My flight back to Ulaanbaatar from Ulgii was, thankfully, uneventful. I spent one day getting myself in order, getting my trusty LandCruiser back (they gave me the same car again, but a different tent), getting supplies at the State Dept Store, and I was off again. This time I’m headed south to the Gobi Desert. I planned this for last thinking the weather would be warmer while the rest of Mongolia started to freeze. My first stop isn’t really that…
I made it out of Murun and all the way to Erdenet in one day. Luckily the road was paved and relatively smooth the whole way. The hotel I checked into was definitely better than freezing to death in the guesthouse in Murun, but my dreams of hot water would unfortunately have to wait. So I settled for being happy with the warm room and cable tv for a few days. I ventured out one day to explore the city…
From Orkhon Valley I backtracked up to Kharkhorin for some gas, then drove northwest until I reached Tsetserleg. Tsetserleg is a logical stopping point on my way further west, but it’s also known for the beautiful mountains bordering the north end of town. So I thought it was worth a day to get some more hiking in. I checked into Fairfield Guesthouse, run by a really nice Aussie dude named Murray, and took a much needed shower and did some…
After finishing up in the Khogno Khan Uul area, I continued on to Kharkhorin. I made a quick detour to visit the Shankh Monastery, first, though. This is one of two monasteries in this area that were spared the Stalinist purges. It was founded by Mongolias first Buddhist leader, Zanabazar in 1648. There’s really not much going on inside the temples. They appear to be decorating or redecorating, but it was nice to walk into a dusty old wooden monastery…
From Ikh Gazriin Chuluu I drove north back to Ulaanbaatar for one night. I’ve officially ended my loop of eastern Mongolia and now it’s time to start my loop of the north central region of Mongolia. I left Ulaanbaatar headed for the Khögnö Khan Uul Nature Reserve. On the way and due west about 130ish miles from Ulaanbaatar, I stopped at the ruins of Tsogt Taijiin Tsagaan Balgas (N 48.023346, E 104.351773). This was the home of the mother of…
The drive from Chinggis southwest to Sainshand was surprisingly easy. I had the wide open steppe with the usual animal herds in the first half. The second half of the trip was paved all the way. I did hit a pretty nasty thunder storm on the way, but I was happy about it since it cleaned a lot of the dust off the LandCruiser. I can actually see out the front window again, still not the back window, however. I…
I left Dariganga in the afternoon to try and get a head start on my drive to Chinggis rather than try to do it all the next day. I made it just past Baruun-urt and then took a random dirt road a couple of miles away from everything and set up camp 6 (N 46.7224413, E 112.7214961). I know all these camp pics look sort of the same, but I promise they’re not. After passing through Baruun-urt and before camp,…
The drive from Dadal to Choibalsan was a very long slog. The muddy conditions didn’t last too long thankfully. As I got further south the ground got a little drier and the roads got a little smoother, relatively speaking anyway. At the risk of boring you with endless road pics, that really is what half or more of this trip is about. Seeing and experiencing the infinite expanse of grasslands that is Mongolia. I’ve been to some pretty remote out…
It’s time to start exploring the rest of Mongolia. I decided to start by heading east into Khentii province. But first just a bit outside of Ulaanbaatar is Mongolias easiest national park to access, Gorkhi Terelj. The main draw here it seems is to stay in a resort type camp and go on extended horse back riding trips. Which would probably be amazing, but it also seemed like a bit of a tourist trap to me. There were a couple…
I’m at it again! Greetings and salutations from Mongolia in the central Asian steppe! After roughly 38 hours of flights and layovers I finally arrived in Ulaanbaatar, the capitol of Mongolia, extremely tired. The ride from the airport took a little over an hour in Ulaanbaatars notorious traffic, but I made it to my hostel, checked in and headed to the main square, Sükhbaatar Sq, just a couple of blocks away to wander around with what was left of the…