About 15-20 minutes after driving off we arrived at another nomad camp (with no roads and few landmarks I’m still wondering how the driver and others navigate). This is where we are to pick up a fellow volunteer from Australia whose name I later learned was Joseph.
There was a fellow inside the Ger preparing the evening meal, but nobody else around. I saw a huge suitcase and backpack propped up on one of the beds. It turned out that Joseph and one of the hosts had decided to water some of the livestock while waiting for the driver to arrive.
Joseph was a young man from the Perth area of Western Australia who was barely 18 years old. His family had a sheep farm and he was accustomed to working with livestock.
He was spending a year traveling around the world before enrolling in college back home. As I write this I believe he is just near the end of his trek which led him to Scandinavia. He had stayed in Mongolia a little over three weeks. After talking to him I realized I had just missed the melting of the snow by a few days.
Joseph was having a grand time in the camp and was a very skilled photographer. He took some of the pictures in this post with only a Chinese brand camera phone and no filters or post processing. I also discovered that he was able to get internet access (cell signal) from inside his Ger!
The 2 arrived about 45 minutes later, and in Mongolian custom we stayed another hour or so to share the evening meal of Tsuivan. My hopes of reaching Ulan Bator with time enough to do anything were fading…..
We arrived back in Ulan Bator about 745pm. There was still a few minutes of daylight. My immediate goal was to purchase a good disposable razor because I’m just not an electric shaver kinda guy (yah know?). I made the purchase just outside Altai’s family’s apartment and was anxiously awaiting the first warm shower I had in a while!
I can not say enough about the gracious hospitality of Altai and her family. As Joseph and I took our turns in the shower, her stepfather washed our dust laden clothes in their washing machine. The machine was small and very ergonomic! I’m guessing it was a newer Korean brand with 2 separate chambers for washing and rinsing! I was impressed with its efficiency as we only had to wash the clothes in 2 cycles to get rid of all the dirt 🙂 Here’s a picture of a similar one:
I absolutely savored the warm shower and comfort, and had a proper shave. I changed into my clean clothes and felt like an absolutely different person.
The hospitality continued with another meal of dumplings or what I called “boats” in a previous post. There was broadcast TV showing, but I wasn’t much interested. Myself and Joseph set up out power strips to charge all out electronic devices while we could. For me it was the GoPro, laptop (whose battery had run out a week ago) and my DSLR (which I barely used in the camp).
We proceeded to bed down for the night around 1100pm in the spare bedroom of the Soviet era apartment. My laundry was drying on an indoor rack and I was wondering if the jeans would be dry by morning when I had to pack up again.
I lay in bed for a while contemplating my experience in the camp and my last few hours in the country of Mongolia then drifted off to a very light sleep.
Thank you again for reading! I’m still not done with the blog 😛 and have tomorrow to cover, as well as some “general” posts so please stay tuned (Subscribe!), share with friends and comment!!!!
This is the Rover, signing out…..
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