Reading Time: 7 minutes

With Sandy opting to stay in Ulgii for the next couple of nights, I was on my own along with my driver, Plan to head southwest into the Altai Tavan Bogd National Park.  I had two choices – either head toward the western point to see the highest mountain in Mongolia, which is at the point where the border of Mongolia meets Russia and China; or, head more southwest to see an eagle hunter and then go to the area where there are two large lakes among the high mountains of the Altai Range.  I was drawn to the eagle hunter, lakes, and the mountains of that area.

After breakfast at Traveler’s Guest House, Plan and I left on Thursday at 10am and filled up with gas before heading out of Ulgii. 90% of the drive is off-road.

We made a stop in the small village of Khushuut where Plan went into a café and had tsuivan.  I had picked up various snacks so I stayed out in the car and had some crackers, pickles, and pineapple. As the drive progressed, it reminded me a lot of the area around Bozeman – those kinds of mountains along with a beautiful river (in this case, the Khovd River) running near the road. But the size feels hugely expansive like Alaska.  Montana is big, but this felt even bigger. We stopped around 3:30 as we came over a rise to an ovoo (stone pile used for worshipping) and a beautiful view of a huge lake called Khurgan Lake. Plan pulled over and we sat outside on the ground taking in the view and sharing some bread and pickles I had brought.

Plan reminds me of my grandfather except he only speaks a few words of English. Which is a few more than I speak of Mongolian or Kazakh, which he speaks both. No problem – Google Translate makes it all manageable. Plan is Kazakh, which is the dominant ethnicity in this part of Mongolia. More than 90% of the people in this province (Bayan-Ulgii) are Kazakh. Our next stop was around 5pm. This was to see the eagle hunter.  This was a little disappointing because I was expecting an eagle hunting demonstration.  Instead, it was very much like the experience several weeks ago at the Chinggis Khan Statue Complex, where I held the eagle for a minute – although this time, I did get to don a Kazakh outfit. A traveling friend went on a different tour and his was more the demonstration of seeing the eagle being called from the mountain and the eagle returning to home base. This particular eagle hunter has had his eagle for three years and in spite of the movie, The Eagle Huntress, he is not a fan of females becoming eagle hunters.

A few minutes later we arrived at our family’s camp where we would stay tonight and tomorrow night. The woman brought us yak milk tea and yak butter with bread to snack on before tsuivan was brought over around 8pm.

It was a relaxing evening – reading, walking around a bit outdoors, and gathering wood to use to keep warm before bed. The ger was fairly large – that is the case for Kazakh gers compared to Mongolian gers – they are a little larger and more colorful on the inside. Ours had five beds and it was just Plan and I in ours as opposed to the whole family, which I thought might be the case.

I woke up a little before 8am on Friday and a man from the family came in and got a fire started for us. He also brought yak milk tea and yak butter with bread for breakfast. We left at 10am and Plan drove me around two miles to the point where I could hike the other two miles to today’s destination – the Baga Turgen Waterfall. For more than 25 years, I have said that the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland is probably my favorite place I have ever been. It’s quite possible that today’s spot is right up there to compete with the Cliffs of Moher. Maybe for sentimental reasons, the Cliffs has to stay at the top spot, but this place was phenomenal. I think a big part of it is the fact that it was just me. Nobody else. The walk took about 45 minutes and then I spent about 30 minutes sitting there taking it all in. I felt like I was in a Bob Ross painting (I’m a Bob Ross fan) that nature found a way to perfect. The reds and greens of the mountain sides, the blue sky, the white of the snow and the clouds, the sound of the wind and the water, the solitude – pretty perfect. I wish Sandy had come to experience this even though she would not have enjoyed the sleeping and bathroom (or lack thereof) situation. I have to believe it would have been worth it, though. Maybe another component is that you really have to work to get here.  You have to work just to get to Mongolia, then you have to work to find your way to Ulgii, and then of the roughly five and a half hours of driving time from Ulgii, five of those hours are off-road and that is always a big effort. Just pass the waterfall, maybe another four miles you’d come to the Chinese border. You are really remote in this place.

I was back to the car around 12:30pm and Plan and I stopped at a family’s camp site along the river to have tsuivan. I had just been handed a bowl so I put my tsuivan in that bowl and then I watched everybody else eat off of the main plate in the center of the table.  I was supposed to use the bowl for my milk tea. Oh well, no problem – finished up my tsuivan and then filled my bowl up with tea. The grandchild was super cute keeping an eye on me. At one point, he took out the blood pressure testing machine and then promptly fell asleep on the floor. I decided he must have tested his blood pressure and thought it was too high, so he took a nap to help it drop.

Back at our camp, we gathered some wood from the forest that Plan loaded up in his Toyota Land Cruiser to take back to Ulgii for his use in his ger. We got our fire going around 7pm and dinner arrived around the same time. Tonight it was either mutton or beef (tasted more like beef) along with boiled carrots and potatoes and rice. Very good.

We kept the ger light on for a little while – I found it interesting how it was powered.  The bulb hangs from the ceiling of course and has two connecting wires that work their way down to a car battery. To turn the light on, you connect the two wires to the terminals and to turn it off, just disconnect them. Simple enough, just not that common for me. Lights were out at 9pm, I read until around 10:30pm, and then snuggled into my sleeping bag and under my blanket as the temperature tonight was headed down to 27.

I was up around 7am on Saturday and worked to get the fire going. I ended up needing some assistance from Plan. We packed up, had some milk tea and bread with butter, and I had brought some gifts that Chris (a friend we met in Ulgii) offered to me to give to the host family. Some candy and some household items. The family was very appreciative and then Plan and I got on the road at 8:30am. We had two toilet stops – just out in the open, no official toilets – and some snacks at one of the spots, which put us back in Ulgii a little after 2pm.

It was nice to be back earlier than I originally thought and it was great to see Sandy even though it had only been a couple of days. It’s been a long time since we weren’t with each other. We wanted pizza for dinner, but Big Pizza and Burger was resting today so it was over to Pamukkale Restaurant, which Lonely Planet says is the best restaurant in Ulgii. I’m not surprised.  The menu was diverse and Sandy liked her mushroom pasta and I really enjoyed my chicken fajita dish.