Terelj National Park

So after our amazing adventure to Elsen Tasarkhai, we had a night’s rest in our hostel (had kfc that night cause too much mutton HAHA) and the next morning we were off to our 3 day 2 night at Terelj national park. We were all feeling the effects of the exhaustion from the previous tour but we soldiered on. Our tour guide, Mr Bayasaa was as good a guide as our previous Mr Tulga. He was knowledgable, funny and happy to facilitate what we wanted to do. So the tour began by heading to turtle rock. Turtle rock is this huge rock formation that bears a semblance to a turtle (pics below). In all honesty, the pictures do not do the rock’s size any justice at all. After turtle rock, we visited an ancient monastery in the park. It was a pretty tiring walk up due to the elevation of the monastery and the steep roads (it has been awhile since our commando journey :0 ). It was worth the effort as the monastery itself is beautiful and we learnt quite bit about the religion while up there. Following this, we headed straight for our host’s ger. It was quite a drive as Terelj is a massive park spanning 100km and our host’s ger was in a pretty remote part of the park. Soon after we reached, we realised it was going to be different from our previous nomadic experience. Our hosts were much younger at age 29 and 25 and they reared cows rather than goats. The gers they had were also of much larger size. After arriving we were all dead tired so we took rest in our ger (after the welcome gestures of fermented milk and vodka). Dinner was amazing as it was literally just a plate of steamed dumplings, so many that even with the 4 of us, we struggled to finish them. The interesting part of the night came when we were playing cards to decide who was going to wake up in the night to fuel the fire. At a certain point while we were playing, our young host came inside our ger to provide more firewood and he saw us playing. He understood the game “Big 2” and decided to sit in and play with us. It was quite a fun experience as there was a language barrier but we all played together effortlessly and he was a really good player. The next day, we slept in a bit and began the major highlight of the tour. We were to take a horse ride through to the nearest town and back. It was 10km to and fro so we rode about 20km that day! We were actually unsure whether we were going to ride and control the horse on our own and to our surprise/nervousness we got to ride the horses by themselves. It was pretty thrilling riding as we not only walked but after awhile we started to go faster and at certain points we actually got to gallop on the horse which was amazing (never done it before). Besides the actual riding of the horse, the other aspect that was amazing was the sights. It was just beautiful trees and large open spaces blanketed by pure white snow. There is just no words to describe what we had the privilege to see (the pictures show what i mean). One funny/scary moment was when my friend (Sheng Yang) fell into the mud because his horse slipped. We were initially fearful for his safety but because he was not hurt (thankfully), we all had a good laugh 🙂 The end of ride showed us how exhausting riding was as every single part of our bodies were in pain (butt, arms, back, neck). The exhaustion consumed the rest of our day as we mainly feasted with our hosts, played some cards and went to sleep. We were sad to leave the next day but the trip has to go on. Time for some relaxation in Ulaanbaatar 🙂