Journey to West Mongolia: Our first intro to West Mongolia

Turbulence flight

The real journey begins when we took flight from UB to Olgii, western part of Mongolia. We were onboard Hunnu Air, in a Fokker, for a 3 hours journey from the eastern side of Mongolia to the western side, ie closer to Russia, Kazakhstan and China border.

The view of Mongolia landscape from up and above was just mesmerising, with the interchanging landscape makes you wonder where have you been all this while and how lucky I am to finally witness it. It makes you dream but was then interrupted by heavy turbulence when we were nearing Ulgii. You can feel the aircraft drops hard, blown to left and right like a kite being flown during strong wind. One of my 2 friends ie Noli kept saying I don't like this, squeezing hard whatever is near her (in this case Pzah), sometimes laughing like a crazy women and sometimes closing her eyes shut..perhaps some tears doesn shed from her eyes.....Pzah was seating quietly akin in yoga position pretending all is well but later confessed that she was just looking outside and praying hard that this is not the end of her life. As for me..I was just laughing hard at both, especially Noli...(for me i just let it be..whatever happens, happen..it is beyond my control hence why not just enjoy the moment)...

Anyway, we landed safely (otherwise this blog won't exist 😂😅) and I can see the relieved faces of all the passengers around me (there is only 9 of us anyway as it was an empty flight).

It is a small airport in the middle of nowhere but with mesmerising view..we kept taking videos and photos at the taxiway until security has to call us in...we did not realise that passengers going the opposite direction are waiting for us to clear so that they can board the plane 😅. I am sure some of them would be cursing us 😝😆..

4am at Ulanbataar airport..will we be in the same cheerful mode at the end of the journey?

The view from the flight

Different landscape from the earlier snowy areas

The excited me at Ulgii airport

Happy and relieved faces

Failed trademark jump 😝

We was greeted by Bek (JomOutdoor local partner) at the airport. He is a local Kazakh but educated in a Uni in Turkey and use to work in local based International mining company, which explains his fluent American slang English (infact he speaks 6 different languages). Like me, he quit his senior role to pursue what he loves most ie tourism and farming..unlike me though, his tourism business is doing well 👏👍

Bek brought us around Ulgii town (whilst waiting for a local restaurant to open). It is a very small town with old soviet buildings and newer buildings mixed..they were part of soviet (though they also say they wasn't)...

In Ulgii, about 94% of the population is Kazakh people with Islam as the main religion. Unfortunately during the previous communist era, all Islamic clerics were captured and killed and it resulted in many being afraid to practice the religion hence most of them are Muslim by birth but do not practice such. However, for the past years or so many Islamic clerics, especially from Turkey are here to help re-educate them about the religion.

One of the few local mosque in Bayan Ulgii town centre

One funny thing that we notice in Mongolia is they have about 50/50 vehicles with steering wheel either on the left or on the right..but they drive on the right lane..its also weird and sometimes can be hazardous as we look at the wrong side when were trying to cross the road 😅

Our chance of wifi came in Bek's car and the local restaurant and after such we must be prepared to be out from the virtual world for at least a week..something difficult for this generation where everywhere we goes our 'auntie' do follows us...it is a joke Noli made ie 'anti social' coz we can see nowadays even if everyone meets each other for a meal, they do seat at the same table but each will be staring at the face of their phone.

Bek knows the owner hence has made special arrangement for it to be opened earlier so that we can have breakfast and continue our long journey ahead. It was a tasty Turkish breakfast with main component being egg, cheese, home made butter etc.

Here most of the delicacies contains mainly dairy products, which is understandable as locals here are not good at farming but mostly are herders...and we later found out that you may not even see chicken as firstly its difficult to breed chicken as they are nomadics and move around based on season. Secondly, they do not like the taste of it (haha we also found out why..as they rarely see chicken, when they do have chicken meat, they just boil and eat hence its like tasteless...they don't know how to cook it..maybe next time we will bring KFC flour or maybe I will cook chicken curry for them).

Me and Bek..guess who is older 😉

The ladies with their auntie named Social

We commence our journey to Altai mountains using 2 vehicles, Bek's 4wd and a Russian van..its just weird as even at this early stage we felt right at home and so comfortable. Its like we have been in a journey for weeks and almost at the end of the road trip..at this stage we have seen and felt many new experiences, new food, new landscape...ahhh its just so perfect..watch this clip if you do not believe me..

The drive was on gravel roads and at one point i was given the chance to drive. It was weird and also a nerve wracking experience as i have to drive using vehicle with left steering wheel, on gravel roads and undulating terrains. To make it worst, Bek is watching me and hoping that i don't damage his vehicle and my friends also hoping that it's not the end of their journey..I got the experience of driving across icy streams, narrow curves with jutting stone walls and chasing a fast driven old Russian van in front. What a start!