Ancient Capitals and the Mongolian Kids-Volleyball-Nationalteam – by Emma
We have soon finished our mongolian Chinggis Khan Vodka and we both got pretty tipsy after only a couple of glasses. We blame it on the altitude.
Last stop today before we are reaching our final destination Ulan Bator is Karakorum, a little ancient city not too far from Ulan Bator. We started this morning with a proper breakfast, yoghurt with muesli, bread, jam, yak butter, cheese pastries and tea.
Full and happy we left the hot springs for visiting the temples in Karakorum, the old capital of Mongolia, before Kublai Khan moved it to Beijing in the ancient days. On the way there, we started to enjoy the ride when we finally reached the paved road instead of gravel road. This is one good thing with being out travelling – you really get perspectives. Especially on things you take for granted back home.
After approximately four hours in the car we came to the Erdene Zuu Monastery in Karakorum. Thumbs up for free entry and we spent over an hour walking around in the temple area. We got some really nice photos, realized that we need to read more about buddhism and spend some money on touristic souvenirs.
We had lunch in town and as usual our incredible driver was finished with his meal when both of us, Lukas and me just had begun. He is one version of the «one-minute-man».
The tourist attraction that definitely took the cake today was the 60 cm long stone penis. We took some entertaining photos, bought some more touristic souvenirs and left for looking at a turtle also made of stone.
Our last over night stop is at a place in town with a wonderful family. Or, to be correct, they have some wonderful kids.
I started to feel sick today, probably just a cold, but I decided to just ignore it and we went for dinner with our neighbours in the Ger beside us. Mother and daughter from Maryland, USA. This mongolian dinner was actually quite good, vegetarian dumplings. No greasy meat, which we are getting pretty tired of.
We drank vodka again, since this is actually the last night on this trip, and then Luke thought it was his time to shine. He teached the kids how to play volleyball and I was there with the camera.
It was a nice evening spent with some friendly locals.
Tomorrow we will be back in Ulan Bator and hopefully we are going to meet the nice danish couple, who will also be back tomorrow. Then we have some paperwork to do, I need to get a visa for China, since we are planning to take the train back to Beijing and Lukas need to book his flight to Ölgii.
Even though this trip has come to an end, our mongolian story is far away from ending. We still have almost two weeks left in this beautiful country and we are going to enjoy every single minute and continue to make the most of it.
