Day 6 Mongolia
I did not sleep well in the tent. It looks like my dodgy sleeping mat has a leak or a puncture so it deflated overnight. I also do not find my sleeping bag to be comfortable. Give me a hotel!
Anyway the rest of the group did the breakfast thing but I'm still not feeling well so I didn't eat.
Packed up camp (tents go up and come down easily enough that even I can do it on my own) then headed down to Mongolia's largest waterfall at the bottom of the gorge we camped next to.
Nice climb down a rocky ledge then about a 10 minute walk through the gorge and we come to the waterfall. It's not a huge waterfall but it's beautiful. Surrounded by rock walls all around. A nice pool at the bottom which is great for swimming. It was early and the water was cold so I was a coward and didn't go in.
There were a couple of Mongolian shamanistic shrines nearby which were interesting. Mostly piles of rocks with material wound around them. There was a flock of small birds that kept flying in circles above the pool which I found quite mesmerising.
We had the pool to ourselves for a little while then a few Mongolian tourists came through and ruined the serenity.
Always funny at these places. Everyone wants their own individual photo op but people spend so long fucking about and getting in each other's way that eventually you run out of time and some people miss out.
Climbed back up the top via a different path, took a couple of group shots at the top and then took off for the day.
There was a friendly dog who was hanging around the camp the entire time we were there. Must have been starved for attention because he ran after the truck for as long as he could keep up when we left. That's a longer time than you might imagine given the quality of the roads in the area. It's sloooooow going at times.
Continuing through the valley we pass endless photo opportunities of spectacular scenery.
In the afternoon we end up at an old monastery that turned out to be not so old. The foundations were a couple of hundred years old but the monastery itself had been destroyed a while ago and was rebuilt in 1997.
The most interesting part of this was the 3km walk uphill to get to it. This reminded me of Great Wall day. It took me quite a while to get up there. I think I was last up the hill but I got there! If I'm trying to give myself an excuse I was still unwell. Stopped a few times to cough up a lung. But let's be honest ... I'm fat and very unfit!
There's a guy in the group who is bigger than me and I was impressed with how he managed to get up there. I started faster but the guy just stuck to his pace and kept walking. He beat me by ages! Goes to show ... mind over matter.
The view from the monastery was really nice but I didn't climb all over it after the big walk. I was stuffed and finding it hard to breathe. I'm glad I made the effort but I was kind of disappointed it was only 30 years old to be honest. I'm sure there are more interesting things we could have done with this day.
Took some people ages to get back down from the top and we ended up camping at the base of the mountain. I think I nearly passed out after putting up my tent so I ate some plain rice for dinner and crashed pretty early.
Surprisingly I slept reasonably well ... at least until my sleeping mat deflated completely. From then on I was just rolling around, disturbing everyone else with my coughing and just generally being uncomfortable.
Did I mention I don't like camping?
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