It’s an early start today. Up at 4:30am and breakfast at 5. We are on the road to the airport by 5:30am. It’s less than an hour and it’s about the roughest dirt track to an airport we’ve ever been on.
We say goodbye to our drivers and this point. They were amazing and we are so grateful to them for navigating us safely across the desert for the last several days. It makes a huge difference having contract drivers who own their own vehicles. They take pride in their cars and generally speaking we find them to be safer drivers. These three suv were meticulously kept up and despite the rough terrain we had no flat tires or breakdowns.
We get checked in and our luggage weighed and get through security. It’s a teensy airport and we are quickly our the door and boarding. The plane actually takes off this time!!
We land in Ulaanbataar and say goodbye to Robert. He’s spending the weekend in UB and flies home Sunday.
The rest of us get into our three new SUVs and head east to Terelj National Park with a quick stop at the giant Chinggis Khan statue. It is 40m high and quite impressive. According to the legend, he found a golden whip at this location. The statue is symbolically pointed east, towards his birthplace. We are not huge into these major tourist attractions and the place is packed. We take a quick spin through it and climb to the top for a picture and then we are off.
From here we head north into Gorkhi Terelj National Park. The scenery since we left the airport has been stunning, but the park is extraordinary.
Many nomads live in the park itself, where the land is lush for their animals. The difference is stark between the animals we had seen in the desert. Cattle, horses, sheep, goats and camel all grazing together in vast fields. They are definitely meatier here.
As we cross over the river and head deeper into the park the damage from the flooding is visible. Many homes and bees built along the River edge are now underwater. Thankfully our camp is up on higher ground.
We stay at the Heaven Envoy Ger Camp and it’s certainly not as nice as where we have stayed previously. It’s still clean but the gers are not as nice and ours has a fly issue that requires us to get moved (:/). That said, we have an amazing lunch and the quality of food here is much better. We are stuffed with a three course meal and then have some down time until we head out to visit some local attractions. This area is a heavy tourist/resort area for both local and internationals and it is vacation time for Mongolians and the resorts are very full.
Once inside the park you will be able to visit the notable rock formations "Turtle rock" and “Monk reading a book."
Around 3pm we hike up to the Aryabal meditation center. It’s a steep climb with Buddhist teachings on placards the whole way up to the base of the 108 stairs that take you to the temple at the top.
The view is stunning down to the valley below and I must admit that the place certainly evokes in me a real sense of peace.
We head back down and then head to the “turtle rock” formation and visit the gift shop and get an ice cream. The place is packed with tourists.
We head back to our camp and spend some down time reading and taking in the view before another amazing meal and then off to bed.
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