Mongolia - Week of July 5, 2026

Hello from the middle of nowhere Mongolia 😁

Awesome for you to check in on my adventure for the last week. I'm grateful for your time and attention. It's a blessing and a gift.

How have you been? What magical moments did you discover in your week? What are you most grateful for in the past week? Always good to take a few minutes in our busy lives to reflect (and try to avoid taking for granted all the goodness in our lives!)

Mongolia, a landlocked country, is the eighteenth largest country in the world. I dive the central part that I visited into three general regions - Gobi Desert in the south, wide open rolling steppes (mainly treeless) in the middle and the more rugged and treed northern region. It's a country devoid of fences. The two humped Mongolian camel (about 5,000 in total) roam the Gobi Desert region. You'll also find beautiful horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and yaks wandering about the countryside and on the roads throughout the country.

One person welcoming committee!

The roads range from four lane highways (in the minority) to two lane paved highways (which may be smooth or not) to a series of dirt roads (bumpy comes to mind) that crisscross the countryside. There is minimal roadside signage to guide you. Careful planning and preparation are mandatory for a successful expedition in Mongolia. A satellite phone would also be a good idea. Petrol stations are found in the small towns and cities; forget about finding a petrol station along the highway. If you see one, it's likely a mirage. If you break down on a dirt road, the emergency road assistance may be the yak farmer who happens to come across you.

I know I made the right choice in choosing a group tour to experience Mongolia. Independent travel in this country takes time, planning and patience. What I'm grappling with as my Mongolian travels wrap up is best summed up by something Chris, a former client, used to ask - 'Is the juice worth the squeeze?' My initial reaction is that my time here was not worth the time, expense and effort. More about my thoughts in next week's post. I'm busy reflecting on my experience and may have a change of mind.

May the universe bring endless blessings and moments of magic 🦄 to you and your loved ones in the week ahead. 🙏

Travel Administration

I know you'll be as happy to know that you can purchase McVitie's Dark Chocolate Digestives, a favorite dark chocolate treat of mine, throughout Mongolia. The chocolate and biscuit just melt in your mouth. The added bonus is they cost about 50% less than anywhere else in the world that I've purchased them.

Travel Update

I've got a tentative itinerary for my travel from July 18 to July 22. I'm flying to Almaty, Kazakhstan on July 18. I'll then board an overnight train to Tashkent (capital of Uzbekistan), arriving Sunday afternoon for a two night stay. On July 21, I'll then take a six hour train ride to Andijan, Uzbekistan for an overnight stay. Finally, I'll board a bus on July 22 for the final journey to Osh to rendezvous with Jane. I plan to book a flight on Monday, August 3 from Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan's capital) to Astana (Kazakhstan's capital) to meet up with Meruyert and her mother Menslu.

Travel Maps

Our tour continues with a visit to Ongi Monastery, Erdene Zuu Monastery in Kharkhorin (Genghis Khaan's capital in 13th century, explore Tseterleg town market, visit nomadic Mongolian family/enjoy Mongolian barbeque, explore Tsagaan National Park/horse riding, visit Deer stones/Khuvsgul Lake, attend/participate in local Naadam Festival, and climb Uran Togoo extinct volcano.

Mongolia: June 28 to July 18, 2026

Ongi Monastery

I skipped out on the monastery visit which was about 800 m hike from our ger camp. I like to avoid historical sites that are in complete ruins requiring you to imagine what the place was like before it was destroyed.

'Ongi Monastery is the collective name for the ruins of two monasteries that face each other across the Ongi River in Saikhan-Ovoo district of Dundgovi Province, in south-central Mongolia.' The monastery was destroyed in 1939 by the Communist government along with murdering so many monks.

'Borrowed' photo from the web

Erdene Zuu Monastery

I'm fortunately overruled my original intention to skip this monastery. I did skip the tour group visit to the museum and went directly to the monastery. I realized a couple benefits in this instance. I missed out on our tour guide's monastery historical lessons AND I met three locals in a supermarket (see Friends section below) while I waited for my group to finish up their museum and monastery visit.

I suggest you check out the link above if you want more detail on the photos below. Please note the intricate craftsmanship and detail in the photos from the temples' interior. Small blessing these temples escaped the religious persecution and destruction brought on by the communist government in 1939.

'Erdene Zuu Buddhist Monastery is the oldest surviving monastery in Mongolia. Today, the sixteenth-century structure is a symbol of endurance and religious revival after decades of anti-religious repression during the twentieth century.'

Monastery walls from afar

Monastery walls - right of entrance

Monastery walls - left of entrance

Monastery entrance

Important monastery info

Temple entrance

Surviving stupa

Important monastery info

Surviving stupa

Monks' residence

Monastery grounds

More grounds

One of three open temples

Temple interior

Mongolian Barbeque

Pardon the lack of photos in this section - in retrospect it would have been simpler to have a few photos to share this experience. Time to use your imagination. We drove up to a series of five gers in an open field. One ger was used for receiving and feeding guests, like us. The tour company owner had a long standing relationship with the family we were visiting. We were asked to bring small gifts and treats for the family.

Mongolian BBQ is a home cooked meal with meat, vegetables and potatoes/rice. Dispel the thought someone is preparing a meal on a grill; Mongolia uses the term bbq differently than in the western world. We were also served with milk tea and bread prior the the main course.

Now for my editorializing. I attempt to avoid these types of staged 'cultural' experiences as best I can. My previous experiences has left me with the impression that these experiences are contrived. I had no option in this case. We were in the middle of nowhere.

This particular experience reinforced my impression of this experience being contrived. About half way through our visit, our male host decided to leave our company to spend time talking with our two drivers. Bad manners? You decide. I guess he lost interest in us and the original mission of why this meal/family interaction was intended to accomplish.

Somewhat similar to the ger we visited except
there was a floor (unlike this photo)

River Gorge

We had a brief stop for photos at this picturesque river gorge, the name of which I have forgotten. This river gorge would be an example of my struggle with recommending Mongolia as a top tier travel destination. I've seen so many more beautiful river gorges with far less traveling over bumpy dirt roads/bumpy highways.

Tsagaan National Park

This destination was the first of a couple two night stays at one location. My sarcastic self thinks we had a two night stay to break up the long drives required by this itinerary. The big highlight was the 30 minute horseback riding expedition I skipped because of a sore hip. The remainder of the day included ascending a rather unremarkable dormant volcano, visiting a large lake where some fellow guests enjoyed a brief swim, seeing someone's creativity in creating interesting rock piles and exploring a cave or two. Underwhelming experience!

Horseback Riding

My horseback riding highlight was playing frisbee with two children who lived where the horseback riding took place. Beautiful valley, beautiful horses and amazing children.

Extinct Volcano hike

I skipped out on the extinct volcano hike. A common tour challenge for me - is the effort in the activity worth the outcome? I decided to find a comfortable place to sit and enjoy nature's beauty while my fellow travelers completed the hike. I like sitting still outdoors to revel in nature's sounds.

Terhkiin Tsagaan Lake

We spent an hour sitting by the lake while a few of my fellow travelers went for a swim.

Rock Piles

Our next unremarkable stop was to walk about/take photos of a small group of rock piles someone had assembled. I've omitted the cave expedition that happened after the rock piles.

Deer Stones

Click on the link above if you're interested in learning more about the mysterious Mongolian deer stones. The italicized paragraph below is extracted from the article.

'One of the most fascinating discoveries made in Mongolia is that of their mysterious deer stones. These deer stones are estimated to be at least 2,700 years old and depict several images, including deer, elk, horses, human faces, and the sun. These Bronze Age masterpieces are fascinating, as they provide some insight into the people that lived at the time of their creation, but otherwise provide little to no detail about their purpose. To this day, archaeologists continue to dig deeper to discover more about the deer stones and the people who created them.'

The other noteworthy activity at this stop was my simple act of kindness to give my water resistant jacket to Greg, a fellow traveler. Greg was traveling without any type of jacket which was challenging in the cooler and wet weather we were having since leaving the Gobi Desert. I had my Columbia jacket and a light windbreaker left to protect me.

Deer stone

Deer stone and accompanying gravesite

Burial mound

Interesting cloud formation at ground level

The driver will chose one of those tracks
for the road we will travel on

En Route to Khuvsgul Lake

We stopped at this spot to enjoy our packed lunch meal. Nothing but blue sky and open steppes all around!

Man, Greg and me (l to r)

Khuvsgul Lake

Lake Khuvsgul is the largest freshwater lake in Mongolia and is the source of 70 percent of Mongolia’s fresh drinking water. The lake is special/sacred for Mongolians so it's a popular tourist destination. There is a remarkable similarity between the landscape in this part of the world and where I grew up in northern Alberta. Lots of familiar trees and freshwater lakes. Natural beauty at its best. The Lake's latitude would be closely lining up with where I grew up in Canada.

We drove to this very northern Mongolian destination to visit with a nomadic family with reindeer and attend the annual Naadam Festival.

Your guessed right if you thought I skipped the reindeer family visit - predetermined this would be another contrived 'cultural' setting for us tourists. I've previously seen reindeer, including at the Arctic Circle in Finland, so spending the time and an additional $31 Cdn to take an hour boat ride to the family's camp was a bad use of my time. I spent my time trying to catch up on my overdue blog post and visiting with the family who ran the tourist ger camp we were staying at.

I've subsequently learned there is a big business locally where reindeer are tied up for tourists to touch and pet. Animal right activists and reasonable people - what do you think about this practice?

Beautiful double rainbow

Over the camp

Naadam Festival

'Naadam is a national festival celebrated every year from 11 to 13 July across Mongolia that focuses on three traditional games: horse racing, wrestling and archery. Mongolian Naadam is inseparably connected to the nomadic civilization of the Mongols, who have long practiced pastoralism on Central Asia’s vast steppe.'

Every region and community holds their own Naadam Festival. The Festival proceeds irrespective of the weather. We attended the Festival's first day with pouring rain, cooler temperature (felt like a balmy 3C/37F) and a cold wind blowing.

Khatgal Naadam Festival Schedule

Opening Ceremony

My heart was with everyone participating in the opening ceremonies who had do endure the pouring rain without any protection against the elements! The open ceremony's primary focus was the passing of multiple flags and the raising of the country's flag.

Waiting for the riders to bring the flags

Bringing the national and ceremonial flags into
the 'stadium'

Circling flag pole where all flags would be
displayed

Passing the flags to the military

The flags would be subsequently presented to
representatives from different groups

Viewing stands around the stadium

Playing the Morin Khuur - horsehead fiddle -
an emblem of identity for nomadic communities

Traditional dancers

Horse Racing

The horse racing contest started before the opening ceremonies. The jockeys were mainly young boys under 12 albeit I did spot one young girl. I think the first race involved the jockeys riding their horses (in the pouring rain) about 27 km away to start the race with the finish line within the Festival grounds. We witnessed the horses crossing the finish line a little later in the morning.

Jockeys warming up as their horse are weighed
and scrutinaized by the race officials

Beautiful horse - used in opening ceremony

Young girl jockey

Crossing the finish line

Was cold enough to see the horses' breath

Wrestling

We had the ultimate unique Festival experience in the wrestling competition. One of our drivers, a former wrestler, entered the competition. Tobias, our Austrian traveling companion, also entered the competition. Any male is allowed to enter the competition. Our fearless driver was defeated in the opening round. Our brave Tobias advanced to the second round when his opponent failed to show up. Tobias had the honour of doing the victory 'dance' around the flag pole and throwing cheese curd on the ground/into the audience as part of his victory celebration.

Round 2 proved to be more challenging for our brave Tobias in spite of his six years of judo training. He held his ground for several minutes before his opponent overpowered him. Kudos to Tobias for his willingness to participate in the Festival by taking on this wrestling challenge! An indelible moment!

Experienced wrestlers dressed for the match

Tobias in action

Posing with his victorious opponent!

Archery

Oh my god! It was so cold and wet when the archers drew their bows for this competition. Dan, a fellow traveler with a keen interest in archery, had the chance to speak with an experienced archer. One astounding fact was this archer's bow had 75 lb of tension. Dan helped us understand the significance of this tension with the following analogy - imagine holding a 75 lb dumbbell for an extended period prior to releasing the arrow. What strength - to both hold the arrow as well as aim the arrow while pulling on the bowstring!

It was so cold and wet, the archers sat in their cars until it was their turn. Apologies for the lack of photos. I blame the weather!

Uran Togoo extinct volcano

We traveled about six hours on the following day to hike up this second unremarkable volcano for a view we were already familiar with. I did make the hike up out of sheer boredom and the need for some exercise.

Coincidentally, there was a tourist ger camp within 20 minutes of the volcano. We probably experienced the coldest night of our trip at this camp. The camp staff light a fire in the ger stove at night and reappeared at 5 am to light another fire to warm us up.

My best guess is the tour operator included this unremarkable stop as a way to break up the long drives between our destinations.

View from volcano

Fauna

Fox carefully tracking us

Yak overlooking our outdoor picnic

Supersized cricket

Sunset - July 5

The skies were progressively overcast as we traveled north from the Gobi Desert. I did manage one sunset photo sequence for the week!

Starry Starry Night

On a clear night, in the absence of light pollution, the Milky Way fills the sky with its wonder. I was blessed to have this experience readily available outside my backdoor in small town northern Alberta, Canada.

Friends

I was blessed to have a few chance encounters with some amazing Mongolian people - separate from our staged tour group encounters. The people I met were warm, friendly and self-deprecating about their English language skills.

Kharkhorin

I was shopping for treats at Mongolia's version of Costco when I decided to have a mango smoothie while I waited for my tour group to catch up with me at the store. I met this amazing 17 year old woman, Khaliun, who spoke wonderful English. I would learn later that she was the niece of the coffee shop owner.

When Khaliun left, I met her 15 year old cousin Irmuun who was equally committed to speaking to me in English. His mom was keenly interested in all of our conversations. Irmuun is the oldest of four children, the youngest being just 18 months. He also shared that his mom was only 40 years old. Their family owned and operated the coffee shop within the store. The family had recently moved from UB. His father is an engineer.

Irmuun and I exchanged contact info so we can stay in touch. Thanks to Irmuun for sharing the correct spelling of all their names!

Please meet Khaliun

Please meet Otgontuya (Otgoo) and her son Irmuun

Mongolian BBQ

I had a great, albeit brief conversation, with this young man after our meal. Happy and personable, my kind of person. He was all over the chance to have his photo taken!

Horseback Riding

My thanks to my fellow traveler Murray for taking this series of photos as I worked towards having a photo taken with my two frisbee pals. It took a few moments, soft words and many hand gestures to communicate that i wanted a photo of the three of us!

I think I spent about an hour tossing the frisbee with them. My proud moment was when the little girl, after some extra attention, decided to join in tossing the frisbee. She had the greatest smile and sheer determination each time she threw the frisbee. Another remarkably special moment in my great travel adventure. Thank you to the universe for this gift!

Please come over here for a photo

Hold the frisbee and look at the camera

Yes, pls hold the frisbee together

Oh, so close

Almost there

Success at last!

Snack Break

I think every small town has someone special that everyone knows. Jeep Bourque was the person in my home town of Lac La Biche who was familiar to residents and made himself known to visitors. There may also be a certain amount of alcohol in his daily life.

I mention this as context for my meeting this gregarious man in the photo below. He reminded me of Jeep Bourque. This guy approached me, with his hand extended, in the middle of this small town's street. He was grinning ear to ear in his excitement. I thought a memory pic was appropriate to remember this friendly greeting from a local resident for a stranger tin his town.

Town's one person welcoming committee!

Khuvsgul Lake

I met a South Korean Methodist pastor, his family and local minister during our tourist ger camp stay at Khuvsgul Lake. The pastor was doing missionary work at a local seminary in support of the minister. I had noticed the group enjoying a home cooked meal on a picnic table outside their ger. I approached them an offering of the Taiwanese dark chocolate wafers I had for their dessert. They were most appreciative, reciprocating with South Korean treats for me. It really helps when the people you meet have English language skills!!!

South Korean treats

Uran Togoo extinct volcano

I noticed this family in traditional dress while I was walking around the volcano's crater. They were part of a larger group hosting some type of ceremony on the volcano. I was fortunate this family agreed to their photo taken.

Next Week

We have one last monastery to visit before we head back to Ulaanbaatar on Monday. I found an apartment through Booking.com to spend my last four nights in Ulaanbaatar. I fly to Almaty on Saturday morning, travel by public bus to the Almaty 2 train station from which I board an overnight train to Tashkent, Uzbekistan.