Reflections

When planning our trip, we found there to be relatively little information out there.  Of course, this added to the attraction of Mongolia; it increased the element of adventure.  Nonetheless, we thought there were quite a few things it would have been useful to know.  We set them out here. 

Maps

We decided to put quite a bit of effort into the maps.  At Mapstor.com, you can download hundreds of maps of Western Mongolia for a pretty cheap price (about US$35, I think).  These seem to be old Russian maps.  The place names are in Cyrillic, which is useful for showing the locals, but does - quite fairly - make them think you speak the language, which in our case wasn't true.  

We downloaded and printed the 1:100,000 maps of the entire area:



The maps all laid out - Lake Hovsgol in top right corner; Russian border down left side


Checking them on the go

They didn't take up too much room, but proved invaluable.  At the Tourist Information in Moron they had a photocopied tourist map which we also bought. And in some shops in UB you can buy maps too.  But for detail and price, we found the Mapstor ones to be the best by quite a margin. 

If all else fails though, we were given one great piece of advice: "follow the wooden pylons", which stretch between pockets of civilisation!

Food

We took all our food with us.  We weren't sure how much we would be able to find en route, and didn't fancy a month's worth of kimchee-flavoured instant noodles.  We packed back-country food: high in energy, but light.  We took a few hot porridge breakfasts, too.  These proved invaluable on cold mornings.

You didn't have to take your own food.  In every little town we sniffed out a canteen which would sell us a greasy meat fried pasty; or, if we were very lucky, a plate of goulash.  We had one rule on the trip: never turn down an opportunity for goulash. But in our experience you would be largely subsisting on instant noodles - fine for the odd meal, but not great every day. 

Breakfast 


The best dinner!

Fishing

A quick paragraph or two about fishing.  To fish anywhere in the area you need a permit.  You can't obtain a permit as an individual.  Instead, you need to go through one of the large companies, such as FishMongolia.

There are financial penalties if you are caught fishing without a permit (hundreds of $, confiscation of equipment, not to mention getting into a potentially difficult situation with a non-English speaking ranger etc).  Anecdotally, we heard these financial penalties incentivise the locals to refer fisherman to the rangers so they can take a cut of the fine, increasing your chances of being caught.  We met a ranger (identifiable from their caps, apparently.  And their rifles.) in the dark in one of the most remote areas on the Delger Moron.  This proved two things to us: first, that the rangers do actually operate, and second that they operate along the length of the river.  

The only exception to this rule is at Lake Hovsgol, where you can buy a fishing permit from the only vaguely municipal-looking building in town (towards the north end, in the same car-park as the "Flower" restaurant).   


Jigleg Pass

We had two concerns about the Jigleg Pass.  The first was Russian Bandits.  I had read somewhere that apparently they operate in the area.  We saw no-one for the three days we were up there.  The second was the bogs.  We were lucky in that it had been dry for a long period of time before we went up, and the bogs were navigable.  We had to push through them for about 400m at the top, but I think it would be do-able (although difficult) if it had been wetter.

The cycle down the other side was superb, and there are some great walking opportunities in the valley just off the top:

We climbed to the top of the far left peak

The mountain on the far right is the tallest in the area.  We started off aiming for the one in the middle, which looked to have a superb, elegant, sweeping peak.  But we ended up on the top of the one on the left.  Nonetheless, the views down into the Depression were incredible:

Looking south


Fuel

We took an any-fuel Primus stove with two one-litre, refillable fuel canisters.  Each town had a petrol (gas) station, so we had no problems about topping up.  These have also been known to run on vodka - you won't have a problem there, then. 

Packrafts

We each bought an Alpacka Unrigged Explorer.  They are only sold in the USA (for now, at least), so I had them shipped over to Singapore which is where I was for the six months before the trip.  Yes, they are expensive - but they are the best in the business.  We considered getting the Denali Llama.  A couple of things stopped us.  First, we wanted it to be able to carry as much weight as possible, and we knew we would be short of space with the bikes and all our kit.  Second, we knew we weren't going to be doing any whitewater rafting, either on the trip or afterwards, and so wouldn't put the upturned bow of the Llama to good use.  There are arrangements of grab loops and tiedowns which make it easiest to attach a bike.  I think these are shown on the Alpacka website. In any event, we went for just about as many as as feasibly possible - and used them all too!

Bikes

We bought our bikes from Mongolia Pro Cycling, in UB, before we left.  We had tried to arrange to buy new ones, but ended up with ex-rental Trek 3700 disk brakes mountain bikes.  They were perfect.  I also have to say that we received an excellent service from the shop: our flight into UB was delayed, and our flight out was early the next morning, so they kept the shop open for us till about midnight.  They were also talking about instituting a novel method of distributing spare parts to all corners of the country, which could be extremely useful if you found yourself in a tight spot.  

There are other shops in UB though, so if you don't want to take your kit out with you then it is worth shopping around.  I found people to be responsive to emails. 

We also each took out with us a Freewheel.  These were excellent.  They also received a lot of attention from the local Mongolians.  Their strength is their simplicity: they join onto the bike with a very simple and robust mechanism.  They also allowed us to spread the weight off our back wheels, which was important considering some of the terrain we were confronted with.  We were advised that it might be a good idea to bring out your own rear pannier if you are going to be subjecting them to some abuse. Alex's broke just off the Jigleg Pass, and although were only 10kms from town where we easily found the local bike mechanic to fix it, if you are anywhere more remote it might be more problematic. 

We also took Swalbe Marathon Plus ATB tyres.  These are woven with something which prevents punctures, and they were extremely effective.  Which is useful, considering the amount of broken glass that sometimes seems to cover every square meter of Mongolian countryside.  Only one puncture each. 



Alex's cycling set up



Border Permit

You need a border permit to head up into the taiga.  I had read beforehand that these can be difficult to get. I think that's what the Lonely Plant says, and advises to get them in UB before you head our to the Aimag.  In the end, we had no problems at all.  It was sorted for us in one afternoon by the really helpful girls who were working at the Tourist Information in Moron.  A quick note about this Tourist Information: it is open for around 3 months during the summer, shutting around the first week in October.  During the period it is open, there are two English-speaking European volunteers there.  The ones we met were extremely helpful. 

If you cut a line between Ulaan-Uul and the bottom of the Jigleg Pass, anywhere above this you would need a permit to travel in.  We were spot-checked in Renchinlhumbe, and registered with the border police in Tsaagaannuur (there is a small military compound up the hill behind TCVC). 

I should say that we came across some travellers in Tsaagaannuur who I'm sure if you asked about a permit they would look at you blankly. 



Weather

Our trip lasted one month from the middle of September to the middle of October.  Some days were shorts and t-shirt hot, others saw 4 inches of fresh powder.  There was, however, virtually no rain and we had predominently blue skies.  One benefit of this time of year is that we saw not a single mosquito.  Considering we were camping next to water almost every night of the trip, this was a major plus.


Alternative Routes

A quick line about some alternative routes.  We were lucky that our plans worked out practically without hitch.  We were, however, thinking of alternative routes in case we, for example, didn't get the border pass, or the Delger Moron proved too difficult for us to paddle down.  A couple of other options we considered:
  • Cycle up to Lake Hovsgol and float down the Eg River (the only river which flows out of the lake); cycle back to Moron.  We met a pair who had done this in canoes, rather than packrafts.  The scenery looked good, but perhaps a little less remote and a little less spectacular than the Delger Moron.  We did camp one night on the banks of this river, though, and it was a lovely spot.
  • Cycle up to Tsaagannuur and raft down the Shishged River, which is the only river flowing out of the Depression into Russia.  This is, we heard, an epic trip, but one which requires a high degree of logistical organisation if you are doing it on your own, as it takes you close to the Russian border with no obvious route back.  It would be, from what we heard, the most adventurous trip in the area.



The Mobot

2 comments:

  1. This is bare peng mate!!!!

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  2. Thanks for the info. Good suggestions for international trips in general. Glad you guys had a good time.

    ReplyDelete