This was the Mongolia I had dreamed about: rough, remote, and absolutely wild, a place of wide plains, timeless mountains, and vistas so stunning that they kicked you in the gut. We pulled out of Terkhiin Tsagaan Lake knowing that the day’s drive would be one for ages, and it didn’t disappoint.
After all, how could it? We were heading north, cutting across the jagged back of a mountain range on our way to Lake Khovsgol—Mongolia’s biggest body of water—on a gnarly dirt track. This was hard, untamed country, the kind of terrain that could chew up a four-wheel drive piloted by an experienced driver, but here we were, rumbling over the rutted, pot-hole strewn dirt road in a second-rate Korean minivan.
We’d swapped out drivers back in White Lake: Munkhbat had other obligations, so a guy named Hishgay took over. Hishgay was older—nearing sixty—and drove with a caution that Munkhbat lacked. He was laid-back—cucumber cool—and exuded a quiet competence that helped to put the rest of us at ease. Though he spoke almost no English (Google translate was to become our friend), he clearly knew his way around these forlorn backroads and—despite the fact that his van was a bit old and not really designed to tackle the kind of blown-out tracks that are just a fact of life in his country—he plowed forward anyway, driving with the gentlest of touches, which served us well.
It was a gorgeous day, with the sun pouring its gilded honey over the hills and ridges, interrupted here and there by a scudding cloud. A light breeze kicked up in the valley as we pressed along on the rocky road. Hishgay concentrated on the rather treacherous task at hand while haunting, operatic traditional Mongolian tunes poured forth from the stereo. This, plus the stark, raw beauty of the landscape, lulled us all into a hypnotic state.
We had been in the country for two weeks now and were currently as deep as we were going to get. The Mongolia of our inner thoughts had now manifested itself, and while it still took on aspects of familiar places—the American West, Canada—it also assumed its own noble character. This was perhaps a long time coming, but we had put in the hours and gone hard enough to where Mongolia was now just Mongolia: an epic place of impossible history punctuated by infinite plains, shapeshifting herds of animals, and crumbling, towering blasts of sheer stone.
Like most Mongolian roads, this one followed a river, and when it came time to eat we pulled off on a grassy spot near the bank for an improvised picnic. This was just one of our many “Russian lunches,” which turned out to be a beloved part of our daily routine.
While Mongolia is positively meat-tastic, its local shops almost always have a nice selection of canned fish, much of which comes from Russia. This was acceptable fare for the one pescatarian member of The Fellowship of the Ger—David Scraggs—so fish quickly became a protein staple during our midday meal. We’d also bust out loaves of bread, jars of pickles and carrot/onion relish, as well as cured meats and sausages.
These lunches were washed down with swigs of water, beer, and vodka—followed by strong instant coffee (Hishgay, a teetotaler, mainlined the stuff). This style of eating also showed this British/Canadian/American axis that the Russians just might be onto something, at least cuisine wise.
Whatever the case, there’s something about busting out a load of food in the sun-soaked glory of the great outdoors that heightens the senses, especially taste. Despite the wind and the flies, these outdoor feeds were perhaps the best of the trip, and also helped to foster a sense of camaraderie, as perhaps nothing enriches human connections more than sitting in a circle and sharing a meal. Years in Korea had taught all four of us this, and having Hishgay join in was just an added bonus.
We pressed on, summiting one valley only to drop down into another and resume the climb. We had entered a mountain range composed of several seams of ridges, a disconcerting up-and-down yo-yo of climbs and descents that gained us altitude little by little. The vodka I’d knocked back at lunch helped to launch me into a soporific state, but the jostling of the van over the raggedy, uneven ground prevented sleep from taking hold.
At one point I popped in my earphones and played the album “Eternamente” by Los Hermanos Gutierrez, whose dreamy, Mexican desert-inspired guitar instrumentals seemed to perfectly match the equally psychedelic landscape we were passing through. Aside from the rumble of tires over a very rough road, the van was silent, as each of us had retreated into a place of splendid introspection. I think we all realized that this day was in some ways the peak, perhaps as sweet as this journey was going to get. As a result, we were trying to savor it all as long as possible, with the quiet sadness that comes from realizing such moments are both fleeting and ineffable.
Late in the afternoon we finally crested the pass, the great divide separating northern Mongolia from the rest of the country. We got out of the van and stretched our legs, marveling at the view, which just featured more mountains and valleys in a 360 degree panorama of untainted nature. This was it. This was as remote as we would be—smack dab in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere, Mongolia—with the wind blowing and flies swarming as they always seem to do in places of high altitude during the summer.
It was sublime to realize that—after a day of grinding up and down rawbone mountain tracks— that we were finally at the acme. Multi-colored prayer flags fluttered from the ovoo marking the summit, and the knowledge that we walked on one of Mongolia’s highest points surely filled us with both pride and pure mental drug buzz. This was soon driven home when three young teenage boys rode by horses. They paused to say hello and even pose for a photo or two, before trotting off to who-knows-where. Their arrival was almost perfectly timed, as if the omniscient Mongolian tourism gods had cued these kids to gallop through just as soon as we arrived, reminding us just how endlessly rich and photogenic this country was.
We descended the pass, rolling into a wide plain where we came across one of the few towns of this day’s long, bone-rattling journey. The settlement was called Erdenet—not to be confused with the much larger Erdenet in Mongolia that’s also home to a mammoth strip mine. This Erdenet had much more in common with a slapped together town in the Wild West, complete with dusty streets, sleeping dogs, and shuttered business.
It truly felt like the settlement on the edge of a great frontier, and the shop I entered just drove this home. The place saw such little business that the owners could not justify even turning on the lights. Customers were instead forced to browse the contents in the dark; the woebegone shop was lit up with dusty slats of sunlight that managed to make their way through the store’s one window. Still, they amazingly had a cooler full of cold beer and the owner was exceedingly polite, so it was easy to forgive her for saving on the electricity bill.
Eventually we trundled off the main gravel road onto a dirt road that led us to Shine-Ider ger camp. Situated on an idyllic slope overlooking Zurkh Lake—a saline body of water that lacked fish but attracted birds—including a stunning pair of bar-headed geese we spotted on our way out. At first it looked like we had the place to ourselves, until three Russian vans rolled up, depositing a good twenty Euros on a big group tour into the camp.
They were Spanish, immediately recognizable from the declarative form of their language punctuated by the “Castilian lisp.” Still, they were friendly enough, and happily engaged me when, after sipping vodka all day, I sloppily attempted to use my Spanish on them. The problem is, most Spaniards who travel also happen to be fluent in English, so they’ll often only humor me for so long before switching to the least effortless language.
Shine-Ider felt like the end of the world, a deep, meditative place where I wanted to stay longer. That night, after passing out in a boozy coma, I came to and then joined Will outside, where he’d set up his camera to get shots of the stars. It was the first real moonless night, and the heavens stretched out and shimmered like a million diamonds, awash in the cosmic dust of the Milky Way.
Will and I stared up at the sky while our compatriots snored away in their adjacent ger. A few of the Spanish were still awake and celebrating, but their machine-gun laughs, along with the lonely barks of the camp’s sad, chained-up dog, were quickly swallowed by a sky much too big to be concerned with such nonsense.
Sounds like a great trip. The closest I've got is bouncing around Kazbeghi in a Lada Riva. I would love to visit Mongolia. Maybe someday.
Mongolia was the place I wished to see the most as a little child. Your story made me feel a little bit like I was already there :)
During the last months, I have been listening to more instrumentals, and "Enternamente" is a perfect addition to my playlist. Thank you!