Day 12:

It was a free day today so I was up at 9am.  Andy and many of the others had eggs and beans for breakfast, but I wasn’t up early enough to have them.  We again took the opportunity to re-arrange our backpacks.  We were surrounded by large green hills and a massive lake. The scenery really reminded me of Scotland with highland cattle or perhaps the Austrian mountains with the lake.  Now that we were in the north of Mongolia, the scenery was much greener.

I did our last underwear wash of the trip. It was a large wash!  Many people took themselves off for separate hikes. I think many people wanted to spend some time on their own by now and today proved the perfect opportunity.  Andy and I took the half hour walk down to the lake from our tent with a large bowl in hand, in order to wash some trousers and a top in the very cold lake.  In the cold water the clothes actually came out fairly clean and I also washed my hair.  The lake is 61km in circumference.  Linda joined us doing our washing.  The lake was too cold to wash in, so it has now been some time since I have had a full body wash!!

When we walked back up to the camp, I helped Solongo roll out very thin noodles and cut up the veg for the evening meal, which Solongo was making – a traditional Mongolian dinner.  After dinner was prepared, Solongo and Agnes visited a local ger and enjoyed their hospitality. They came back to camp with a substance very similar to clotted cream. However, it had a lingering taste of mutton.  The rest of the group came back in dribs and drabs.

We had another camp fire again and after dinner, Agnes and a few others returned to the local ger.  The drivers and some others went to try their luck at fishing, but nothing was caught.

It was very easy to forget where we were when we were with 14 other westerners and it helped to sometimes walk away on your own and remember where you were sometimes.  The drivers ate their marmot in the evening which they had prepared that morning.  I watched them "fillet” it and Jaagar ate the heart, kidney and "pee pee box” as described by Bataar.  Altai said it was good for you, I beg to differ, especially when all eaten raw!

It was cold at night and I got a little worried about how I would cope when up in the very north. The camp here was 2160m above sea level.