Part of the allure of Mongolia is getting the heck out of UB and heading to the countryside. The only complication with that is that you can’t just hop on a bus and wing it like we have in other countries. There is very little public transport and the distances between towns is quite vast. Most travelers pre-book an organized tour or arrive in town and hire a jeep and driver to get them out into the countryside. Since we’re not really interested in the former and the latter is just a little out of our budget, we opted for a trek with Ger to Ger. The extra bonus is that they have a great philosophy.
We’ll be spending the next 8 days trekking with local nomads from one families' ger (yurt) to the next through the Arhangai region of Mongolia. We’ll experience their way of life and their food. We’ll also learn nifty tricks like how to play the national anklebone game, how to milk a sheep and how to pack a yak – all new skills we’ll surely be able to add to our resume!
Seriously, can you think of a better thing for two non-meat eating, non-vodka drinking, non-Mongolia speaking people to do than to throw themselves at the mercy of nomads for a week? We’ll be eating lots of rice and yogurt. And of course we’ll drag along some peanut butter just in case. We can’t think of a better way to enjoy Mongolia!
If you’re really bored at work, you can read about our trek and the ger to ger philosophy at http://www.gertoger.org/families-route/arhangai-bluelake-route.html
We’ll let you know how it gers!