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Khatgal, Mongolia
50° 27' N 100° 10' E
Sep 23, 2006 16:34
Distance 0km

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Other entries in Khatgal

To Khonk by Horse Days 10-14

Text written in: English

Day 10 Snow Day

 

We finally found some difficult ground for the second half of the trip and at one point we lost the trail and were riding through some thick woods that was extremely steep, so there was nothing to do but plot angles sideways on the hill to make it as easy as possible for the horses. Even then I got tangled in a tree once, and it was easy to see that the fun little quest could get hairy pretty fast. But I untangled easily and my horse didn’t panic.

 

We then found some incredibly muddy ground and that’s when it started raining lightly. There was an ominous fog and I had a feeling that it was going to be a long day. Over two hours the rain steadily intensified to the point that both of us were soaked through the skin. The high for the day was about 5C and without the sun we were both quickly cold. My supposedly water proof gloves were such a joke and I had to take them off my numb hands. It was so muddy and so foggy and with snow flakes hitting my face, I was feeling a bit pathetic and let the horse pick some of his own way through the muddy remnants of the road.

 

At some point we reached a mild hilltop with a Buddhist shrine on top and a picnic table which seemed so out of place where we were. It was customary to stop but I wanted to slog on. There was a man with a motorcycle already there and I was wondering how Ichime wasn’t shivering with his thick cotton robes. They sat chatting for 10 minutes like they enjoyed being wet and cold. I got a small bit frustrated but in general I was feeling cowed by the weather.

 

When we started off again Ichime indicated that we would stop 2 hours early for the evening. I laughed to myself knowing that it was getting colder and that we wouldn’t make it very much farther. When the wind started blowing I started feeling a deep shiver that was getting past cold. It was the first signs of mild hypothermia. So as I was going to shout up and tell him it was time to stop and warm up, he turned around and pointed into some trees indicating that we were stopping. I was all for that.

 

Together we picked out a decent spot and undid the packhorse. I was really starting to feel chilled and my hands were nearly useless as they had been numb for hours. Without great communication I left Ichime to himself and quickly cleared a spot out of the growing mounds of snow for my tent. I put it up and then crawled quickly inside I peeled off all my wet clothing and put on a dry set, I was quite happy to be in the dry set, and I put every dry piece of clothing I had on, hat and all and climbed in my sleeping back. I knew it was only around zero but with the wet it took me a full 30 minutes to warm up. While sitting in my sleeping bag I could here the words of the woman at my guesthouse in Khatgal stoically saying, that I could see snow. It felt like the voice of Ben Kenobe inside me.

 

But what I am leaving out is that she was really telling me that sandals were bad for a horse trek. It should noted that the only real liability of sandals on that trip was during river crossings because my horse was short and shot water all over my feet, but any footwear besides riding boots would have been soaked, at least the sandals dry fast. But snow, snow was not a problem because my socks were too thick to melt much of the snow. Any type of shoe would have had snow inside it, same thing with boots, and with weather like that, it can take days to dry out.

 

Outside ichime had out his hatchet and was chopping up a storm into a partially rotten log. He quicly cut down to good wood and was making dry woodships and a fiersome rate. After I warmed up and took off some of the clothing to keep it dry and put on my wet pants and dry out the best I could by the fire with ichime who was creating his own magic steam cloud. I managed of course to melt my pants while drying them. I did it twice and while Ichime was a little shocked when they started melting I started laughing and then he started laughing. When I was finished warming and I saw him with a mighty fire, any apprehensions I had about the state of our trip were quickly put to rest.

 

We saw a UAZ 4WD jeep go by nearly invisible from the snowstorm. I felt kind of bad when it drove past against late at night, knowing that it had failed to go up one of the muddy hills somewhere close to Khonk. I had heard that between Khatgal and Khonk is a 12 hour offroad journey, making it one of the worst “roads” in the country.

 

As I was going to sleep rather early I might add, I did realize that 15 cm of snow was going to slow the horses down quite a bit and I was glad that we had horses, as walking in that much fresh snow would have been quite tiring.

 

With the saddle blankets getting all wet and they being Ichimes ground pad I knew he was in for a rough night. I did what I could to help him rearrange them for maximum warmth, but was a bit hopeless. I heard him chopping more wood a couple of times during the night and I wonder how much sleep he had. I also felt a little bit for the horses as they were digging through the snow to get their grass.

 

But with all that said, it was beautiful. Our trip had turned into a beautiful winter wonderland. You have to respect nature. And of course always bring more warm clothing than you expect to need.

 

 

 

Day 11 Slow day for snow, playing in the water 4 hours riding, horses post holing

We slept a little later then normal the next morning. With it warming up and sensing ichime was getting some needed sleep I let him go a bit, even if I was in charge of time keeping with my watch. When we did finally rouse out of bed, I took one picture out the front of my tent before putting the camera away. My goodness was it beautiful with the morning sun.

 

The rest of the day was sunny but understandably progress was slow. The horses were plodding through the snow. After about 4 hours of this the horses were getting noticeable tired and I wasn’t surprised when we called it quits for the day. I did notice that either the sun was melting the snow rather fast or we had ridden far enough south into an area that had gotten less snow.

 

We camped near the edge of a stand of trees on a small hill. It was a quiet spot, and I sat for a while watching the bright sunshine of the day. I had hours before dark and not being sure what to do with my time, I sat down by the lake and played around with rocks for a while. I built a little artificial lake of my own. There wasn’t sand to build a sandcastle with. It as a great spot for thinking, and oh how I like to sit and think about the universe.

 

Day 12 1^st Doggin it day, Separate Campsite, Campfire for warmth, laundry and cleaning up. 4 hours riding

 

The most eventful part of the 12^th day was riding over some wooden bridges that spanned some ultra swampy streams. The horses hated these bridges, so when nearing the bridge the needed some good encouragement and a little bit of yelling. There were a couple of bridges where I had no trouble and Ichime’s horse stopped and refused to go over the bridge. Once it was bad enough that he road his horse through 100 meters of mud, perhaps to show the horse why you want to ride on the bridge, but it seemed very un-mongolian. Leading the horses over the bridges would have seemed smart to me, but I was merely the squire on this journey.

 

When we stopped after only 4 hours of riding through good weather and only a little bit of snow, I was a little surprised, but at least the camping spot was good. Sensing that Ichime was trying to turn the trip into 15 days I was feeling a little frustrated, but not surprised. After that long together I needed a little bit of space from my guide and I could see that I was getting a little cagey from not having a real conversation in my native language in nearly two weeks.

 

So because the weather was beautiful I put my tent up right on the windy lakeshore knowing that I would be a little colder at night. Trying to wash up when the warmest afternoon sun produced temperatures of 5C (40 degrees) proved difficult, but I still managed a good cleanup every 3^rd or 4^th day.

 

Wanting much better for myself I built a fire and washed until I was shivering nice and good and then warmed up by the fire. I washed most of my clothes thourougly and then put them on sticks around the fire. When Ichime saw that I was using the fire smartly he gave me a couple of nods of approval. I am sure he was starting to miss his wife, and he had the good sense to see that I wished to spend some time alone. I was feeling better around dinner time and shared a nice dinner with him. I never stopped trying to get him to eat chocolate and he never stopped trying to get me to drink his salt tea, which for some reason was much worse than the salt tea we were always being served in gers.

 

For the second portion of the trip we were still stopping for tea in gers about once a day. Sometimes the stops were short and sometimes longer. With everyone being instant friends in Mongolia I was always left to wonder if Ichime had met these people before. After all in terms of numbers the whole area around Khovsgul had few people.

 

Somewhere in the middle of the night when the wind was really blowing I did find myself wishing that I had put my tent behind the cover of trees but damn it was a beautiful spot that I had to myself on the lakeshore. Ichime was camped about 150 meters away in a nice stand of trees, it was little like estranged relatives.

 

 

 

Day 13

 

With the bright sunshine all the snow had melted. I almost missed it, but when I looked across the lake towards the scenic mountains I could see how wonderfully snow capped they were and I guessed they would probably stay that way until the warmth of next may or June. With many temperatures below zero it was hard for me to consider that I was still visiting during one of the warmer months.

 

Our path was near the shore and at one point we had to back track for 30 minutes because the outlet of a river was just two deep to cross. I jokingly indicated that we should really try to cross it, but our stuff would have gotten a bit wet. There were a couple of houses around, certainly more civilization than most places on the trip.

 

When we stopped for camp at 2:00, I was a little miffed because it was clear that Ichime was dogging it. By that I mean, deliberately going slow. When my horse sensed that we stopping he begged me to let him run, and so I did. We had a wonderful gallop through an open grassy field near the lakeshore. One reason that I wanted the trip to end was that my cold feet were starting to make it difficult for me to find sleep each evening.

 

My GPS told me that we were only 12 miles from Khatgal. I had seen maps of the area at the Sunway guesthouse, at least enough to have a clear idea that there were no major natural obstructions on our trail back to town, so 12 linear miles on my GPS mean we were within 14 trail miles. It would later turn out to be about 16 miles riding as we had to go farther south to cross the river that was the outlet for Khovsgul Lake.

 

It being early and feeling beligerant, I showed him my GPS indicating that I knew where we were and that we should finish tomorrow. He indicated that it would take two days. Mind you, this is a slow deliberate conversation to help us understand each other. He would say two days and I would say one. Eventually I was left with nothing else but try to explain to him that I was going to give him a big tip and I had no interest in another day. I had this idea that I was going to give him a big tip for 14 days and nothing for 15 days, but in reality I was going to give him a nice tip no matter what, because it was one hell of a journey, and it really was a lot to ask someone to take you that far on their horse. In the end he said ok, we finish on the 14^th day. Much to my surprise we didn’t have to have the same conversation in the morning.

 

During the last 90 minutes of daylight I wandered around the strange peninsula that we were camped on. It was popular with groups camping because there was trash around. I showed Ichime straight from the start of the trip that what we couldn’t burn I was going to carry in my food bag, there were a few times that I found something my guide had discarded and put it with my bag. A couple of times he went to some length to dispose of something where I wouldn’t find it. It was another harmless cat and mouse game. I think he wondered why I could possibility care.

 

At the top of the hill in the wooded area, there was a series of sticks and rocks arranged in shrines that I could describe as pagan or animist in nature. I had read how Mongolians in this area had a mix of shamanism in their Buddhist culture, but if you asked them, they all declare to be Buddhist.

 

When it got dark I put on every bit of clothing I had and sat on the lake shore 200 meters from our campsite and took a few long exposure night photographs. I quickly got cold but held out as long as I could counting satellites and shooting stars. I didn’t last one hour before I made a strategic retreat to the warmth of my purple down sleeping bag.

 

 

Day 14

 

Finishing up.. head start the wrong way, coming around.. in a hurry.. the incident with the hat and ichime decking his horse In sigh of khatgal in 2.5 hours.. riding around.. stop at a friends… back to my house.. no must finish the trip. Stop in town..eating parts of sheep… 10km to ichime’s house and his wife.. really was poor…camp gear was borrowed.

 

I woke up a little early because I thought Ichime indicated that we would have to ride hard to finish the horse trek. So I had us up and ready to go at 8:00, one hour earlier than normal. I wondered if we would really finish. I was expecting resistance and found none. For the first hour I had to ride hard just to keep up with my guide. He was always such a strong rider, no doubt.

 

We went though a lot of trees crossing multiple paths out of site of the lake and I reflected how I would have quickly gotten lost without him. But he had no doubts about the way. After only two hours of riding we rounded the top of a bare hill and I was quite surprised to see Khatgal only 10km away. We had made good time.

 

There was a strange incident in the woods when Ichime came across a black suit style hat hanging from a tree. I was close behind and when his horse wouldn’t stand below the tree so he could reach the hat he got angry and coughed it. It wasn’t necessary. When he retrieved the hat he put it on and it fit him like gold. It looked good also. The woman at my guesthouse would later tell me that he had left his hat there and was happy to find it. It was a farcical sort of event, but I can’t explain why a wonderfully good hat was hanging in a tree. Nothing goes to waste in Mongolia.

 

We ventured into areas with more human habitation and more cut down trees. In one hour we were directly across from the town, with only the river in our way. We stopped for about 20 minutes and my guide chatted with a couple of men living there. Another hour and we were back in town. We made some stops along the way where I was offered every kind of sheepgut and part. I didn’t know what some of them were, which is probably good, but the flesh was fresh.

 

After about an hour we went to the guesthouse where I reported that the trip went wonderfully. I paid up the balance and then went out side and Ichime went inside to collect his money. I gave him a 34 dollar tip which amounted to about 15% of the bill for the trip and he was quite astounded and happy. I could really see that the money made a difference for him. After business was finished we returned some of the camping gear that he had clearly borrowed indicating why he didn’t know how to set up the tent on the first day.

 

After that he took me to the canteen and we each drank a beer to celebrate. Earlier in the day he had invited me to spend the night in house and I was quite curious to see his house and his wife. We ate dinner at the guesthouse and I treated him to dinner. We then road out at dusk for 1 hour outside of town to his house. I met his wife and his mother. His house was a rather modest log cabin with a very small window and a ceiling. He was certainly a poor man, and I wondered how his yaks did while he was away. His wife was a strong woman. The horses were happy to be home. Me and my guide were collectively tired and once the sun set and the coldness started seeping in, we didn’t spend long awake before we retired, clearly we were feeling fatigue. I was surprised that Ichime didn’t have so many words for his wife and I wondered a small bit if the trip was a mini-vacation from some his mundane responsibilities.

 

So that was the end of the horse trip, and damn it was a fine time. I had successfully completed my 1^st great traveling dream, the one idea that started it all. Ride a horse across the endless steppe of Mongolia. It’s a long time later as I write this, and I still dream of going back.