Sain baina!

Greetings from Mongolia, the land of the blue Sky! 10 days ago I arrived by train in Ulan Bator, the capital. It was just the time of the Naadaam festival, the biggest national holiday with traditional competitions in horse racing, wrestling and arrow shooting. I was most impressed by the colourful traditional costumes, which are not only worn on holidays and which are still common in the country side.

The city is home for almost half of the 2,3 million population of this huge country with one of the lowest population densities in the world: 1,5 persons per square kilometer. Mongolia is populated by 15 times more livestock than humans, although this winter some 4,5 millions of animals died because of a very severe winter, that’s around one 10th of the whole livestock.

Many herders have lost all of their animals. This led to still more immigration to the capital, most of them living in the sourrounding Ger districts in traditional felt yurts under very poor conditions or even in the underground kanalisation system of the city. Their only hope are donations from the Red Cross and some national help, which is fed from the countries most important income: copper and gold mining. Among copper and gold, the most important export goods are wool, cashmere and leather.

The poverty in the capital is also expressed by many pick pockets, which try to grab (or even just cut off) your camera or wallet in every crowded place. Thanks to courragous Mongolians I still have all my items ;-)

I was offered to join a week trip to the Gobi desert in the south of the country together with 4 young Koreans, which sounded so interesting, that I already on my second day left for the desert. This was my first contact with the desert and I liked it very much. But you must know that only some 3 % of the Gobi are covered with sand dunes, the rest is more or less hilly steppe and lowlands with some oases and pitoresque canions, some so deep that they are ice filled also during summer.

We had a lot of fun together, so I still joined the Koreans for a two days horse trip to the nearby Terelji National park with its rock formations, hills and larch forests.

At the moment I am waiting to go for a 6 days horse trip in central Mongolia around White Lake near Tsetserleg, which is known as the horse breeders paradise of Mongolia and continue from there by hiking the mountainous area with beautiful lakes and some old volcanoes until I take the plane back home to Switzerland on the 10th of August.

Yours,

“Edshea”, (my Mongolian name, meaning mother ;-)

Greetings from Lake Baikal, the (icy) pearl of Siberia!

By train I traveled during 3 days from Vladivostok in the Far East of Russia to Ulan Ude in the south of Lake Baikal, mostly along the Russian-Chinese border. In Ulan Ude, the capital of the Republic of Buriatia, I was first time in my life hit by temperatures around 40 degrees. Wind blew sand from the step through the streets. Kolja, a local Buriat boy I met on the train who just finished his first year at the Russian marine in Vladivostok, invited me to stay in his mothers place. The Buriats are relatives of the Mongols and also Buddhist. So I visited the next day the Buddhist Center of Russia in Ulan Ude whit its tempels and many souvenir stands.

Than I already left for Ust Barguzin at the east cost of Lake Baikal, where I still am. Here I got the address of Natasha, who owns a local tour agency. She explained me what to see and organized some nice trips for me. So I could join young tourist students from Ulan Ude for 4 days to the Holy Nose, a mountainous peninsula near Ust Barguzin with beautiful forest and hot springs. Than I did helped the local National Park to collect rubbish what for I could join them to the lonely Ushkanin islands, home to the biggest Nerpa (seal) population of Lake Baikal, 5-7 hours by ship from Ust Barguzin.

It is still quite calm here in means of tourism, the season only starts in the end of July, when water temperatures reach up to 20 degrees. Now the water has around 12 degrees. The Baikal is the deepest lake in the world (down to 1600 m) and keeps the worlds biggest fresh water amount. He is 600 km long (two times Switzerland!) and up to 70 km large. He is surrounded by taiga forest (pine, larch, birch) and untouched mountain ranges. Only in the southern part there are well developed touristic villages.

Next I am leaving for Barguzin and its beautiful valley with mountainous surrounding similar to the alps and many Buriat holy places.

It is still quite calm here in means of tourism, the season only starts in the end of July, when water temperatures reach up to 20 degrees. Now the water has around 12 degrees. The Baikal is the deepest lake in the world (down to 1600 m) and keeps the worlds biggest fresh water amount. He is 600 km long (two times Switzerland!) and up to 70 km large. He is surrounded by taiga forest (pine, larch, birch) and untouched mountain ranges. Only in the southern part there are well developed touristic villages.

Next post will be from Mongolia, what I want to explore for the next month.