Day 9 Mongolia
It's hard to believe it's day 8 of the tour already. Time is flying.
Had a nice sleep-in today given the late one last night. Just made the tail end of breakfast. I elected to miss the optional yak-milking activity at 7am. Apparently they weren't allowed to milk the yaks themselves because perfumes and deodorants put them off. Getting up early to watch someone tug on a yak's teats? I don't think so. I do not regret my decision.
Breakfast was muesli, a fried egg and something that I'm thinking of as Mongolian churros. Basically a long, thin, deep-fried pastry. Tasty enough but like all the Mongolian food I've eaten so far it's not amazing.
I can't really say I've had anything that's really excellent yet. There is nothing that has made me go "Wow! That was great!" and want go back for more. The fermented horse milk is probably my favourite thing so far with perhaps the deep fried dumplings next.
However! We saw this thing they do with a whole sheep on a tv screen in UB. They basically take the sheep, pull out all the innards, sew it up then put the innards back in and stew them inside the sheep. You then pretty well eat the whole thing.
One of the guys has been asking about it and our local guide said it should be possible to organise. Looking forward to that!
Went for a walk to check out the source of the hot springs this morning. It wasn't far at all but I was feeling lazy. Certainly not an attractive area. Smells slightly of sulphur but it's not overwhelming. It is hot but not boiling. Can hold your hand in there for a few seconds but you definitely wouldn't want to jump in. You'd cook pretty quickly.
Afterwards I continued for a bit of a wander around the other ger camps. Started down a forest path that eventually linked up with the original camp built here by the Japanese. There's a statue of the founder in the backyard of this camp. He's sitting there surveying his good works and looking pensively into the future is my interpretation.
Was fun getting back. I took a little shortcut that saw me jumping a river, wading through muddy fields and getting chased by a local guard dog. They've got some greenhouses here which is good to see. This area would do well with greenhouses using the heat of the hot springs. They might even survive the winter. Vegetable patches are something I haven't seen a lot of since arriving in Mongolia. The main staples seem to be cucumber, potato, tomato and cabbage but I suspect most of it is imported from China.
4 of us signed up for a set lunch today at the restaurant. I was hoping it would be more traditional Mongolian fare. We ended up with what appears to be a potato, carrot and leek soup for entree. A yak meat patty stuffed with local cheese, pickled cucumber, fresh cucumber and mashed potato for main. And the traditional candy-bar on a plate for dessert.
They do not seem to do dessert here. It is always some variation of a chocolate bar. Maybe it has wafers, or nuts, or caramel / nougat. But I don't remember seeing a scoop of ice cream, a fruit plate or a piece of pie.
It was a good meal regardless.
Ger crawl! I decided I wanted to do a pub crawl of the other resorts. Have a beer at each one and a look around to see how our resort compares. There were 3 other resorts we drank at ... we ran out of time for the last one but we did walk past it.
On the whole we decided that we were in the best resort. It was the most modest but it seemed the most appealing. The hot spring pools were the nicest as well ... most rustic. The other places mostly went for traditional swimming pool style hot springs and it just wasn't as nice. Probably the next nicest was the original resort built by the Japanese. It was all done with big logs and it looked how I imagine a Swiss lodge or chalet looks. The others were just concrete or rendered monstrosities that didn't appeal at all.
Dinner was fine. Nothing worth mentioning. Another soak in the hot springs afterwards then packing before we leave the following morning.
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