Hitchhiking, Kerfuffles, Eagles, and My First Solo Trek
- stemeillon
- Oct 17, 2024
- 17 min read
In this blog, read about my transportation across Mongolia, miscommunications, and travel to the northern Khuvsgul Lake and Bayan-Ulgii in the west of Mongolia for the Golden Eagle Festival. I then spent three days hiking solo, my first solo backpacking trip!
From the Farm to the Lake
Leaving Minjee’s farm brought tears to my eyes. It marked the end of the first chapter of my journey, filled with new experiences and cultures, while the rest remains unknown. I squeezed Minjee tightly when she dropped Louisa and me off on the road to hitchhike to Darkhan. After ten or twenty minutes, a young man driving with his mother picked us up and kindly made a detour to drop us directly at the bus stop. I’ve noticed that the people here truly go out of their way to help foreigners.
I found a guided horse trek through an old Facebook post, and the organizer arranged for us to be picked up from Murun by taxi and taken to Hatgal for the trek the next day. He suggested that if we wanted to save money, we could ask the taxi driver if we could sleep in his car until morning and then find others to split the cost of the ride. While sleeping in some random guy’s taxi sounded highly appealing, we opted to pay a bit more for a real bed. The drive to the town took two hours and we each paid $15, and I spent my first night in a real bed and not a sleeping bag on a crate; it felt luxurious.
The next morning, we woke up to a delicious breakfast of homemade blueberry jam and fried bread (ganber). Our guide arrived at the house, and we quickly discovered that he did not speak any English. However, he was very friendly and managed to understand us for the most part through gestures. We each paid $150 for a four-day horse trek, which included accommodation with local families. The guide saddled the three of us on horses and said we would go to his house to get traditional Mongolian clothing, called “deel,” because we would get cold. And cold we were!
As we left town, we wondered if he had forgotten to take us to his house since we passed the last few buildings and ventured onto a trail. But an hour later we came upon a cozy little cottage nestled against the hillside, overlooking a beautiful valley. The man welcomed us into his home and his wife served us plates of fried rice with sheep lung, heart, liver, and blood. I pretended I was eating squishy mushrooms instead, and I believe that’s the only reason I managed to eat the whole plate without gagging, especially since I was already feeling nauseous and had an upset stomach that day. He fitted us with the deels and asked Louisa, who was bundled in many layers, if she had “bebe?” She was annoyed, but Chris and I found it hilarious.
We set off again, still cold but much warmer than before, and finally crested a hill that overlooked the massive lake, nearly bordering Russia. The pine trees were a stunning autumnal yellow. We continued for four hours and arrived at a deserted tourist camp that had closed for the season. We were thrilled to enter the family’s warm home and enjoy some tea and fried noodles. Afterward, Bata (our guide) led us to a little A-frame cabin that he had previously freaked us out by calling a tent, and he asked us to pay 80,000 tugrik ($25 USD). We were confused because we thought the accommodation was included in the original price, and we had only brought candy gifts for each family (resulting in three kilos of candy weighing down the horses).
We returned to the main house to get a signal for Google Translate, but it doesn’t work so well for Mongolian. Eventually, we called the man from the Facebook post and he resolved everything with the help of another guide. After we cleared everything up and settled into a little ger, Louisa and I went for a cold plunge in the lake and desperately sprinted back to be by the fire.
The next morning, we woke up to light snowfall. Our guide informed us that we would wait for the snow to stop before heading out, so we passed the time by chatting with some of the other people staying at the camp. One of the guides jokingly told me I was very pretty and that he would like to marry me, but had a wife and kids. I replied that wouldn’t work because I needed to be in charge (although I don't think it would work out anyway...). Their kids waddled around like dumplings, bundled in so many layers that it was hard to distinguish chub from jacket. The girl had a shaved head, and the man explained that girls have their heads shaved at ages four or six, while boys do so at three or five. The hair is set aside and given back to them when they are older. He pointed to the boy and said “penis,” then to the girl and said “no penis!” commenting on how, in Mongolia, it is not taboo to discuss such things.
After a while we went off through the snow on our horses. I was surprisingly not freezing, and we were experiencing what felt like a true fairy-tale adventure. After about 2 hours the guide met a man on his motorcycle who invited us to come to his ger for tea. The man and his wife were absolutely darling; Ort and Ortha. I tried to help her make the dough for noodles, but after watching me flail with the dough for a few seconds she stopped me and took over, making it look soo easy.
We made Tsuiban (fried noodles) with minced meat and it was delicious but our plates were massive and I thought I would explode. We also drank lots of tea and they fed us yak “butter," which was the top layer of curdled fat in a pail of yak milk sitting on the floor. It was actually incredible, as were the yogurt and milk.
That night I helped fix their light since the switch was broken. Bata and I worked together under a flashlight to pull apart the switch, and then I used my teeth to strip the insulation from the wire and reconnect it to the switch terminal. I did the same to wrap the wire around the nut for the positive and negative terminals of their solar-powered battery, and it worked!
That night 5 of us slept like sardines in the tiny ger, while Chris opted to sleep in her tent in the snow outside, alarming the couple who thought she would be much too cold. The ger, on the other hand, was boiling hot, progressively heating up with the fire in the center of the room. Louisa and I shared one little cot, while the couple shared the other and the guide slept on the floor. I slept like a log. The next morning I woke up sweating profusely and pushed the blanket to the base of the bed to try and keep sleeping for a little longer. Ortha rushed over and put the blanket back on me, tucking me back in. It was so endearing but I couldn't bear the heat. After a quick breakfast we helped them milk the yaks, chasing them around in a fenced off enclosure and laughing lots every time we slipped on a massive yak poo. It was sad to say goodbye, and Ortha told us to come back next time we are in Mongolia.
We rode the horses through more snow that day until we reached Bata’s house once again. It was a bit odd; he asked us to make dinner for him, even though we were the paying customers. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but complied and made a noodle and sheep soup. The next morning we had leftover soup for breakfast and went up to the mountain in heavy snow to a viewpoint of the lake, rendered invisible by the thick clouds and snowfall. I looked like the Michelin man, my deel covered in a layer of white. We were all losing feeling in our toes and fingers, even though we wore many layers and gloves. Bata, who was wearing only a baseball cap and his deel, seemed fine and started to descend toward the lake instead of back to the house. But we were freezing and the horses were clearly fed up with our cold shenanigans so we turned around and headed back, just in time for the sun to come out.
We went back to his house for tea and to warm our toes, and he guided us an hour back to the town. We said goodbye and thanked Bata, and while Chris packed up to go back to Ulaanbaatar, Louisa and I went to a coffee shop and enjoyed a blissful coffee. The owner’s son was watching YouTube videos at a table and at some point, I looked out the window to see him pissing right in front of me on the porch. Louisa and I laughed while the mother frantically scolded her son, embarrassed by his behavior.
The next morning we took a taxi back to Murun to a guest house where we were hoping to take our first hot shower in, for me, almost two months. The water took 3 hours to heat up, so we went to a laundromat in town to give a proper wash to our clothes. When we went back for the shower, I quickly discovered that “hot” meant “not freezing." Still I felt cleaner than before, but Louisa opted to go to the public bath house for a real hot shower. We were both getting hangry and having a hard time finding somewhere to eat, finally stumbling on a chain restaurant called “Eat Eat Fast Food. Chicken and Pizza.” We got two massive pizzas and could barely even finish one. Loaded with pizza and our freshly laundered clothes we walked the 30 minutes back to the guest house and relished in smelling clean.
From the Lake to the Eagles
I originally found what I thought was a super cheap share-taxi from Murun to Bayan-Olgii, which would save us 20 hours of bus time. I realized I misunderstood the price of the car, and instead of $20 each it was actually $200, so I was embarrassed and felt shitty because I’d promised the driver the work and he was super angry. We looked into maybe hitchhiking the 20-hour drive to the west instead of going back to the capital first. Two locals we asked said it was a really bad idea to hitch hike, since the roads to the west were really bad from Murun and we could get stranded somewhere; they gave us a 10% chance of making it there.
I pushed us all to hitchhike back to the capital instead, a 12 hour drive, and then take the predictable 30-hour bus with our other two friends to Bayan-Ulgii in the west. We left Murun around 2:00 and after ten minutes of waiting, a tiny car pulled over, stuffed their trunk with our bags, and loaded us into the back. We were hip-to-hip, leaving no room for our shoulders, and had our bags stacked on our laps. After about an hour the couple pulled over at a random junction in the middle of nowhere and kicked us out, saying the car was too heavy with all of us (which, to be fair, it was). We were all relieved to be out and stretch our legs, and only waited another ten minutes before two brothers pulled over in a van and loaded us in. It was comparatively luxurious, with leg room and everything! Luckily they were going all the way to the capital so we didn’t have to worry about hitchhiking in the dark. We found out that they are Mongolian sumo wrestlers; they were friendly and did not speak any English, although they quickly picked up on, “Oh shit!”
At some point we stopped at a stall on the side of the road selling airag, or fermented horse milk (2% alcohol) and once back in the car he asked for a knife to cut a plastic bottle into a little cup so we could all try. In hindsight giving the 300 lb sumo wrestler my knife could have been a bad idea but I don’t think it would have made much of a difference in a fight, all things considered.
Anyhow we finally made it to Ulaanbaatar around 2:00 AM and took a cab to a little hostel. I didn’t sleep a wink and instead got up around 7:00 to take an officially hot shower. It felt, Awesome.
We hailed a car to drive us to the bus station (he definitely wasn’t an actual taxi, just some college student looking to make a buck), and he swerved through the terrible traffic for 40 minutes to get us to the station much later than we expected. Long story short we made it to the correct bus station just on time to commence a boring 30 hour bus with our phones dead and no chargers onboard.
The bus only broke down twice, but that's okay because we were finally in mountain territory! It was wonderful to see some bigger peaks and to breathe in the fresh air.
We made it to Bayan-Ulgii and went to the guesthouse (that I also found on Facebook; $8 each per night) and split off to rest and get food. Of note, we went to a little store to buy some water and snacks and the woman asked us if we were Israeli. We said no, French, and she said okay and that Israelis are not allowed to buy things in her store. When asked why, she typed in, “I don’t like them.” It’s curious to learn that many Mongolians do not like Israeli tourists, presumably for cultural differences. Minjee once explained to us that she never accepts to host Israelis because she hosted one at some point that was rude and lazy. It seems like just one or two bad experiences gives them strong opinions here… that being said if you’re Israeli and travelling to Mongolia, maybe lie about where you’re from.
That night, the three of us wandered around and a Mongolian girl said “How are you so beautiful!” as I was posing looking pregnant with all my jackets. We laughed and asked her if we could get a drink somewhere in town, so she said yes yes! and we followed her to a convenience store. We clarified that we were looking for cocktails or a beer, and she then took us to a coffee shop, 57 Coffee House (still no alcohol). We gave up on the beer and instead had a lovely time trying to converse with her, slurping down what felt like the best hot chocolate of my life, and eating Kazakh spicy chicken. It turns out she was only 16 years old (hence the no alcohol)! She also told me I had a nice smell, which I thought was especially odd given that I did NOT have a nice smell, until we realized she was saying “smile.” The people here seem to really love blondes, I guess because there aren’t many.
The next day, Chris (from the horse trek) who was also in Ulgii at the same time, joined me to do an incredible traverse of the volcanic mountains nearby. There were no trails, so we made our own path through the scree and did some 4th class scrambling to the highest peak. It felt amazing to really put my legs to use after several days spent in a bus and to be out in nature.
We went back to the same coffee house for hot chocolate and then, to our extreme disappointment, we learned that in Muslim communities people don’t party or sell alcohol on Fridays. Also, we were confused to learn that our phones do not properly update to the time here so it was actually one hour earlier than we thought.
The next day Louisa and I hitchhiked to the festival a bit late and discovered that we didn’t have to pay since we got there later; that was awesome since the fee was a steep $30. The festival started with a Kazakh music performance, and at some point the woman dancing and singing came down from the stage and pulled me from the crowd to dance with her. She did this with a few other people, it was hilarious. Then it turned into a very brief rave moment, with one of the Kazakh men pulling us all into dance.
The competition began but it was slow-going. The first event featured the eagle hunters standing in large, marked circles in a field, calling their eagles to them from a mountaintop. Sometimes the eagles responded, but other times they didn’t or got confused. One eagle even mistakenly flew to a car parked in the lot instead of to its hunter; apparently, in modern times, some hunters use cars rather than horses, which can confuse the birds. Nonetheless, it was an impressive display of Kazakh pride. We were surrounded by men with eagles perched on their arms or shoulders, creating a daunting atmosphere.
At some point in the day, a man came up to me and offered for me to hold his bird... I laughed and said okay! and he drowned me in his coat, belt, hat, glove, and eagle. The eagle was much heavier than I expected, and was wearing a little hat to cover its eyes. Louisa then tried as well, and we thanked him multiple times. He asked us for money, which I was expecting but he asked us for 20,000 Tugrik, much more than we thought was appropriate. We gave him 10k each (about $3 USD).
This sparked an internal conflict for me: what is the price of a cultural experience when you are a tourist? I believe in the importance of supporting local economies, but also wonder when it is appropriate to haggle—especially when for you it makes a difference of a dollar or two, but for them it’s a way to earn a living. I would love to hear your comments on this at the end of the post! My mind is not sure where to settle in this conversation.
The other events included the riders running at full speed and leaning all the way sideways while on their horse to pick up and throw three little coin pouches sitting on the ground, as well as archery on horseback.
That night we tried to find a karaoke bar, and while we were waiting outside for two of our friends a massive drunk man came outside and tried to sit on Frankie, asking him for a smoke. Frankie said no, and pointed to the seat next to him on the bench. The man started to get aggressive, asking repeatedly for a cigarette, and we started to head inside when all of a sudden he grabbed Frankie by the jacket with an iron grip. Louisa and I were terrified that Frankie would react violently, but he kept his cool and did not engage. The drunk man’s friends came outside and helped break him away, but then pulled Frankie aside by his jacket and looked ready to pummel him. Louisa and I managed to shake the guys off by shouting and “no no no!!” and we quickly walked in the other direction.
We kept walking and eventually did find a karaoke bar. The staff was hammered and playing Kazakh club music off a computer on the bar counter. The owner kept pausing the song by accident, or would just change songs in the middle of another one. It was super odd but we had fun dancing with all the Kazakh people. Eventually it was our turn for the karaoke room, but the song book was mostly in Cyrillic with a few obscure English songs. We tried to sing a Kazakh song, but the only word we could read was “boddog;” needless to say it went poorly.
In the morning I split off to go journal and reflect and it felt wonderful to be alone for a bit. Later we went back to the festival, once again avoiding paying somehow, and watched as two men on horseback played tug of war with a dead pitted sheep. The competition was super intense and sometimes one man would get pulled off his horse, or would fall over sideways with the horse. One horse seemed especially exhausted and wouldn’t get back up, so they whipped its flank until it did and then moved it to the side and tied up its legs. I couldn’t see what happened next as tourists flocked to the horse and surrounded it with cameras. It was pretty disturbing.
Finally they awarded the winners for each competition, including one which I was bummed to have missed but consisted of a game where the husband tried to catch and kiss his wife, both on horseback, but she would slap him away with a whip. The grand winner of the tournament was awarded a new motorbike and I noticed that the only clapping came from the tourists; Kazakhs just shout and whoop.
Louisa and I hitchhiked back with two men and their sons, who took many selfies with us. It was funny to me that we came all the way there to see their culture, but they seemed equally excited to see us and take pictures with us (one woman even took a picture with her, her baby, and Louisa, who has long blonde hair that received lots of attention).
That night we joined a group of travelers at a club and when we arrived, it was just a circle of us and a few locals dancing. They stopped the music after a bit and said we had to buy something if we wanted the music to keep playing which I thought was amusing.
Essentially it played out like this: I was dancing with a very sweet and harmless older Kazakh man, and some other Kazakh men started to try dancing with me and another girl in a way we didn’t like. There were also a bunch of younger guys gawking from the wall while we danced. All of a sudden the guide that brought the other group of tourists told us to all leave, so we gathered outside and left around midnight. As I learned the next day from an Argentinian man, the guy that started harassing me and the other girl was recently released from jail and the guide was worried about what the night would become if we stayed there; needless to say I was grateful to have left.
My Solo Trek
The next day after that I went off on a solo trek for the first time! I met a Belgian man who kindly lent me all of his camping gear while he went to live with eagle hunters for a few days, and I paid for a ride through 4 hours of off-roading westward. It was an wonderful adventure.
The first morning I took off upwards in the mountain, thinking I could get to elevation and then just coast along the ridges and go back to the river to camp. However I eventually realized that getting to the ridge would take forever and be more work than was worth it, so I had to downclimb back to the river. But the mountains drew me back in so I kept going up and over steep passes for most of the day, thinking the views of the snow-capped Altais were worth it at least. After 16 miles I gave up on making distance and stopped at the river, making camp and going to bed.
The next day I thought about how exhausting the first day was and decided to just stay by the river to make up for the distance I didn't cover by going into the mountains before. But then once again I was drawn into the mountains, and a confusing topo map and a miscalculation took me 3 miles too far east, only to realize the clouds were coming in and I hadn't done any of the distance I was supposed to for the day. I started to feel kind of panicky and defeated and began my descent, taking another couple of hours. At some point I squatted to stretch my hips and a wolf started howling from both sides of the canyon. It scared me shitless and I spent the next hour walking through wolf country with a big stick in one hand and a knife in the other.
I finally made it to the road and had another 10 miles to do to catch up, which felt very demoralizing. A van of old Italian women stopped to offer me a ride and I was very close to saying yes, but that's not what I was there for. I gave up at 16 miles again and made mutton-flavored ramen surrounded by curious cows.
The next day I really did stick to the road and not the mountains, doing 10 miles to and through the town and waited 45 minutes until someone picked me up to hitchhike back to Ulgii. The man that picked me up drove a CRANK START engine. It was a crazy old Russian-jeep-looking car, and there were already two people in the passenger seat and four adults in the back plus a newborn. We listened to awesome Russian/Kazakh folk and bounced over the holes for a couple hours before they dropped me off.
Overall I think my biggest takeaway was that fear is imagined; it doesn't exist except for in the mind. When bikes would drive past my tent at night initially I would freak out, paranoid about one of them trying to come to my tent and do something, but realized that thinking like that is exhausting and ultimately only destructive. The rest of the nights I slept well, except for with the wolves howling through the second night. That was scary.
Getting back to Ulgii was incredibly rewarding, and I spent a lovely time drinking hot chocolate and eating good food with my new Beligan friend.
Anyway that was a long post but there was lots to tell! I'm now at the Mongolian Calligraphy Center in the ancient Mongolian Capital Kharkhorin, where I'll work for 2 weeks with updates to come later :)
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