Tim and Gem's Honeymoon Adventure: Mongolian Lamb – An Australian Hoax?

No matter where we looked we couldn’t find Mongolian Lamb anywhere.. perhaps it’s the Butter Chicken of Mongolian cuisine? Albeit it’s absence, we were very impressed with the other dishes on offer.

Mongolia was a place where neither of us had much expectation, we knew the countryside would be stunning, but had no idea what Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia would be like. Gemma thought it might be a small shanty-town with dirt roads and wooden buildings. I thought it could be a mini Bangkok with a Russian influence. We were both wrong. The town had paved roads and big developed CBD district, but it felt neither Chinese or Russian (except the Cyrillic lettering everywhere), it felt like no other city we had ever visited.

We arrived safe and sound after the train ride, and were greeted by sunny blue skies a mild temperature, which came as a relief, as we had expected it to be in the single digits. We couldn’t see our transfer car so we hailed a taxi. In Mongolia everyone is technically a taxi., so everyday people stop to pick up anyone who is in need. We found ourselves in the back seat of a random car with a couple who didn’t speak a word of English, and we were led on a wild goose chase through the city in search of our hostel. After an hour and a half (and a mild panic attack from Gem), we finally stumbled across our hostel. The map I had printed from the internet was wrong (and in English) which was of no use to our Mongolian friends. We checked ourselves in and met some nice people who were also staying at the Golden Gobi. We decided to explore the area, and then have a few beers overlooking one of Ulaanbaatar’s main streets with our new friends. The sun went down and Alan (one of the guys we met), took us to a traditional Mongolian fast food eatery just around the corner from our hostel. It was our first taste of Mongolian cuisine, and we liked.

We had a plate packed with meat, mash potato, rice, two salads and some Khuushuur (fried mince dumpling). It was fast, delicious, filling and in a great traditional Mongolian setting. The whole meal was less than $10 for both of us!

That night we bought some beers back to the hostel, and got talking with a few of the other people staying with us, we shared some stories, had a few laughs and it was a really fun, relaxed night!

We decided to explore the town a little more the following day and, and booked a tour that would take us to a two-night National Park adventure the next day.

Ulaanbaatar is a strange city (I don’t mean this in a bad way), there is just nothing to compare it to. The buildings look run-down and disheveled, but it is such an interesting place. In stark contrast to the look of the buildings, the Mongolian people are dressed very well, perfectly manicured, and the roads are filled with Porsches, 4wds and Cadillac Escalades. One bonus for a traveller is that it is amazingly cheap! We found that crossing the road or getting in a car is more hazardous then in Beijing, which we didn’t think was possible!

Early the next day we left our hostel and were on our way to the Terelj National Park. After a very bumpy two-hour drive we saw nothing but desolate rolling hills and dirt roads. We soon entered the National Park and it was like an oasis for the eyes, we were greeted with rocky cliffs and golden yellow trees, and not to mention a few very cute, hairy yaks.

After getting settled in our Ger (traditional Mongolian hut with canvas coverings) we went to visit one of the neighboring Gers where we saw a family chopping wood. We brought some little Koala’s with us so that we could give them to the kids as we travelled. And we met a very grubby, but cute little Mongolian girl and hung around, she seemed very interested in her new toy, so we stayed and laughed with her mum and just enjoyed the company of complete strangers. Although they didn’t speak a word of English we got by with a lot of hand gestures, nodding and smiling.

The afternoon entailed a small hike to a temple (Arryabal Meditation Temple) set up in the side of one of the mountains, which had a great view down the valley. The inside of the temple was colourful and beautifully decotrated with art and interesting Buddhist stories. The external wall of the temple was much the same, with hand-crafted prayer wheels and some very confronting hand-paintings, which trimmed the roof of the building.

We were invited to one of the family’s Gers for dinner where they prepared a delicious traditional meal for us. It was a very hearty soup and some home-made bread. They also prepared some Milk Tea, which is a blend of cow, goat and yaks milk that is heated over the fire. It was very soothing and warmed you from the inside. After a long day of driving and hiking we retired to bed with full stomachs and warm from the fire stove crackling in the center of our Ger.

At 3am, the fire was out and I woke up and was the coldest I had ever been in my entire life!! It would have been at least 0 degrees..

We survived the night (only just!) and after breakfast decided to hike to one of the mountains nearby. We had the whole morning to do as we pleased, so we chose to climb up to an impressive looking boulder that appeared to be defying nature balancing on a cliff edge. It was the perfect morning for it, blue-bird-sky and crisp clean air. It is on mornings like these you stop and fully appreciate where you are. There was nothing but mountains and trees as far as we could see, so we sat quietly in awe and enjoyed the view.

On our return to camp, we were treated to a lunch that will be hard to beat. Our Mongolian family had prepared endless amounts of milk tea, a beef and vegetable style soup and the most divine Khuushuurs we had in our whole time in Mongolia.

After lunch we set out to go to our next family, a Kazak Nomadic family, which was only an hour or so south-east. On our way we stopped at the Ghnagis Khan monument, which was roughly ten stories high. It looked impressive against it’s bare and empty backdrop. We climbed to the top of the monument and took in the view of rolling hills as far as we could see.

Nomadic families normally have a summer spot and a winter spot for their families Gers and livestock. The summer spots are often more open, while the winter spots are generally more protected by hills and have some shelter for their animals.

The family we were staying with were moving that very day, so we got to watch them build their Ger’s from the ground up. We offered to help but I think we would have just got in the way - it was an impressive jigsaw. We watched them erect a two room Ger from a pile of fabric and wood, and we entertained the children (it was the least we could do).

In no time at all, their Ger’s were built and we were treated to another tasty dinner with soup, breads (and more milk tea of course). As a tradition the family celebrate on ‘moving day’ with a bottle of vodka that they were very happy to share with us. This was very good vodka which was easy to swig and like a fire burning in our chests!

There is something about the combination of a warm crackling fire, full stomachs and vodka that made us very tired.. so it wasn’t long until we were fast asleep!

On our final day of our rural adventure, we said goodbye to our Kazak family and made our way to our next destination. Today we were going to ride by horseback to a monastery in the mountains. Sounds lovely – but we weren’t prepared for the freezing temperatures and flakes of snow falling as we started the ride. Our hands quickly lost all feeling, and our teeth were chattering to the point of smashing. Luckily Gem came up with the ingenious idea to sit on one hand to get the feeling back in it, and then continually swap hands the whole ride. Without this hand warming method, I think things could have ended badly! We finally made it and were rewarded with a fire in a cabin, we were served a hearty soup and were grateful for the chance to defrost before exploring the monastery.

The particular site that we visited was ravished by war, and what used to be a little city filled with a maze of buildings was now a desolate site of ruins. In the mid 80’s they decided to rebuild one of the monasteries using the old methods that gave us an idea of what it used to look like. There are still the remains of some paintings on the rocks from over 300 years ago. Still to this day scientists do not know what ingredients were used to make this paint, as it’s still brilliantly coloured and can withstand the harsh seasonal changes. On our way back to our car our driver had arranged for us to try some of Mongolia’s famous fomented horse milk, which is an alcoholic milk made by the locals. If you think this sounds horrid – you should taste it! It was like drinking curdled yoghurt mixed with goon. We had heard a lot about it so were grateful for the opportunity to taste it, but won’t be trying it again in a hurry.

We soon arrived back in Ulaanbaatar and enjoyed our first shower in 72 hours, ate another amazing traditional Mongolian meal (including horse which was delightful) and crawled in to bed together for the first time in what felt like weeks! The next evening, we would be boarding the train from Mongolia to Russia. So we were looking forward to some more ‘forced’ relaxation time!

One of the tasty home cooked meals

Terelj National Park

Sükhbaatar Square Ulaanbaatar

Mongolain street art at its finiest

Our block

Life in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Possible the worlds most dangerous job, traffic controlling in Ulaanbaatar

Life in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Our block

Door on the left, delicious food, door on the right, not sure but the amount of people coming and going late at night made me think something sus was going on in there