2017/08/11

Day 13: Ölgii - Khovd

Today we ride about 225 km of which only 50 km are on a paved road, the rest on gravel and partly on sand. We have to be careful. But everything went well.

After yesterday evening, the others are late, so I have time for sorting of pictures, etc.

Ölgii is a small village with a center and banks. Pulling out money from the ATM is funny because you get a huge stack of bills. 10,000 Tugrik are about 3.50 euros. It's hard to deal with these sums. I buy a SIM card with internet access for 14 days for only 3.50 euros. Really cheap. For two 1.5l bottles of water and a chocolate bar I have to pay 1.40 Euros. I bought two bottles of water only because the seller could not given me change otherwise.

The most part of the road - a part of the East-West main axis - is under construction, apparently supported by Chinese and Kazakhs. The gravel road leads criss-cross, corssing the new main road again and again. 

The landscape is deeply impressive, endless vastness, treeless mountains and hills, now and then a pretty lake, again and again Gers, cows and goats. You can hardly photograph the landscape, even with panoramic photos. Amazing. Sometimes you can see herds of horses in the landscape - looks very nice. The people we meet are very friendly. Once Dan and I stop and do handshakes with a young goatherd. He has a rather strong, palpable hand. This handshake was a deep impression for me.

During the morning we have a short break, just lay down on the freshly mown lawn near a farm and watching the landscape.

At noon we stop at a cottage in the middle of nowhere with a tied goat in front of the house. In a side room next to the entrance to the guest house the pieces of meat hang from the ceiling and are put in the meat grinder if necessary. The tied goat is likely to be the next in the row! After we checked, that we can get something to eat (another Russian guest with German knowledge helps: yes, good food) and the Russian guests is provided with food, we also get freshly prepared Huschur. Very delicious. We can watch the preparation.

The day is getting quite long. Finally, we ride over a pass with a nice view to Khovd. The landscape becomes greener and around Khovd there are many Ger tents. In his travel guide Orvar has read that there is also the problem of the rural depopulation and the people, who then live nearby small or large cities, don't have a good life. The discrepancy of our wealth to life here is very strange too.

The hotel tonight has a quite low standard. Check-in takes a long time. In a restaurant nearby we have soup with dumblings and old mutton. For the main course we have chicken and rice and french fries. At another table there's a group of women and they ocassionally sing traditional songs - nice.

I still have to work in the evening and the WiFi in my room is not working. So im working in the lobby. I'm getting to bed very late and very tired.

Maybe we'll do camping tomorrow.