At the end she sent me the certificate because I need it when I crossed the border, the immigration always ask ‘what do you do in this country?’ Because so far I always spend a month in every country to work as a volunteer and traveling (+). Yup, when I’m traveling I always work as a volunteer to survive from 1 country to another country, only to get free food and accommodation. As an exchange, I share all of my skills, my knowledge, my time and my energy to help another people, to makes them happy, success on their life, business, or future.
By the way, at the time there were not many activities for Reindeer family during the winter, they just drunk every day. The horn of Reindeer also not to big and beautiful, If you want to take a picture with beautiful horn, you should come on Summer. Not only beautiful Reindeer, but everything will looks green and a lot of activities but maybe the price will be more expensive because on summer many tourist come to Mongolia.
If you want to go there I suggest you to take early morning transportation, because along the way from Murun to Tsaaganur and vice versa. Khuvsgul lake is a scenic lake wilderness. It’s very beautiful even in the winter. If you’re lucky the driver will drive on the freezing Khuvsgul Lake and off road near the Khuvsgul Lake. It has different perspective and very beautiful.
At the time, I got both of them, off road and freezing lake but we drove at night when we crossed the freezing khuvsgul lake, it’s totally dark, the wind blew very strong, you can’t see anything, it’s also too risky because the driver always stop to check the possibilities of the road that we can pass, driving at night in the vast area of Khuvsgul Lake it’s not an easy but we made it, we arrived safely. When I went back to Murun I got early transportation so I can see the scenic part of Khuvsgul.
Another tips are, You need to wake up early around 08.00 am If you want to see a lot of Reindeer near your place, because around 09.00 am they will go to the mountain and it will be little bit hard for you to find them, they run pretty fast. They will walked around in the mountain until 17.30 pm then go back to the Taiga settlement. If you want to make all the reindeer comes to you and surrounded by reindeer, it’s pretty easy. On the winter, you just need to pee, then all of them will come to you and drink your pee. It’s not a joke, you can try it, seriously.
During the winter it’s hard for them to get the water, they need to lick the snow until they found something that they can eat such as green weeds, and freezing water. If you go the mountain, just follow their steps, and found many green weed along the way, which means that is the route that they used and you can find them in the mountain.
There’s one moment that I still remember about Reindeer Family, I just spent 2 days with them but we felt like a family, on the last day. Mr. Gamba, my host, he’s crying, he hug and kiss me a lot, he just show with his body language that is my last day I met them, his family member kiss me one by one. Mr. Gamba showed his body language which means I always in the heart of Reindeer family, all of us is family and you also. I replied with the same gesture.
Living in the countryside during the winter also lil bit hard, they will melt the snow or Ice to drink, it’s not often for you to take a shower. For the example, me. I just used the same outfit for 1 week, and took a shower once a week. Mostly they don’t have a bathroom to take a shower, you need to go to the public shower. It cost 2500 tugrik and it’s pretty good.
The public shower in Murun has spotless bathroom. It’s worth it for me to pay 2500 tugrik. If you want to poop, you just poop directly in the wood box, there’s one hole and there’s no water. If you like to collect animal skin, you can find a lot of people sell the animal skin near the road such as sheep, goat, horse, yak. It cost 20.000 – 25.000 tugrik, but it’s still in the fresh condition, you will find the blood and bad smell. On the last day I saw they hang the wolf skin, full from head to tail, include their hands and legs but it’s lil bit expensive, 60.000 tugrik. I really want to buy it, but I was thinking I will have some problem in the immigration.
