Goodbye to Mongolia, welcome to Russia: the Mongolian paradise at Khövsgöl lake, nice encounters, and a smooth crossing at Altanbulag - Kyakhta

It’s time to say goodbye to Ulaanbaatar. Our friend Lukáš flies back home to Czechia as planned. Vojta and I need to go north to Russia and to set out across Siberia before winter comes. Our worries seem premature as it’s still late August, but cold weather can come quickly in this part of the world. 

We say goodbye to Budee and his Czech cabin in the suburb of Ulaanbaatar, and we see Dima one more time. He’s in better mood than when we last saw him, but he still is scared of the gang that mugged him, and doesn’t go out much. We go to the local market to buy new winter boots for Vojta. I’m thinking about buying one of the awesome Mongolian coats, but they are heavy and our clothes will probably still do in Siberia. We send some bizarre postcards with reindeers to Czechia (it seems the central post office makes these just for old-school Europenas–neither Mongols nor anybody else care about postcards in a world that has Whatsapp). We find some more geocaches, and we are good to go.

  

Our friend shows us a place where Ulaanbaatar millenials go: a pub where every meal costs one dollar, such as this tiny burger. The place must be very hip: the meal include some ingredients that are not meat. That's pretty revolutionary.

Mongolian beer

A long way through nowhere

We believe we still have some time left before we risk cold weather, so we don’t want to leave Mongolia yet. We first set out for the Khövsgöl lake. It is on the very north of the country and when it freezes, trucks loaded with goods use it as a road to Russia. Now in summer, the route doesn’t exist, and cars must take a small road around the lake. The border crossing is not open for foreigners anyway, so we will need to go all the way back and take a different crossing. We don’t mind the detour, though, as we want to see more of the huge Mongolian sky and steppe.

It takes us three days to reach the lake. Three days through the green steppe with scarce towns and scarce mountains in the distance. The weather is mild, so the travel is pleasant. Sometimes, the road is completely deserted, and it takes minutes before any car passes. This doesn’t scare us anymore: the road is our lifeline, our connection to civilization and people even though it doesn’t show. The tarmac under our feet proves that everything is ok and makes us feel safe in the middle of the sheer emptiness.

There were four of us in the cab. It's no longer surprising.

 

Some scarce events happen. We cross the Orkhon river and buy fish at a lonely stand nearby. We filter water from rivers to drink. In one of the towns, we buy ayrag–we learned to like it. It’s now my favorite Mongolian food besides imported canned beans (the other options are fat meat, canned meat, noodles with meat, instant Korean noodles, imported veggies, and more meat). On the third day morning, our tent is covered with frost. We find a bookstore in Erdenet that sells the Mongolian translation of a famous Czech book. We travel a whole day with a guy who doesn’t have water in his car’s cooling system, so we need a long break every 20 kilometers for the engine to cool down. At one of these breaks, we eat snack and offer the driver a fresh pepper: he looks askance at it, tastes a small bit as if he’s never tried that in his life, and he spits it out with disgust. We conclude it really must be impossible to please any Mongol with any food but meat.

I haven't seen many bookstores in Mongolia in general. When we saw one, there was this Mongolian version of a Czech WWI novel. Jaroslav Hašek: The Good Soldier Švejk

The car needs some rest. We are resting too.

  

Khövsgöl Lake: the Mongolian paradise

On the fourth day, we reach the town of Khatgal on the shore of the vast blue lake surrounded with green mountains. Even though the summer season for Ulaanbaatar tourists is over, the town is lively. (I mean the Mongolian kind of lively. I doubt it is very busy during the tourist season either.) We swim in the pristine water, wash all our clothes and let them dry in the wind. Then we buy some supplies in a local grocery store and climb a small hill above the town to camp on the top next to an oboo. It feels like in a fairytale. We are camping under fresh pine trees, staring at the town under us, eating Korean instant noodles, and I feel absolutely happy.

This part of Mongolia has not only hills, rivers, and the lake, but also lush forests. For a couple of days, we hike along the wild shore with almost deserted tourist summer villages, camp on beautiful spots and look for geocaches. (Yep, even here, there are some.) We got inspired by Lukáš and adopted this hobby because the caches give us an excuse to go to specific spots–and the spots usually are nice.

Khatgal

The religious use of vodka

 

In the country of gers, the best buildings are round

 

 

An unexpected encounter

The way back to the main road that goes to Russia takes several days again. It is as peaceful as the way to the lake. It involves a lot of staring into the steppe. In the town of Erdenet, we camp next to an empty amusement park under a lonely Ferris wheel. We don’t mind wildcamping in towns now and don’t try to hide anymore–first, because it’s difficult to hide on the steppe, and second, because in Mongolia nobody cares about anybody camping anywhere. I’m wondering if the idea of trespassing exists here at all.

We turn north and drop by one more monastery. This one is in a rocky valley and has a lot of sacred penises carved in the rocks.

Our next drivers speak a bit English, so we talk about what we do, where we are from, and all. The driver pauses in thought and says: “Dobrý den” in Czech. It turns out he worked in Czechia–he even gives us the name of the town where his factory was. It feels like meeting a fellow countryman.

 

A party granny and a warm goodbye to Mongolia

In Darkhan, the last city before the border, we get off a car near a bunch of elderly people who are having a wild party at the roadside. It’s early afternoon and they are eating candies from a big box and washing it down with vodka. Once they spot us, they wave at us wildly to join them. When we approach, they push a lot of candies at us. One of the merry ladies speaks Russian: they spent the weekend in the countryside celebrating, and now they don’t really feel like ending the party.

When the lady finds out we are traveling, she invites us to sleep over at her place. If she was a guy, we would probably decline politely–but we are much less afraid of a party lady. And we are pretty curious too. We have often found Mongolian people cautious with strangers, so we don’t want to miss an occasion to talk to someone more. We are wondering if she really means her invitation, but she repeats it several times. So, we agree.

The party car already has six people in it, so the lady describes us the way. We walk to a neighborhood full of concrete communist-style towers. We think it might have been the last time we have seen the group, but they are waiting for us. The lady says goodbye to her friends and tells us to follow her to one of the buildings. It has a very dark, shabby corridor and an old, flaked elevator. It looks almost spooky. In one of the upper floors we enter a cozy flat, very different from the rest of the building. We meet the lady’s husband and two young girls, and they don’t seem surprised we showed up. We get more candies and tea and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening in a pleasant conversation as much as our limited Russian allows.

The next morning, we are heading to the border. The family offers us breakfast with tea and cake and candies, and say goodbye to us warmly. It is a nice last day in Mongolia.

The smoothest border crossing

We don’t even have to walk out of the town completely to hitchhike–in front of the very last house, a family is loading their car, and they ask us where we are going. They are going to the border town too. They speak Russian, so it’s easy to communicate with them. Before we fully realize we are really going to leave Mongolia, they drop us off just in front of the border checkpoint that seem to be in the middle of a small town. They give us a water melon and arrange with another driver to take us across the border. We are not allowed to walk even though it’s just several dozen meters.

There is a couple of shabby sheds and barriers, and it doesn’t look nearly as terrifying as any of the crossings we’ve been to since Azerbaijan. I’m surprised. I have always thought going to Russia was a big deal. It probably isn’t if you are going from Mongolia. We don’t need to stand in any lines. An officer just looks at our passports and asks if we have some painkillers with codeine, by chance. It sounds as if he needed some for some reason. “No, sorry,” I say. Later on, we find out they are illegal and we would actually get into trouble if we had any.

Suddenly, we are in Russia. As evidence, there is a shiny Orthodox church in the middle of the green field by the road. If Mongolia felt familiar after China, now the things around us feel even more so. Not only we can read the inscriptions, but we also can mostly understand them. Even small streets are paved. The road, village houses and concrete blocks of flats look a bit like home. Given that we are still almost 8000 kilometers far from Czechia, it’s surprising.

On the parking lot, we meet two French travelers with a small car covered in stickers and mud. They are Mongol Rally racers, and they need to fix their car just a couple hundred kilometers from their finish in Ulan-Ude.

A Mongol Rally crew we met at the border

 

A warm welcome to Russia

The Russian border town of Kyakhta is a blast of civilization. Almost all streets are paved. Small roads have stripes painted on them. There is a big store that sells more than just horse meat cans. It’s easy to find water. However, it’s impossible to exchange Mongolian money for Russian Rubles anywhere past the border, so we end up with quite a lot of useless money.

We start hitchhiking to Ulan-Ude, the regional capital. After a while, a driving school car stops next to us. The driver is not going anywhere, but he is curious. He says we are standing on a wrong road, and invites us for a meal. Invitations to talk with people are never to be refused, so we agree. Ulan-Ude can wait.

When Arlat finds out we have never been in the region of Buryatia before, he takes us to a local diner to eat a local specialty. The staff of the diner look very grumpy, as if they hated their work as well as their life, and were making sure to let everybody know. Vojta and I can’t help laughing. This is a sure sign we are on our way home, back in the former Soviet area.

There is also a bathroom with water. That makes me overwhelmed with civilization again.

Arlat buys us buze, dumplings filled with meat. It’s tasty. Then he gets some bottles of beer and drives us to a rest area on the road to Ulan-Ude. We spend the evening chatting and drinking beer. We are on a small hill, so we can overlook the town with its colorful roofs and a couple of abandoned blocks of flats. The road is not very busy and Arlat is greeting pretty much everybody who passes by. We are talking about our trip – Arlat understands without asking why we are doing this, and has met some hitchhikers before. It seems he actually collects their stories. It’s reassuring. The fact we don’t have to explain what we are doing is making Russia even more familiar. Although I should rather say Buryatia than Russia. Because Buryatia is what Arlat mostly talks about. His region is what he seems to focus on. He doesn’t mention Russia much – maybe it’s too big for him to care about.

We finish our conversation so late that there’s no point in hitchhiking today anymore. We are not sorry, though – meeting Arlat was a nice welcome to this huge country. Also, it was the first time we’ve drank beer on the road with a driving instructor.

We go camping under pine trees next to the lonely road. Only now I realize we finally are in Russia. I have read and heard so much about this country, and now we are here – the first Russian town I’ve ever seen has not been Moscow or St. Petersburg but Kyakhta. I’ve actually never read or heard about Buryatia before. So, the country we’ve just entered is both familiar and very new.