Like last night the first stop is the restaurant for dinner. Another tasty meal.
This ger camp has underfloor heading and windows onto a balcony. Talk about fancy! Shame we aren’t here long enough to enjoy it.
By 8.45pm we are all fading, time to locate our gers. Mine and Kevin’s luggage has been switched up again. His ger is behind mine so it’s easy for me to carry his bag to him (he was thrown from a horse this afternoon) and collect my bag.
9.37pm I climb into bed. This ger has 4 beds - I stick with the one that has been chosen for me. Alarm is set for 7am, breakfast is from 7.30am and we are departing at 8.30am. Shower is required before we head off for the day.
Friday 7 September I wake at 6.30am - opening the curtains I’m in heaven. Bright blue sky surrounded by mountains. What more would you want??!
The hot shower is great. Feeling clean in dirty clothes :)
I’m ready not depart......this place is amazing. I’m thinking I might come back just here for a week of total R&R.
Duuya joins the Julia and Sarah pre van selfie.
We depart heaven at 8.35am, 5 minutes later than scheduled - clearly no one wanted to leave. We have Duuya with us today. Van selfie is done before we depart.
After driving the 1.5 kms to the road we enjoy tar seal for about 5 minutes before turning off to another bumpy off-road road to Turtle Rock.
This impressive rock formation, which is 24 meters high, definitely looks like a turtle. So cool!
The blue sky is amazing! Such a change from yesterday. Long may this continue.
Back into the vans for another short but bumpy drive to the Aryaval Monastery and meditation center.
We wander up a path with Buddha’s teachings. As we come to the prayer wheel we each turn once slowly clockwise. The number it stops on is our special advice. I got number 100.
We continue wandering up to the temple. Having to cross a bouncy bridge which allows a maximum of 4 people on at one time.
At the top I walk around the outside following the prayer wheels.
Once inside the temple Duuya shows us around. We are the other ones here which is lovely!
As we walk down more and more people keep arriving. Great timing to be here alone.
At the bottom there are numerous buses - on these roads no thank you!
I could spy a petrol station and was just thinking I haven’t seen us fill up once since being in Mongolia. We then turn in and do exactly that. Grazing right here is horses.
We drive to a river where we are supposed to cross by van – getting this far we have already crossed in two small places which made the heart rate increase!! It’s far too strong a current to cross so Duuya calls the office for plan B. A few minutes later she receives a call back and we are informed what plan B is. We are staying at the same ger camp we were at last night :) Lunch will be at a local cafe then this afternoon we drive to see the Chinggis Khan horse statue. All sounds good to me.
We pull into a large ger cafe strip - Duuya gives as a mission, break into small groups and select our own cafe. She’ll then come and pay for it. Mission accepted. Julia, Kevin and I go off to explore. Ger cafe selected, now the fun task of deciding what to eat. A real adventure. One of the dishes we choose, horse kebabs, isn’t available any more. Kevin isn’t pleased; he wanted revenge after being thrown off yesterday. Julia and Kevin join the WiFi, I’ll continue to go internet free.
After lunch we drive to the Chinggis Khan statue.
The Chinggis Khan statue is a 40 metre tall statue of Chinggis Khan on horseback. You could climb up to see the face up close and personal. The views from the top of the countryside are great!
A few of the group decide to hold an eagle. They are impressive.
I decide to go for a run when we get back to the ger - we have just over two hours to the optional archery at 6pm. First photos of my room for the night.
Managed to run 5 kms which is awesome! Such amazing scenery to look at along the way while running like the Mongolians drive.
After cooling down I shower, deciding to go all out and wash my hair. I then join the ladies who have been sitting on their balconies drinking.
6pm a few of us went for archery - I was completely useless! Just couldn’t do it. Took forever to get an arrow (which thankfully wasn’t an arrow with a sharp end) to go anywhere other than on the ground in front of me.
A couple from the group were very good and hit the target. Some got close to hitting a cow too. Lots and lots of laughs.
It’s starting to get very cold now, definitely see why the ger’s have under floor heating.
As we walk into the restaurant the noise level is high! There is a group of Korean men are knocking back the alcohol. I can see this only getting worse.
We take a seat and Duuya gives each of us a Mongolian tarot / zodiac reading. All we had to do was provide her with our year and month of our birth.
Once we have all had our readings she then reads the description of our animal - like the Chinese zodiac I’m a dragon.
Dinner is another good meal. For me makes up for lunch which wasn’t good at all.
The noise level keeps increasing and increasing so post dinner we decide to go to one of the ladies ger’s to chat in peace and quiet.
Like last night I climb into bed at 9.37pm. The fresh air does that to you!! The noise level from the Korean’s is crazy! They are outside signing and screaming. Let’s hope they don’t go all night.
I wake just after 6am on Saturday 8 September - my last day. I’m not ready to leave this amazing county. This time tomorrow I’ll be at the airport and potentially boarding. Aaah.
When I venture outside for a bathroom run Jack Frost has been. The sun is starting to peak over the hills.
After a hot shower I finish packing then head to breakfast.
For those of us going horse riding we head off in the van to a neighbouring farm. Back onto a horse again. We ride back to the ger camp, at times my horse was more than happy to enjoy the scenario like I was.
On arrival it’s the last minute packing before the standard selfie.
We depart paradise at 10.37am - hard to believe this time tomorrow I’ll be 15 minutes from landing back into Hong Kong…..I’m not ready to leave.
We are not even 5 minutes down the road when we come across police breath testing the drivers. I would hope at 10.45am everyone would pass. Thankfully our drivers all did :)
The traffic going in the opposite direction is absolutely crazy! If you lived here you would need to factor this in going anywhere (adding an additional hour or more to any journey).
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