July 2013

CAREY CHRONICLE

LAKE KHOVSGOL

Our summer adventures took us from the incredibly dry hot Gobi desert to the completely opposite lush cool Alpine climate of Lake Khovsgol. Containing 2% of the world’s fresh water, Lake Khovsgol feeds into Lake Baikal in Russia which contains a massive10% of the world’s fresh water. Both huge lakes freeze over in winter, an indication of just how cold it gets in this part of the world. The ground surrounding Lake Khovsgol is in the perma-frost region so the lake is very cold even in the middle of summer.

Only the very brave dare to swim - Jemima and Puppa are both very brave.

Thankfully, the shores of Lake Khovsgol have been saved from industry and remain quite pristine. We stayed at an eco friendly ger camp run by an ecologist who is saving the local endangered species of Siberian marmot (kind of fast wombats/ground hogs with bucked teeth) and musk deer.

Above: The Mother Sea, as the locals call Lake Khovsgol with a view of our ger camp.

Left: A shaman shrine on a rocky peninsular on the shores of the lake. The centre pole is a replica of one of Chinggis Khan’s war standards with black horse tail hair.

Murun

To get to the lake we flew from Ulaanbaatar to the northern (Hinte region) town of Murun. It is close to the Russian border and famous for its national wrestling champions and Manchurian War heroes. We visited a modern wrestling palace and had lunch at a guest house owned by Esse (a local adventure tour guide) and his beautiful family.

Below: Esse show us his vegetable garden in a green house he built himself.

Above: inside the wrestling stadium

Below: Boarding the boat in the town of Hatgal to travel 20 minutes up the lake to our ger camp.

Right: Arriving at the ger camp. Our landing jetty was a cart pulled by a half cow half yak. Jemima is introducing herself.

Above: sunset at the lake,

We stayed in cosy gers and ate at the wooden family home and restaurant.

The mother of the family made the most beautiful yoghurt, khushur (pasties) and buuz (dumplings).

The permafrost ground comes in handy, the dugout cellar under the wooden house is about 5C even in the middle of summer. Perfect for chilled beer and wine.

We had five relaxing days in this beautiful part of Mongolia - hiking, horseriding, sitting on the wooden stump chairs (see right), and kayaking on the lake. Justin, Dad and Jemima went in the sauna in a hut on the edge of the lake and got all steamy hot and then jumped in the freezing cold lake. Brave and crazy.

Juddy loved being Clancy on his horse, enjoying some office and bike free time

Jemima and Mollie climbed trees and watched Marmots through the telescope and picked up stray yak horns.

Gana, who had also travelled to the Gobi with us, was our wonderful guide and taught us so much about Mongolian nature and culture. She is a high school teacher in Ulaanbaatar and works as a tour guide on her long summer break.

Above: a butterfly, a flower and then wild onion flowers. We had some of these wild onions baked in our bread for lunch.

Above left: Gana with Mum and Dad and all of us on a hike to the Shaman site.

Left centre: At the rocky Shaman site.

Left: Saying goodbye to our lovely hosts. She has milk in the blue ladle which she threw in the air as our boat pulled away, wishing us a safe journey.

We love Mongolian culture and traditions.

Love Kate, Justin, Mollie, Jemima, John and Diana