Mongolia Diary - 4th July

America's Independence Day. It was also our rest day.

Our camp was supposed to be this lush green river pasture that surrounded by glacial rivers, moraine and the peaks of Mt Turgen and Mt Kharkhiraa which tower above us. These mountains are famous for hosting many wild animals including Snow Leopards. Not much of that could be seen that morning, especially not the elusive snow leopards.

As an optional excursion, Gana was going to take us to check out a glacier. Now remind me, why did I take the option?

It started raining from the get go and hardly let up at all. All of us were completely soaked through.

Our itinerary had described the excursion as "walking the short slope on the northern side to the bottom of Mt Kharkhiraa, the highest mountain in Uvs aimag." We must have climbed almost 500m that day. Camp was the 2666m. We finally got close to the glacier at 3101m. A few of us who were more gung-ho went up to last bit to 3135. I had enough energy at that point only to work my frozen fingers to open a chocolate bar, which was eventually shared 3 ways.

For the descent, we chose the route that the riders had taken up. A longer way but much less steep. With the rain still coming down, we were just concentrating on keeping our faces out of its constant lashing.

At one point, the rain did ease. But then a foggy mist had settled in and we were barely able to see 10m ahead. A thought crossed my mind the, "What if we got lost?" We were in two groups then. I was with four others and the order of the moment to make sure that we kept in sight of each other. But the fog lifted quickly enough and we carried on.

We finally got back to camp at about 3pm. At one point, a herd of sheep was almost literally driven right through our campsite. Our gregarious peony, Foo Kim Lian, of course made friends with the herders and got a horse ride out of the visit.

Alice had ordered a lamb kid that morning. This was meant to be made into satay (Doris had brought along some marinate and sauce.) However, it wasn't exactly barbeque weather. So we were exposed to another example of what must be Mongolia's nomad cuisine.

Part of the lamb was cooked in an unwieldy pressure cooker that had to be held shut with the help of a large rock. Hot stones were also thrown into the stew. When it was finally released, we were served right out of the pot. The sweet potatoes, carrots and radishes were excellent. The lamb was somewhat gamey but was great while it was hot. Only Kim Lian and I seemed to enjoy the broth though.