The Journey from Indonesia to Russia via China and Mongolia
Part V: The Northern Part of Mongolia
On the 2nd days when I’m arrived, I got an invitation from my Mongolian friend to hike the mountain. I’m pretty excited, and directly said yes because I never hike snowy mountain. I woke up early and met another hikers on meeting point. The name of that club is Khairkhan Hiking Club.
They always have many events on weekend, and it’s pretty good for someone who want to get adventure sensation while you stay in bustling city Ulaanbataar. All the members were very friendly, I had a lot of friends after I hike with this hiking club, at the there were 3 foreigners, I’m from Indonesia, 1 girl from Ireland, and 1 girl from Japan.
There’s one accident that I couldn’t forget when I hike my first snowy mountain. My ears was freezing and bleeding. At the time, I just wondering “why all of them used hat? It’s not cold, I don’t even feel cold at the time” I just keep walking without hat, until someone came to me and said “hey, look your ears was freezing” I didn’t believe, and tried to touch my ears.
It’s true all of my ears covered by ice, it’s like when someone used headphone. I’m panic and one of the member said tried to rub your ears with snow. Maaaaan, it’s pretty cold and at the time it’s not working. Then I put my hat on and covered it with my hoodie. When the ice melted, my ears bleeding.
At the time, I just hike with decent winter stuff, and decent shoes. It’s not a thick shoes with the fur inside or thermal technology, it’s also very slippery, it doesn’t have featured such as snow contact rubber but it’s okay, I made it. I don’t even know how to pack my meals during the winter. I only have palm dates, but I shared it to another people.
Suddenly one by one they gave me food and hot drink. I also learnt how they packed their meals by using aluminium foil It’s okay, with all of my drawbacks I can arrive on the peak, It doesn’t matter how fancy your stuff, it’s useless If you have weak mentality. I knew what is my final point, I knew all of my drawbacks but I can handle it until I’ve got what I want.
Btw the beauty of mountain it self was so serene but be careful with the extreme cold weather. The name of that mountain is Bogd Khan, just 2261 above sea level. When I’m in Ulaanbatar I just went to the mountain on my first week, and didn’t go to anywhere until the 2nd week because I had a lot of things to do such as Russian Visa.
After I finished with my Russian Visa, I decide to explore the Northern part of Mongolia. Well, honestly It’s pretty hard for me to decide between going to the Western part of Mongolia to meet Eagle Hunter or to the Northern Part of Mongolia to meet the last tribe of Mongolia, Reindeer family. I did a polling on my Instagram, because I really need another opinion.
Actually most of them want to see eagle hunter but at the time, I got an invitation to teach English in the Northern part of Mongolia, and she offered me reindeer trip with volunteer price. It’s very interesting for me, and I have high expectation about it. I decided went to Murun, my volunteer place in the Northern part of Mongolia. I bought the ticket in Dragon bus terminal (the main terminal in Ulaanbatar) to Murun. It cost 32.600 tugrik and it takes 14 hours trip.
