The camp was also situated with communal toilets and hot showers and they ran a generator at night to provide minimal electricity. There were also several activities that were available to entertain us: horse-back riding, kayaking, motor boat tours of the lake, and nightly concerts featuring traditional Mongolian music. It seemed that the keyword of the week, for us and for our fellow tourists, was “traditional.” No one wanted to do anything that wasn’t “traditional” and anything that was “traditional” was a sure seller. The camp probably could have put out rancid milk in the morning, called it traditional, and visitors would have happily drunk it.
Scott stayed true to form and was up and out of bed by 5am every morning. He’d go for long walks before returning around 6:30am to make us a fire – at which point I’d wake up and hear him say, “You missed another beautiful sunrise.” The running joke of the week was that I’d eventually join him for a sunrise one of the mornings. I almost did so on our last day at the camp, but unfortunately no one told the weather because when I got out of bed we were completely socked in by a thick fog and the sun was nowhere to be seen.
The food the camp served was pretty nice as well. We took our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners at 7am, 1pm, and 7pm and we had tea and cookies whenever we wanted. The highlight of the dining experience for me by far was their home-made jam. It was some sort of local berry and it was nice and tart – almost like cranberry sauce. I certainly ate my fair share of the stuff, probably a few people’s fair shares, in fact. Breakfasts featured eggs and some sort of carb – bread, pancake, or, a couple of times, delicious fresh borzag, which is pretty much a Mongolian version of an unsweetened donut. Lunches and dinners always started with a salad (pasta, vegetable, or potato) and ended with a meat dish. Dinners also included bite-sized mini desserts. Ashlee liked that all the cutlery and dishes in the dining hall were from Ikea.
One of the best parts of our stay at Toilogt was meeting some really great people with very interesting stories and backgrounds. We made fast friends with a young Canadian couple who were spending their summer at the camp working in exchange for room and board. They were dedicated travelers who have spent extended periods of time in Taiwan, Thailand, and Botswana. The woman, Kindra, was extremely pleasant and, as a result, she got to tag along with many of the activities various tour groups paid for, including a visit to a local shaman and, when we left, a two-day horse trek around the lake.
Most visitors to the camp seemed to stay for about 2 days. Since we stayed for 4 days, we saw multiple groups of various nationalities (American, Korean, Turkish, and British) come and go. One group of American seniors came for just one night as part of a whirlwind tour through central Mongolia – it confirmed for us that we are not guided tour people. My favorite group of tourists, however, was a group of 3 Korean couples and their tour guide. You could just tell that they were a group of close friends who just came to cut loose and have a good time. They were always laughing and giggling – it probably helped that they always seemed to be clutching bottles of rice wine. They left a couple of days before us, but I don’t think that Ashlee was sad to see them go because they liked to supplement all of their meals with some rather pungent kimchi.
One of the activities we attempted during our stay was horse-back riding – it didn’t go so well. It was just the three of us and a Mongolian guide who spoke zero English. Before we got started, the guide asked us several questions in Mongolian. Without a translator we were left with our own feeble Mongolian language skills and I guess we were absent the day our training class covered equestrian vocabulary. As best we could tell the guide was inquiring how much riding experience the three of us had – I had zero, Ashlee had a little, and Scott a little more. Soon we were off and going. My horse was a bit of a nag and he constantly wanted to stop and chow on grass so it was a battle to keep him going. Ashlee’s horse, on the other hand, was being firmly lead by our Mongolian guide. Battling with my horse, I was a little jealous of Ashlee’s situation. It turned out though that she didn’t have it too great. Because of the way her horse was being led, he was pretty much walking sideways into the guide’s horse and Ashlee’s leg was being rubbed raw between the horses in the process. A few times she asked the guide in Mongolian if she could take the reins on her own, but he just shook his head and laughed at her. A bit fed up, Ashlee brought our small caravan to a halt, dismounted, and decided to walk back to the camp. Realizing that horse-back riding is not really my cup of tea, I was happy to join her. Even though I was only on the horse for about 30 minutes, my butt was sore for 2 days.
Another activity that we sort of fell into was a motor boat tour of the lake. The group of American seniors that I mentioned earlier had paid to rent the boat and we just got lumped into their party. The boat we rode on was an ancient rustbucket of a vessel, but apparently it was the second biggest boat in Mongolia – like most things we are told in Mongolia, though, there was no real way to independently verify this. We were out on the water for about an hour. We didn’t really have a destination so we just puttered along the coast for 30 minutes and then we turned around and headed back. The lake was like glass and the weather was perfect. It was a great way to see the landscape and it was impossible to take a bad picture.
Overall, I think that we really lucked out with the weather. It had been uncomfortably hot in UB so we were glad to find much cooler weather at the lake. There was lots of sunshine and nice cool breezes right off the water. We did have a couple days of rain, but that just gave us an excuse to be lazy and it also just made things look all the more fresher after the storms passed. It would get a little chilly at night but our beds were warm and we had plenty of wood to make fires.
Our second day at the camp we got suckered into attending the area’s annual “Reindeer Festival.” Northern Hovsgol is home to the Tsaatan, or Reindeer People. They are a small nomadic Tuvan ethnic group whose entire existence is based around their herds of reindeer, which provide milk, skins for clothes, antlers for carving, medicine, transport, and even meat. Only about 300 in number, they are a truly nomadic people as they are constantly in search of a special type of lichen that their reindeer feast on. Instead of gers, they live in dwellings very similar to Native American teepees. Visiting the Tsaatan in their communities can be very difficult and exhausting – you have to be pretty hardy and up for an adventure if you want to do so. Therefore we thought ourselves fortunate when we heard that a neighboring ger camp was hosting its annual reindeer festival – we should have consulted our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook, however, because we could have avoided a major tourist trap. Actually I guess it wasn’t so bad. While it was a bit overpriced, there were reindeer and Scott did get to see a lot of the Mongolian pageantry that we have become used to. There were a few teepees, several not-quite-healthy-looking reindeer, and loads of western tourists. Oh well, it gave us something to do. I guess we’ll know better next time we are in Hovsgol.
One of our last days at the camp fell on July 4th. Now last year Ashlee and I discovered that we hate celebrating holidays in Mongolia. They just really depress us as we can’t help but think how we would celebrate if we were back home and all the other things that we are missing out on. Things were particularly rough last year because we knew that every holiday that came and went would just come again this year. Coming back to Mongolia, though, I decided that this year would be different. Instead of getting depressed about spending another holiday season in this country, I will happy that this will be the last holiday season we will spend Mongolia. In Hovsgol, I realized that the Fourth of July would give me my first chance to try out this new philosophy. I spent most of the day staying positive. Afterall, we were in a beautiful spot, we were surrounded by westerners, the weather was gorgeous, we were on vacation, and we had Scott with us. This positive attitude continued all the way until dinner time when we decided to honor the holiday with a small toast. As we clinked our glasses I said, “To the last Fourth of July we will spend in Mongolia!” This made Ashlee look at me and say, “Um, no it’s not. We’re not going home until the middle of July 2011 which means we’ll still be in Mongolia on the next Fourth of July.” Dangit.
So yeah, overall we had an extremely pleasant stay at Toilogt Camp. The scenery was incredibly idyllic and the camp itself was nice and well-run. In addition to lots of relaxing, our horse-riding experience, and our trip in the motor boat, we also went for a few hikes and we even took the kayaks out for a bit. You could tell that the management of the camp really did their homework on what international tourists like – one night we were served spaghetti and twice for breakfast we had pancakes. There was also a large table full of condiments (Heinz ketchup, teriyaki sauce, tobasco, and Thai chili garlic sauce) so I was in heaven.
Our last day, the only day I got up to watch the sunrise, a thick fog rolled in. I did manage to get a few good pictures of a wandering herd of yaks. We ate an early lunch, I said a tearful goodbye to the jelly, and we hit the road a little after noon. The trip back to Moron took less than 3 hours. Along the way we passed a few completely bedraggled groups of tourists who looked like they were just finishing week-long horse treks. Yep, as we were passing them in our private Land Cruiser I felt satisfied that we chose the right vacation for ourselves. We did make a brief stop at a small village on the southern tip of the lake. We had to deliver a message to a friend of a Mongolian guest at the camp. I felt like the Pony Express. Delivering written messages (actually the guy just wanted to give me an oral message) is just how Mongolia works.
I dozed in and out the rest of our trip to Moron, which gave me a bit of whiplash on the bumpy road. We made it into town by 3:30pm. Since we didn’t need to be at the airport until 7pm, we had some time to kill. There are actually a few PCVs in Moron and one of them, our friend Christina, was free to show us around the city. Since Moron is much more like Olgii than UB is, we were happy that Scott got a chance to look around and get a feel for a Mongolian small town. Christina was a gracious host and she took us back to her hashaa and showed us her ger. What can I say, ger-dwelling PCVs, not to mention Mongolians, definitely deserve lots of respect. We grabbed dinner (vegetarian huushuur and cinnamon rolls!) at a local restaurant and then we set out for the airport.
Our flight back to UB was a bit of an adventure and I’m afraid that it was entirely my fault. After we checked in at the airport, went through security, and were sitting in the small lounge waiting to board the plane I couldn’t help but think to myself how smoothly everything on this trip had gone – something that is unusual in Mongolia. Stupid me, I forgot to knock on wood. The flight to UB was only a little over an hour and we were due to land at about 9:45pm. The flight was smooth-sailing until about 9:40pm when an announcement was made in Mongolian that seemed to upset the Mongolian passengers. The message was then translated into broken English – “Bad weather. We will land at Moron airport at 10:50pm.” What?!? Apparently we flew all the way to UB to find out that high winds were going to prevent us from landing and that we had to fly all the way back to Moron. I broke the news to both Scott and Ashlee, who were taking the time to doze. Just great, we all thought. Where would we stay? When would we finally get back to UB? Would we make it in time for Scott’s flight back to America?
The plane landed back in Moron on time. I quickly got on the phone, letting our hotel in UB know we wouldn’t be making it and contacting Christina to see if she could help find us a place to stay for the night in Moron. Once these arrangements were made, I noticed that even though the plane was parked the flight attendant wasn’t letting us disembark. I found it funny that none of the Mongolian passengers seemed to be making a fuss. They all just totally accepted the situation. I thought that if this were to happen in America, many of the passengers would be throwing hissy fits about their disrupted travel plans. We sat on the runway for 15 minutes or so before I finally asked what was up. The attendant just told me to sit down. Finally an announcement was made that made the Mongolians on board cheer. Once translated into English, we discovered that the weather conditions in UB had improved and that we’d be flying back shortly. Friggen’ Mongolia.
In the end, we made it back to UB a little after midnight and we got to our hotel shortly before 1am. We made it.
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