Day 10 Mongolia - en route to a volcano

05 August
Day 10 Mongolia

Left this morning heading off towards a volcano for tomorrow.

Stopped in a town called Tsetserleg for food shopping and lunch.  We're doing all 3 meals tomorrow.  My suggestion was a vodka watermelon for dessert.  I've never done this before so we'll see how it turns out.

There's a small Buddhist monastery in town that I checked out before lunch.  It was nice but tiny compared to some of the others I've seen this trip.  There was a nice Buddha statue on the stairs out the front looking out over the town and some artwork on the cliffs behind the monastery.

And believe it or not there's a cafe/bakery that's run by Australians in this town.  The group was very keen to stop here because they have actual espresso coffee.  The Aussies weren't there when we went but most of the group ate there (I had a burger with chips ... OK for kitchen staff who don't really understand the food), drank coffee and leeched their wifi.

After lunch we went and checked out a big rock.  There's a local legend that a giant snake was harassing the local villagers.  A really big dude came along, picked up this giant rock and smashed it on the snake's head thus saving the villagers and being awesome.  The rock was pretty big but no snake skeleton.

Usual tourist stuff there.  Some yak riding, archery and local rubbish stores.  I was considering doing the yak riding before we arrived but it was just a turn around the rock. I'll ride a yak if it's an actual transportation method but that was just a tourist trap.

(This statue was actually in town but it illustrates the legend)

Stopped at a nice gorge for a quick photo stop after a couple of hours driving.  Saw a nice big storm rolling in over the horizon.

The ger camp we stopped at for the night was again nice.  There was a river nearby but it was only about 30cm deep.  Was quite amusing I'm told.  I lay down and my stomach was still sticking above the water.  I rolled around in there (think a crocodile death roll) but I think I ended up dirtier than when I got in.  Went for a shower afterwards.

We had a bit of a dance party in the restaurant after dinner.  Drove everyone else in the restaurant away (whoops) but it was fun.