The Mongolia Diaries: Day Fifteen and Sixteen

Breakfast was served in our ger. We had another long drive, the final one, to get back to the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. We would be stopping along the way to pick up someone who was on a short tour and needed a ride back to the city.

A rough idea of our journey back to Ulaanbaatar

We did about 100KM along a paved road before pulling off onto bumpy roads again. I couldn't help but giggle to myself at how many kilometres we had traveled over these kinds of roads. I wasn't sure I'd miss them much!

The car rides were much the same. One of the Australian girls and the French guy slept for almost all of the car rides and on this day, it was no different. The other Australian girl was reading a book on her iPad. I stared out the window and took in my surroundings as this would be the last of scenic Mongolia!

The place where we picked up the other tourist was in a place known as the 'mini Gobi'. There were small sand dunes and it was here that we were to spend the night prior. It was a shame the van needed to be fixed as this set of family gers would've been much nicer for sunset and sunrise on our final night and morning of the tour.

The family gers in the 'mini Gobi'

When we arrived to the family ger, we were invited in for some fermented camel's milk. I asked my guide to politely decline for me! This family had made some of the fermented milk into candies or cookies that were drying out on the roof of their ger. It looked like the same type of things that were being offered at the Naadam Festival in the Gobi Desert.

The traveler we picked up was a young kid from Europe who was making his way to Beijing by train.  He told me a few stories of his train adventures on the way back to the city.

One thing I did note about the journey back was the number of road kill we saw. Again, I had seen a number of dead animals all over Mongolia but this road kill was so much different. According to Google Maps, the road we were on was the only main road out from the capital city to central Mongolia, There were big cargo trucks traveling at ridiculous speeds. One would assume this goes on all through the night.

I saw cows that were full-on belly up with all four legs up in the air and their necks at odd angles. It was a tad horrifying. And there wasn't just one ... there were a number of these on the way back. I also saw a few dead horses but they were more humped over in a pile and ... just dead. Ugh.

It did make me wonder how they deal with the animals' bodies as the ones we saw on this day were right beside the tiny paved road. The fields always seemed to have a number of carcasses not too far from the roads that were left out to decompose. I made the assumption that it must be someone's job to come and move the road kill away from the roads. Could you imagine?!

Anyway ... this is my last post about Mongolia. We got back to the overcrowded and grossly polluted city of Ulaanbaatar and headed back to the Golden Gobi Guesthouse. I had one more night in my own suite before heading to the airport on a flight to Beijing.

I wandered around the city that day and picked up some souvenirs. I also stopped at a sports bar for a lovely salad (without goat's meat!) and two glasses of wine before calling it a night! My final thoughts on Mongolia ... BIG love and memories that will provide a lifetime of smiles!