way to the national park.
Our guide (the woman who we’d hired a few times before to
take us to Naran Tuul) first drove us to the Chinggis Khan Statue Complex,
which is basically a huge statue of Chinggis Khan on horseback, with a small
museum and a souvenir shop and restaurant inside. You can even go outside at
the middle of the statue and climb some stairs to the head of the horse, having
a great vantage point for shooting some panorama pics. By the foot of
this complex, there were two camels and a huge bird (falcon or eagle, I think). We
didn’t go camel riding or anything, but it was so strange to see them out in
nature, not in a zoo. Also, camels have these nose pegs to lead them by, which
is weird and a bit sad, but it also makes them look like lil punks with nose
piercings.
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| The Chinggis statue |
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| Some Mongolian script in the museum |
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| View from the statue (from the top of the horse's head) |
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| Snow isn't just cold here - it's so cold that you can actually see the crystals |
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| Camels and snow - a weird sight for me, maybe less so for Mongolians |
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| The bird of prey with the camels in the background |
After the museum/statue, we drove to Terelj National Park.
It was so interesting to finally be outside Ulaanbaatar. The roads were a bit
snowy and icy, the cities (?) we passed on the way full of gers (aka yurts) and
stray dogs and tiny supermarkets. The mountains were beautiful but hard to
enjoy through the frozen-over windows of the car.
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| Someone showing off his bird in the national park |
At the dog sled camp, we had to wait about an hour, which we
spent by making and eating sandwiches from our veggies and tofu and the sliced
bread we’d bought on the way there. We also went for a short walk around the
camp, a few puppies following us around, but it was really cold outside, and we
knew we’d have to be out in the cold later for the sledding, so we went back
inside quite soon.
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| One of the puppies keeping close to me |
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| So apparently it's called crackers everywhere |
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| Typical sight in the countryside: a ger with snowy mountains in the background |
Once the previous group returned from their sledding, we
headed over to where the dogs were resting with the sleighs, and took a few
pics of them, trying not to freeze to death already. Once everyone arrived, we
got on the sleighs two-by-two (my husband taking the driver’s place, me
squeezing into the narrow bag on the front of the sleigh), and off we went. The
dogs were really energetic, pulling hard and fast in the beginning over the
snowy-icy bumps, and my poor hubby was trying so hard not to fall off,
attempting to slow us down a bit by stepping on the break, but the dogs were
strong (and there were ten of them). Eventually, they got a bit tired and the
tracks were more snowed over in the second half so the speed was better
(although sometimes still perilous, at one point we were almost turned over
when we ran over some rocky snow).
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| Doggos resting between groups |
Also, I tried taking some pics and since my husband’s hands
were freezing even inside his gloves, I had to get a small heat pouch for him
(it was important that he feel his fingers lest he fall off the sleigh) out
from the inside of my coat, which required me having to use my fingers without
the hindrance of my gloves. So I took my gloves (right hand) off for about a
minute, maybe even less, and by the time I took them back on, I could only feel
some pain in my hand but had no feeling in them otherwise and could literally
not make them move properly either. I had to use my mouth to put the glove back
on because my fingers wouldn’t move to scoot inside. At that point, I was also
losing feeling in my toes and feet and started to get worried that my fingers
and toes might just freeze off or have some actual nerve damage to them. It was
painful and a bit scary, but the experience itself was great and the view of
the mountains really beautiful. I just wish I had warmer clothes and better
circulation in my body. Or maybe that it was 10 degrees warmer (which still
would have meant cold and snow; I think it was about -25 this way, and ‑15
would still have been cold enough).
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The only single picture I managed to take before my fingers lost all feeling
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Once we stopped with the sleighs (on the orders of the
organisers), we got off and said goodbye to the doggos, climbing into
(wonderfully heated) jeeps and being driven back to the camp – which was really
fun as we drove over the bumps and dirt-tracks (well, snow-tracks). There, we
ambled over to the small restaurant (I had trouble walking as my toes had no
feeling in them and my feet were hurting a lot), where we had the chance to
warm up a bit before paying and leaving the camp behind.
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| Such a cool experience |
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| Waving at the intern |
Before driving back to Ulaanbaatar, we stopped by Turtle
Rock (which is, yes, you guessed correctly, a huge rock formation that kinda
looks like a turtle) and took some pics with the last rays of sunshine lighting
up the valley. We also had a quick look around the souvenir shop there (it was
pretty big and shaped like a huge ger), buying a few more souvenirs before
getting back inside the car, super tired and cold, and letting our guide drive
us home.
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| Turtle Rock and a bus |
Back at the apartment, we invited the intern (she was with
us all day, as she usually is when we go somewhere, a fun girl) up for tea. She
ended up staying pretty late, eating and chatting and watching YT videos, and
she even got me to try and learn a Tik-Tok dance with her. I gotta admit that
was fun and completely unexpected – I don’t dance and I don’t do Tik-Tok.
Despite having made plans to go to bed early today, we ended
up staying up way too late – it’s already close to 2 am (I was supposed to go
to swim practice tomorrow morning, for the last time before we go home, but I
am so exhausted it hurts at this point, so I don’t think I’ll do another night
of 5-6 hours of sleep and then a full-on busy day (actually, several, as
tomorrow I have to lesson plan, work on my paper, pack all our bags for the
journey home, cook, and (even if not in the morning but later in the day) go
for a swim, and wash my hair too; then, on Monday, I’ll have to teach and have
meetings and tie off loose ends, have a last visit at the embassy (leaving a
set of keys there), and assign material for my students for our mid-week class
that I won’t be able to teach real-time; and Tuesday is travel day, which is
gonna start early and be suuuuper long again). So yeah, maybe not the best idea to skip the
only night of proper-like sleep I can get in this week. Busy days are great and
fun but also really taxing.
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