Sitting by Ugii Lake

Tuesday, August 21st 5:30pm At Ugii Lake

I'm sun burned and wind swept after a full day outside by the lake. Instead of camping in the steppe last night, we decided to drive a little farther and stay two nights at the lake. We had to ditch some monastery ruins tht was on our itinerary because the river was running too high and we couldn't cross it. We had been warned by a local farmer who had tried to cross on his horse but couldn't. But our driver had to see for himself, and indeed, we couldn't cross it. So we gave up and drove to the lake earlier than scheduled for a bit of R&R.

Today I read, walked around, swam and took pictures of a horse drive. A few hundred horses camp through our camp on the way to the UB butchers. But what a beautiful scene to see so many horses running free. Speaking of horses...the local speciality at this time of year is fermented horse milk. It has a little alcohol in it from the fermentation process which involves a goat skin. But it won't get you drunk. It kind of tastes like buttermilk.

Sitting by this little lake, or the ocean, as the locals call it...life is calm! There is a light breeze that threatens to become a strong wind. There are a few ducks diving for fish. The sun is dipping lower and will soon be behind potential rain clods. There is a ger and homestead across the lake from where I sit and where the sun will soon set. I can smell the pasta concoction our cook and guide, Navcha, has created for us tonight. And JP is cooking it while she changes and sings "What a Wonderful World" in her tent. At her request, I wrote down the lyrics for her and she has listened over and over to it on JP's MP3 player. She is so funny!

She told me a story similar to that of the Weeping Camel (a great movie!). If a Mongolian mother doesn't accept her baby immediately, they will put it down on the ground in the way of a herd of horses. Seeing her child in danger she wil want to hold it and care for it. But in reality, the horses will never trample the baby. Never!

Camping in a ger

Monday, August 20th Ger house, Little Gobi

I'm sitting in a ger house near the little gobi, or the end of the gobi and next to a tourist camp. But we are staying at the worker's house. I'm not sure if he gets paid or not, but he got dinner last night and he played cards with us for awhile. His wife is away in another village waiting to give birth. He was so busy with the tourist camp, we had the ger to ourselves, both a blessing and a bit of a dissapointment. It would have been fun to get to know an entire family, but you take what you can get I guess. I slept on this couch/bed that seems to be dedicated to a lama or God. That was a little strange, maybe sacreligious--not sure! But everyone else seemed to think it was ok.

I was worried there wouldn't be enough light in here because there are no windows. But when the sun camp up, he opened up the top and the morning light poured in! When we arrived yesterday afternoon, it was sunny and warm but everyone predicted a thunderstorm was coming, so we asked this guy if we could stay with him. Good thing too...it poured REALLY hard that night! Thunder, lightning and then an amzing starry sky! It was so wide and open and expansive! The milky way was brighter than even at Lake Baikal or our work site in the jungle. At one point we were playing cards and had the door open, which always faces south. The lightning bolts were striking right out in front of us--perfectly framed in the door way!

My Hat Has Three Corners

While many many songs were sung, mostly by the Russians, there were two songs that became 'our' camp songs over the course of two weeks:

1) Donna Nobis Pachem--sang in a round! Beautiful around the campfire at night, but only for the strong of heart at train stations!

2) My Hat Has 3 Corners (translated into 5 languages) and sang with a harmonica.

English:
My hat it has 3 corners
Three corners has my hat
And has it not 3 corners
Then it is not my hat

German:
Mein hut der hat drei ecken
drei ecken hat mein hut
und hat er nicht drei ecken
so ist es nicht mein hut

Japanese (an unofficial translation):
Watashi no boshi sankado
sankado no boshi watahsi
to moshi sankado janakattara
kore watashi no boshi jyanai

French (copied from M's unique handwriting, sorry for mistakes):
Mon chapeau ila trois coins
trois coin a mon chapeau
et si il n' a pas trois coins
pais il r'est pas mon chapeau

Russian--I have it, but it is in Russian, so can't type it here

Mongolian (yep, I got it translated for you Christian!):
Mini malgai gurvan untsugtei
gurvan untsugt malgaatai bi
kherev ter min gurvan untsugt bish bol
terel lav minii malgai bish ee!

Can anyone add anymore translations??

G.B.T. (Goodness Beneath Tin)

This article was written for the Khamar-Dhaban Camp Report (featured in a picture below):

A few potatos, carrots, onions, some oil, a can of meat and pasta or rice--that's the staple meal of GBT volunteers in the Khamar-Dhaban. It is a hearty diety for the volunteer trail builders who spend hours unearthing rocks, lopping branches and moving soil. When they return to camp they are rewarded with bottomless bowls of hot soup and cups full of steaming tea. Volunteer Bach from Germany commented, "The salad is always good and I found the fish soup good for me...everytime I'm full."

However, a recent poll found that sweetened condensed milk by the heaping spoonful in tea, on bread, with cookies or alone is addicting and absolutely necessary to maintaining a health happy work camp. "Without the gooey goodness, I'm not sure I could survive each day" commened a blonde Russian volunteer. Even after multiple projects, Sally from Bostom is almost speechless about her obsession, "what can you say about something that is so perfect?"

At the end of the day, when all the soup is gone and everyone is sitting by the campfire, ther eis just one thing they all speak of, that Goodness Beneath Tin (GBT). "I don't care if each spoonful is plugging my arteries, it's delicious," said Johnny from Portland, OR. In ten years when I remember my two weeks in the Khamar-Dhaban, I'll remember spoonfuls of sticky sweet milk with every meal--the real reward after a hard day's work.

GBT: In the Jungles of Khamar-Dhaban

Packing up van #2. Bring on the jungle!

A pit stop on the shores of Lake Baikal--waiting for van #3

Our GBT Team! Day #1 at work! What a crew: 4 countries represented!

One of our tasks: Make a newspaper about camp for the Russians! They loved it. The drew pictures of all of us! It was hilarious! Note: our cooking pot in the foreground!

We built a bridge! And carved a sign so all future hikers will know: GBT 2007 built this!!

Winter Camping

Saturday morning 6 of us packed up the cars and headed for the mountains, but not to snowboard...we wanted to camp in the snow! We brought more gear than necessary, but we realized we wouldn't be hiking in, it would be a car camping trip. Our first few ideas were shot down, almost literally. We put snowshoes on to check out a road in the hopes of making it up to a trailhead and camping there. After our initial reconnaissance mission we drove our car up the road, but the snow got deeper, the road stepper and more slippery. Just as we were decided to bail and turn back, a bigger 4WD SUV came down the mountain. At first I thought it was mountain patrol and they got out and were making gestures and motions that we shouldn't be there. But in actuality it was a hunter also doing a reconnaissance mission. And he warned us that camping in these mountains might be a bad idea because rabbit and wild boar hunting opened in the morning. Eek, how would we have EVER known that??

So we headed back down the mountain and decided to drive around a little pond in the hopes of finding a place for our tuna sandwhich and soup lunch. As luck had it, we found a shelter unlocked with a platform perfect for 7 sleeping bags (chica joined us later) and a fire pit in the middle of the building! We got lunch going, set up our stuff, and before dark set in we headed back to the main road and into the onsen, 5 minutes away!! It was PERFECT!!

It was a fun-filled night. And even thought we didn't get our snow camping in, it was probably a blessing in disguise, plus it did snow in the morning.

My camera battery was dead, but I stole Shinji's pics. For more pics, please visit San Tache It's worth a visit!!