Terelj National Park

On my second day in Mongolia, I took an overnight trip with 10 others from my guesthouse to Terelj National Park, the easiest way to experience Mongolian countryside in a short amount of time. Terelj was breathtaking, a cross between the Mongolian steppes and the landscape of Switzerland.

We slept five to a yurt (from this point on, to be refered to by its Mongolian name, “ger”) and aside from horseback riding, there wasn’t much to do but relax and explore. Our hosts didn’t speak English and when we realized it was a very “hands off” guided trip, we found our own activities.”Hmm…so what’s there to do now? I guess I’ll go rock climbing…again.” Or “oh look, there’s a camel over there. Let’s go walk uphill twenty minutes to check it out!” It was the healthiest day I’d had in years. ”Oh dear, I need the bathroom. Guess I’ll walk half a mile and find a rock big enough to pee behind…”

[the boy on the right is Gana, who bossed us around on our horse trek.]

This entry was posted on July 30, 2008 at 5:59 am and is filed under Mongolia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.