Two travel bees
and our travel diary
Across the Mongolian steppe
A few days after our arrival in Ulaanbaatar, we headed together with a few volunteer workers on a tour into the Mongolian wilderness consisting of endless dry grasslands and a wide and open landscape making the blue sky seem eternal. The Mongolian steppe is vast emptiness and immense nothingness, only interrupted by scattered Mongolian ger camps.
People on the steppe live as nomads in Mongolian gers (white round tents) spread across great distances and move to new camp sites at least three times a year: to the mountains in the winter, on the open steppe during summer. The nomads live off the grasslands where they herd cattle, sheep, goats and camels. For two nights we stayed with a local nomadic family in their ger camp where we got the chance to try Mongolian horse riding, camel riding, a few homemade dishes, in addition to the Mongolian milk tea.
The host's son as our riding guide
Our ger camp where we staid for 2 nights
Getting ready for a horse ride
Our host herding a few of the local camels
Our hostess preparing Mongolian milk tea
Two happy camels
Camel riding in the late afternoon
A typical Mongolian highway and local motorcyclist
After a night in a ger on the open steppe we continued to one of the earliest surviving buddhist monasteries in Mongolia, Erdene Zuu. The monastery is still active today and is built with the remains of the old Mongol capital Karakorum established by Genghis Khan. The Mongols have been living in gers (round white tents) for centuries, many monasteries were oblidirated during wars and in a Communist purge of 1939. As a consequence few ancient monuments remain in Mongolia.
The city wall of Erdene Zuu
One of the few remaining stones of the former capital Karakorum dating back to Genghis Khan
The Erdene Zuu Monastery, still active
From the few remains of the great Mongolian empire, we continued towards a 80km sand dune (little Gobi) located in the steppe terrain Uvurkhangai and the nearby Khögno Khan mountain range, where we climbed up to watch the sun set over the vast steppe. The nightsky at the steppe is crystal clear where we could see the Milky way from our gers. In our gers, we definitely felt close to nature and at night wolves visitied our camp and killed a lamb.
"Little Gobi" , an 80km sand dune around 250km from Ulaanbaatar
View of the steppe
5 hours on bumpy roads
Cinereous vultures which grow to 3m across the wings
Lunch stop on our way to our ger camp
The Mongolian horses with brush-like manes are descendants of the last true wild horses and run freely on the steppe
Sunset overlooking our ger camp and the "Little Gobi" sand dune
Thanks for tuning in!
​
- the bees