Murun and Khatgal

It was another early morning. This was our second day as leaders and the day we left Ulaanbaatar for Murun. We had to wake up very early in the morning in order to pack our bags and bring it down to the lobby floor. We spent a while trying to organise the bus driver as he came a bit late but we were able to get it all sorted.

Once we loaded all our bags onto the bus we began our trip to the bus station which was only one hour. This was a private bus so it had plenty of room and we were able to sleep for a bit. When we got to the station, we had to switch to another public bus. Again, we packed our bags onto the bus and sat in the seats that we booked.
The entire trip was about 14 and half hours. I managed to sleep for most of the trip but it was very hard because of the limited room and the amount of people on board. The way was stunning, the views were incredible.

Some of the locals who were catching the bus were fascinated by us, stopping to stare at us or try and say Hi. One of the Mongolians came up to one of the other challengers on my trip and started rubbing the hair on his arms and legs, the man even wanted a photo with him. I found it hilarious but very creepy and weird.

Murun is a very isolated town and seems like it is literally in the middle of nowhere but it is actually pretty civilised. There are constantly people riding around in small motorbikes or vans to get from place to place.

The town is very small so every time we needed to drive to our camp site, the shops or a restaurant they would never be more than a minute drive. We arrived at our campsite well after midnight which was out the back of a house of one of the local families.
We had to quickly set up our tents and go to sleep as it was really late. I fell asleep at about 1:30am. 

The next morning we packed up all our gear and then went to the shopping centre to buy all our food for the trek. After eating lunch we started our trip to khatgal which is located south of Lake Khovsgol in north Mongolia. It is near the border with Russia.

We used a small Russian van called a Fourgon. It has 6 seats at the back, with two rows of 3 seats facing each other. It is great fun to be in and you can actually chat with your friends.

It took about an hour and a half to get to khatgal from Murun. When we got there, we went straight to our camping site which is located at the back of one of the local houses. The view around the town of Khatgal is really breathtaking and is extremely hard to capture its serenity with a camera. The town seems to be surrounded by rolling hills which makes the view very majestic when the sun is setting.

In Khatgal we were given a snack before dinner by our Mongolian guide Yonna. She got it from the local family. It is hardened milk which had a really strong taste. It is abit bitter and almost tastes like really strong feta. It’s the layer of cream on the top of the milk which is left to harden.

During the day the temperature is normally really nice (around 20C) because the sun is out but as soon as the sun sets at night the temperature drops very rapidly to about 3-4C. Today there are also strong winds so it makes it even colder. At the moment I can hear the whistling of the wind flowing over our tent.

We set up our tents, ate dinner and now we are going to sleep for an early night so we can catch up on the sleep we have missed. Tomorrow we will be riding the horses for the first time so we need as much energy as we can get. Good night!