Chapter 14 - Fires, smells and mountains at Lake Khovsgol
Where we consider the effects of flammable and damnable science, climb mountains, and discover a world of smells during our homestay in Mongolia.
Smells of Home
Lake Khovsgol, Mongolia, Sunday, 16 July 2006
To ensure harmonious group dynamics, Robin adamantly switched up the van configuration. Sarah did not look good in the morning. A few too many vodkas had unsettled her stomach and we all thought that she was going to “Do a Scott” and exercise her stomach purging muscles. Today was the night of the “home-stay”. This is when 12+ tourists show up at your doorstep and stay the night with you. Oh yes, don’t forget you need to feed the tourists as well. How would you like that?
Well, thankfully, Mongolians are incredibly friendly, as we found out. First, we had a Twinkie ride to get through.
As it turns out, the driver of the green Twinkie is not that good. Granted, the roads really were terrible, but compared to Naidam in the grey Twinkie, he was just plain awful. I was happily stuck in the grey Twinkie, but poor Sarah, having been moved to the green one, had spent the day getting bumped around. So much so that when we rounded one corner behind the green Twinkie, we were witness to Sarah running up a hillside to “Do a Scott.”
We had her switch vans at that point.
A random note: I am also officially not a vegetarian for the remainder of this journey in Mongolia. Being the only vegetarian on the trip has been quite difficult, and the “vegetarian” meals I’ve been eating haven’t left me feeling all that great. My hatred of meat stems more from farming practices in North America than anything else. As I have clearly seen here, the animals wander free on unfertilized grasslands and are treated to a relatively wonderful life before gracing dinner. In fact, cows frolic here.
From now on, cows and sheep are vegetables in Mongolia.
During lunch, we decided to have an ultimate frisbee competition. Most of us haven’t changed our clothes much so far during the journey, so playing a sweaty game under the hot sun, without any wind, was probably not the best for group smells.
It was in this sorry and smelly state that we arrived at our family homestay. Luckily for us, I’m sure our hosts did not see much difference between our smells and the prevailing odour of the many goats penned near the gir. The family was very welcoming and had set up a tent outside the gir where four of us would sleep. The rest would sleep in the gir or in the vans. The majority of the family had vacated to their house in a nearby town.
At first, a few of us had a crazy and silly idea of simply sleeping outside with maybe a tarp over us. An idea which slowly paled as we watched voluminous grey clouds spreading overhead. The family had three daughters—13 years, 6 years, and one grown-up daughter—and one very young, long-haired grandchild who we initially thought was a girl until, like all boys, he pulled out his “manhood” and gleefully sprayed his older six-year-old aunt. Ah, boys. It turns out boys do not have their hair cut for the first time until they have a ritual at three years old.
The family had gone to incredible lengths to make us feel comfortable. They had even erected a makeshift outhouse for their foreign companions, complete with white sheets to give some privacy. I never visited, but I was told this was a mess by the time we left—Jackson Pollock was mentioned. I did feel bad that the family would have had to deal with all this. Before you get the idea that we were exploiting a poor Mongolian family, please do understand that the family were willing participants, and this brought them much-needed money. In addition, we had all brought some gifts. Lori was so taken by the attitude, kindness, and industriousness of the 13-year-old girl that she gave her the extra rucksack she no longer needed. The girl was stunned, to say the least. Lori has a very good heart.
The boys—Scott, Derek, Robin, and myself—slept in the tent outside. Before setting to bed, though, we all had a “roundtable” inside the gir where we introduced ourselves, what we did, and where we came from. The postcards from Canada—thanks Corey and Donna—were a big hit, and anyone going should carry loads.
Finally, it was bedtime. Here I discovered that both Robin and Scott talk rather fitfully—and loudly—in their sleep. At one point in the middle of the night, Robin yelled “Move her head!” at which point Scott answered, rather loudly, also in his sleep. Derek and I were stunned, yet amused. All of us, meanwhile, had to deal with Steve’s incredibly loud snoring inside the nearby gir and the wonderfully raunchy smells and bleats of the goats around us. I could only imagine what the others were going through inside the gir with Steve.
The next morning, we discovered that they had managed to silence Steve eventually and had managed to get a little bit of sleep. After breakfast, we said goodbye to our host family and set off in a rather grouchy, somewhat sleep-deprived mood. I was thinking that four days together in the van would be all we could take collectively. Incidentally, our green Twinkie driver was replaced by his son, Tudev, at this stop, and he drove much better than his aged father. Derek had caught a cold and was feeling quite unwell. As they would say in the old Batman TV show: “Will they live to survive another day? Find out, same Twinkie channel, same Twinkie time…”
However, there was a glimmer of hope. Our goal today was to get to Khovsgol Lake, a tectonic lake along the same rift as Lake Baikal. This one, however, was a tenth of Baikal’s size, containing “only” 2% of the world’s freshwater supply. We were to stay at the lake for three nights—a chance for everyone to recover and get some rest.
The drive today was horrendous. My brains have been mushed into goo after four days of bouncing. As we neared the lake, we were treated to 20 km of the worst rally bouncing ever. This all came after our first flat tire with people in the van. The green Twinkie that I was in ran over a key after leaving the town of Moron—I couldn’t find a town sign in English—that stuck perpendicularly into the tire. Our new driver, while young, was quite experienced and quickly set us straight.
Despite all the hardships of Twinkie travel, the lake was worth it all. The lake was a solid blue and, like Lake Baikal, had crystal clear water to great depths of up to 260m. Pine trees lined the lake and yaks lounged by its side. Mountains smiled down upon us with taiga forest beards rising up their flanks. After four days in vans, this looked like paradise.
Immediately, Scott and I made plans to summit one of these mountains and get away from everything the next day. We managed to get a guide and decided to set off at about 4:30/5 a.m. Our guide would not be able to speak English but was one of the people who had set up the national park around the lake. He had apparently hiked the entire circumference of the lake 14 times. Mieko decided to join us. Everyone else would be spending the next day horse riding or boating.
Mountain Madness
Lake Khosvgol, Mongolia, Monday, 17 July 2006
We survived our mountain hike.
We awoke early in the morning at 4:30 a.m. and were out of the gir by 5 a.m. Robin and Derek—pretending to be asleep—were apparently tickled pink with our preparation (“Should we take the Gore-Tex?” “How about gloves?”). Most of the night was great, except for a minor ruckus caused by Scott. At 2 a.m., he yelled out that he needed a flashlight, which I thought Derek provided. Scott later admitted that he had been talking in his sleep and had had a dream that someone was in our gir stealing our money. Sigh.
The three of us—Scott, Mieko, and I—joined up with Kamba, our guide, and set off under silvery moonlight. Kamba was very fast, and soon—within a couple of hours—we had broken out of the treeline and were well above the lake and its cloudy blanket. The climb was much harder than any of us had anticipated. Initially, I believe we had pointed to a mountain behind us and said we wanted to climb that. Instead, we ended up climbing the tallest mountain in the region at 2,972 m—Mt. Ikh. Several false summits later, we were congratulating each other on our first Mongolian summit. Mieko was only slightly slower than Scott and me and proved how amazingly fit she is at her age.
The descent was not as pleasant as the ascent. But then, how many descents usually are? We went through dense taiga forest with few marked routes. This made for a tiring and long walk down. We still, however, managed to ascend in five hours and descend in four. Not bad for a 1,200 m altitude gain.
Upon entering the gir camp, we immediately had a beer, paid and tipped our excellent guide, and went for a swim in the extremely cold lake. I stayed in for about four minutes, and Scott simply jumped in and out. The water is very cold, but no colder than Three Pond Barrens in St. John’s, Newfoundland in spring. I think I’ll go for a swim tomorrow as well.
So what happened to the others? Derek tried to recover from his cold. Danielle finally got the rest and sleep she had been craving—she was often disturbed by Mieko’s habit of rising early. Most of the others had gone horseback riding. The best stories were from Robin and Lori, who had gone riding with Jargalan and Sarah. Robin and Jargalan had never ridden horses before. As it turned out, Jargalan was a natural—must be the Mongolian blood—while Robin is currently lying on the bed claiming his balls have been destroyed. Lori is convinced Robin won’t be having sex for a long while. Lori also had a tough time. She was so exhausted at the end that no fewer than three people had to help her off the horse.
Firestarter
Lake Khosvgol, Mongolia, Tuesday, 18 July 2006
I am very concerned about my sleeping companions. Last night, we almost burned down our gir.
We had been treated to a cultural show at the gir camp. It was a fairly intimate performance with traditional instruments, music, dancing, and even some throat singing. There is nothing that shows the breadth of a culture better than experiencing its music and arts. The contortions of the female dancers and the weirdness of the music added to a rather exotic and fantastic experience.
Naturally, the group had begun drinking during the performance, and since we had been told we could sleep in the next day, we continued to down vodka as if it were water. I talked to the camp staff, who suggested we use the camp restaurant area. To be honest, I asked the staff hoping they would join us. I suspect they just wanted us to party without disturbing the other guests.
Our party was soon in full swing, and by midnight a very drunk Robin staggered out and back to the gir. A bit later, a hotel staffer ran up in a tizzy and said something about smoke, pointing toward our gir. Scott, Derek, and I laughed it off and replied, “Don’t worry, Robin’s in there, that’s all!” Not ten minutes later, a wild-eyed Robin rushed in to tell us not to leave candles on the stove. We laughed, much to his chagrin.
The following is constructed from other sources.
Robin had decided to light the fire in the stove of the gir when he turned in. Without his knowledge, a candle had been accidentally left on the metal stove lid. Robin lay down in a drunken stupor while the stove heated up. The candle—in a miracle of flammable and damnable science—exploded into four feet of flame. Jenny and Zack reported that our gir had filled with an orange dragon’s breath, and shortly thereafter Robin had staggered out, smoke pouring behind him. His face was apparently as white as a ghost. Luckily, some sense had penetrated his alcohol-addled brain, and he had doused the flames with some water that had been left in the tent.
So yes, I am concerned. Will we all make it back alive from this trip?