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On Wednesday, August 7^th, we left our hotel at 7 am and walked to the Dragon Bus Station to catch our 14-hour bus ride to Murun.  Although these long-distance bus trips may last more than 20 hours, the buses are not equipped with bathrooms.  The buses stop so passengers can get a meal (we always order the same thing – goulash – mutton with gravy, rice, cabbage and carrot salad) and there is a “bathroom” at the restaurant.  Most of the “bathrooms” are outhouses with slats in the wood that women need to squat over (you can hear the flies buzzing and smell the odor just looking at the photos).  The rest of the bathroom stops are on the side of the road (no fear of going to the bathroom in front of others in this country – it is the way of life!)  A “women’s” and “men’s” area tend to develop organically. 

The men’s toilet in the countryside and Sandy’s view from the women’s toilet in the countryside.

Once we arrived at the bus station in Murun, we walked to 50 100 Hotel and checked in at 10:45 pm.  We experienced a first – our room had a private sauna (which we didn’t use).  During breakfast on Thursday morning, our new Italian friends, Elena and Alessandro (whom we met when staying in Kharkhorin), came to our hotel to say hi.  They had stayed in a hotel across the parking lot.  We are hopeful we will see them again before they leave Mongolia. 

After going to the grocery store to get water and chocolate milk, our driver picked us up at the hotel and drove us the 90 minutes to Mongol Ujin Camp in Hatgal. We unpacked and scoped out the outhouse toilets (Mike finds the good in everything and said “at least the toilet seats are heated”, to which I replied with “I don’t sit on public toilet seats, let alone on an outhouse toilet seat, so the fact that it is heated doesn’t make me feel any better”), the shower area, and the outside sink that has ice cold water (fun for washing your hands after using the outhouse, brushing your teeth and washing your face!)  We enjoyed a cup of tea while chatting with Paul, who was volunteering at the camp for a couple of weeks, and Davaa, the owner of the camp.  We couldn’t unlock our ger lock, so Davaa’s father came to help us.  It took us awhile to figure out that darn lock (we have learned so much about different type of locks the past few months)!

We walked to town and we each had tsuivan to eat for lunch.  We explored the town, which has a touristy feel to it.  We noticed lots of construction.  It will be interesting to see how developed this area becomes over the next 20 years.  I went for a 2-mile walk while Mike blogged.  When I finished the first mile, I saw Mike walking towards me motioning me to come back.  Davaa had arranged for us to meet her American friend, Trina.  We went to Trina’s house and the four of us chatted while sipping tea.  Her husband was in the States, so we were unable to meet Mickey.  Their story is interesting and very inspiring.  They have four adult children (we got to meet her son Jaaz, his wife and daughter).  The family came to Mongolia in 2003 as missionaries.  At that time there were only two cars in the entire village and there were hitching posts where Mongolians rode their horses to town to get supplies.  They lived in a ger without electricity and water for several years.  They started a church, purchased an old manufacturing plant and have created a beautiful youth camp facility that can accommodate 200.  They hold conferences for pastors.  They write, publish and print curriculum.  They are working on a Mongolian translated bible.  They make pottery, have a gallery and teach classes.  They plan to have an artisan shop for local artists.  One aspect of their operations is impressive.  It is mind-blowing they are doing all the things they are doing.  We adore Trina!  A couple of days after meeting her, we watched a 2018 film made about their family.  The 44-minute time investment is a great way to learn more about the Mongolian lifestyle.  The Mongolian woman who was interviewed in the film, who talked about religion, is our camp owner, Davaa. 

We returned to the camp for dinner.  Each night Paul built a fire for us in our ger before bed (the fire was lovely; however, I prefer it to be really cold while sleeping…Mike laid content and comfortably in bed laughing as I sweated enough to fully dehydrate my body every night – it was so hot!).   The ger cools off quickly, as we didn’t keep putting logs on the fire throughout the night (Mike honored my pleas to not add more logs…well, maybe they were threats and not pleas!).  Thus, the air was very chilly when we woke up each morning.      

On Friday morning we went to the dining room for breakfast.  We never know what will be served for breakfast or dinner (let’s just say our daily meals look and taste much different than they do when we eat at home).  I rarely eat hot dogs, but they are often served for breakfast.  In addition to hot dogs, we had tea, eggs, cheese, fresh fish (which we tried – while picking around the bones – and it tasted good…just not a food we’re used to smelling or eating first thing in the morning), bread, peanut butter and jelly (yay, peanut butter and jelly!!).     

Davaa arranged for a boat to pick us up and take us to the “Magic Shore”.  The boat driver looked like he was about 12 years old (due to my anxiety around deep water – which makes me wonder if I drowned in a previous life – the last thing I wanted was an inexperienced boat driver….at least the water was clear so I could see the bottom of the lake, and I was able to basically tighten my life jacket to the point where I couldn’t breathe to ensure it would save me if there were a need to do so).  We would have loved to have stayed in the boat to explore the lake all day long!  It was breathtakingly beautiful.  Lake Khuvsgul is referred to as the “Dark Blue Pearl” and is one of the deepest and purest lakes in the world.  It is the largest freshwater lake in Mongolia by volume and holds almost 70% of Mongolia’s fresh water and 1 – 2% of all the fresh water in the world.  The lake sits in a national park and is surrounded by beautiful mountains near the Russian border.  The lake begins to freeze in November and thaws completely the beginning of June.  The driver stopped the boat along the shore and told us to return to the boat in 30 minutes.  We walked toward the lookout point.  There were a lot of people, so we didn’t go all the way to the top. 

The “12-year old” dropped us off close to our camp, about two hours after he had picked us up.  We walked into town and hung out at the New Roots coffee shop.  It has a great vibe.  We enjoyed hot chocolates, brownies, and chicken salad sandwiches.  Trina, Jaaz, and his family stopped in and we enjoyed chatting with them.  In the evening, at the camp, we enjoyed a bottle of local blueberry wine with our dinner and worked on our lodging for the next segment of our trip. 

Saturday began with a 4-mile run along the lake.  After breakfast, I chatted with SMA (I needed her to talk me off of the ledge as I was beginning to feel like I will be camping and using outhouses full time the rest of my life, which made me wonder if I was indeed living my best life!  For me, 25% of our new lifestyle is absolutely amazing, 50% is good enough to good, and 25% has been a HUGE challenge for me – it is such a big change. We have lived in 38 “homes” since February.  Nothing is consistent or routine.  The mattresses are hard and bedrooms are too warm, I can’t get comfortable to sleep throughout the entire night.  My digestive system is continually trying to understand what the hell is going on and why I’m eating things it’s never processed before. Mike is adaptable and flexible which makes him a wonderful role model for me.  He is typically non-resistant, accepts and is content with what is.  He sleeps like a baby.  His digestive system works the same as it always has.  As great as that is, at times it drives me bananas that life is so freakin easy for the man! I feel like he can’t relate to the challenges I am experiencing.  The good news is I am learning and growing and making progress with my personal goals.  In the long run, I am convinced this new lifestyle will achieve what I want to achieve for myself personally.  It sure can be a frustrating and painful process though.).   

We forgot to tell Davaa we wanted her to arrange a driver for us back to Murun on Sunday.  She was not at the camp and she had not responded to the message I sent her, so we decided we would go into town and try to find a ride (after our trip to Dadal, we’re good at this now!).  Our first stop was the khuushuur stand, where we ate lunch.  We saw Jaaz and his family and asked if he knew of anyone going to Murun the next day.  He said his mom, Trina, was going to pick people up at the airport and gave us her number (that would be AWESOME if we could ride with Trina!). We left her a message on her voicemail.  We stopped for 60-cent ice cream cones on our way to another coffee shop.  We noticed the shop during our run this morning and it has a perfect view of the lake.  It was a gorgeous day and we sat outside drinking our blueberry smoothies, working on our travel plans while enjoying the views of the lake and mountains.

Mike asked the English-speaking girl working in the coffee shop if she knew how we could find a ride to Murun the next day.  She helped Mike place an ad on the Hatgal News Facebook page.  Mike had 3 people respond within minutes.  We asked her to call the first person who responded and she made the arrangements for us.  We both had to go to the bathroom and the coffee shop didn’t have a toilet.  Mike went to the bar across the street to see if they had one.  He brought back two beers and told me where to find the outhouse across the road.  With the coffee shop worker’s permission, we stayed enjoying the lake while listening to a “summer at the lake” Amazon Prime playlist on Mike’s phone. 

After dinner at the camp, we put together an easy puzzle that was in the dining room, watched sunset, and saw the gorgeous moon as it was setting.  The stars and Milky Way are magnificent in this country! 

We were woken up by a loud noise at 3 am on Sunday morning.  When we got out of bed at 7:30 am, we saw that one of the inside ger roof poles had fallen and hit the wood stove (grateful that the stove wasn’t still hot to start the wood pole on fire).  We went for a 4-mile walk/run along the lake.  We packed after breakfast and our driver picked us up at 11:50 pm. He also picked up Dalai (whom we met at New Roots Coffee) and her mother, who were also riding to Murun. We had tried to get our bus tickets from Murun to Ulaanbaatar online, however a Mongolian credit card was required to purchase the tickets.  There were only 7 seats still available, and we were concerned they might sell out before we could get to the bus station.  Dalai purchased the tickets for us, during our drive, and we paid her with cash. 

We arrived in Murun at 1:30 pm. We had our same room at 50 100 Hotel (the one with the private sauna).  We ate lunch at the hotel.  On our way to the grocery store, we stopped at the Khuvsgul provincial museum (which was small – my kind of museum!) covering the history and culture of this province and some excellent taxidermy of animals local to the area. While gathering our groceries at Nomin, we saw people taking a picture.  We quickly realized people were asking to take photos with Bavuudorjiin Baasankhüü, Silver Olympic medalist in judo at the games in Paris.

Back at the hotel, Mike went to the front desk to get two extra bed pillows for us and ask if we could get four hard boiled eggs since we would be leaving before breakfast is served the next day.  I was in the middle of changing clothes when I heard the doorbell ring in our room.  Since the room had an exterior door and it faced a busy parking lot, I was cautious when opening the door for Mike (to my surprise it was a “19-year-old” male who the front desk sent with the pillows).  It was obvious that I wasn’t dressed!  I immediately shut the door on him and grabbed a bathroom towel and wrapped it around me.  When I re-opened the door, we smiled sheepishly at each other (hopefully he isn’t scarred for life! Maybe one day he’ll tell his grandchildren that he worked at a hotel when he was young and a naked woman answered the door when he was delivering something to the room).  When Mike returned to the room, we laughed about what happened, and he shared his funny story with me.  The hotel employee at the front desk couldn’t speak English, so they were using Google Translate (which doesn’t always translate accurately).  The employee told Mike four times, via Google Translate, that they were “waiting for the eggs to hatch” (thank goodness we really only had to wait for the eggs to be cooked and not hatched!). Mike went for a short visit to the Gandan Tegichilen Monastery, while I got caught up on personal emails and other tasks.      

On Monday, we left the hotel at 7 am and walked to the bus station.  Our bus left at 8:03.  We were in the last row of seats on the left side.  At 8:40, we heard a noise that sounded like a blown tire and all kinds of smoke was billowing outside our window.  We weren’t sure if the bus was going to catch on fire, so we got off as soon as we could (this is part of the 25% of the time that is a HUGE challenge for me.  I immediately say, we should get our bags and hitch hike to Ulaanbaatar…who knows how long this is going to take to fix!)  I am proud of myself as I actually remained calm.  Not a single Mongolian seemed concerned at all (we are in the middle of no where and there isn’t a cell signal – shouldn’t someone seem a little concerned??).  The woman who was sitting next to me on the bus (whom we called Pinkie since she was wearing all pink) walked to the field across the road and looked like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.  She had her face to the sun, her arms outstretched, and she was spinning.  After several minutes, when she was done having fun doing that, she started doing yoga (why wasn’t I born with these traits – to leave worry and fear behind, to be fully present and enjoy the moment, regardless of what that moment brings???  I am completely envious!  She was so inspiring…I am working towards being like this in a similar situation…hopefully 1 year from now we’ll have pictures of me looking like Julie Andrews in a field!). While Pinkie was having fun, two men were working on the lug nuts on the rear tire.  Two other men were working in the engine compartment.  They flagged down a truck and borrowed a tool. 

One of the bus drivers (there were two) got in a car at 9:11 am that was going back in the direction of our starting point.  We weren’t sure if he said, “I’m out of here”, if he was going to get a part, or if he would bring another bus for all of us.  No one was talking (not that we’d know what they were saying anyway…we were the only non-Mongolians on the bus).  Mike was standing close to the bus driver working on the engine compartment.  He wanted to pull up a You Tube video to help, but of course there was not a cell signal.  After several minutes, the driver puts away all the tools, gets in the bus and starts going backwards down the road – leaving everyone on the side of the road (what on earth is going on?).  We all walked the ¼ mile to the new bus location, which positioned the bus further off the road.  While waiting, we got to watch three herders move their animals to different pastures (I channeled my internal Pinkie and enjoyed my surroundings…baby steps, I wasn’t quite ready to spin like Julie Andrews alone in a field).

A new bus showed up at 10:30 am. At 10:45, we were rolling down the road again.  Only a two-hour delay!  The A/C was not working on the 2^nd bus.  We could feel the sweat running down our backs (I swear ½ of the bus was women going through menopause…you could tell they were absolutely miserable and fighting for air – the windows in the bus were stationary and wouldn’t open).  We just kept reminding ourselves how grateful we were to be moving towards Ulaanbaatar and not still on the side of the road. There was a police stop, where the officer checked the overhead bins in the bus.  Seventeen hours after we left our hotel room to go to the bus station, we arrived at the bus station in UB at midnight.  We gathered our suitcases, ordered a taxi, and met our Airbnb host – who was so gracious to stay up to meet us at almost 1 am.  It felt so great to be back in UB!