A holy rock and then off to Badmaarag camp

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain hitting the tent. Once again we were lucky since the rain decided to have a short break just when we were packing our tent away and having breakfast. 

Then we walked 15 minutes to visit a holy rock that was supposedly there because a giant used it to kill a serpent – many years ago. Since then the Taikhar rock had been used tocarve holy messages into it by almost all people who have set foot on the Mongolian steppes. Mongol, Chinese etc. We spent some 20 minutes walking around, somehow the story about the rock was more interesting than the rock itself. 

Then we left for our 140 km drive today. Through beautiful landscapes – as usual – but today covered in grey clouds and rain. It was very quiet in the truck since most had stayed up last night for drinks.

We arrived at Badmaarag ger camp just before lunch and then the rain started again. Not much to do when the weather decides to include rain, wind and 10 degrees. So why not stay in bed in the ger or take a shower. Well easier said than done because it was only possible to shower when it wasn't raining. They turned of the water pump when it rained so nobody would get an electrical shock in the showers. It's still pretty basic places even though these ger camps are still muck more like real camp sites / hotels than in Kirgistan and China, Finally we both managed to get a shower - between the rain showers.

We were served really good dinner and also had a chance to look at the wrestling competition on TV. The national finals it seemed. The locals did a lot of cheering when the final match was over and the new champion was announced. It turns out that these guys gets price money in the millions of USD together with cars and apartments. That's how much wrestling means in a country with just over three million inhabitants.

Since the weather was truly broken down there was a good excuse to hang out in the common room and have a few drinks with whoever was staying there. World matters taken care of – ready for more Mongolia tomorrow.

The demand from some in the group - meat!

Morning exercise, Malene, Alice and Kate

The holy rock

Alice and Kate

Nice ger camp people helping with the luggage

Brrr - cold and rainy

Ger camp

Lunch

Surviving the storm and going to Bishkek

Woke up at 1 am. Because the wind was trying the move our tent. The storm had moved down from the mountains and suddenly we were in the middle of it with rain coming down too. Mikkel went out to put more pegs in and we survived the night. Carl and Adam did loose their tent bag, a reminder to put your bags underneath the tents and not in front of it during the night.

In the morning it had stopped raining so we decided to go for a very cold swim before breakfast and packing up the camp. Then we headed for Bishkek. The drive wasn't particularly impressive after so many days with good weather and impressive scenery in the mountains.

Arrived at our nice hotel and decided to skip the group dinner. This it the place where 8 from the 

group will leave, many of them having been on the truck since Istanbul.

The previous group dinner was not really good and we wanted to catch up with family and friends on Skype since it was Sunday evening so we decided not to join the group dinner (we did also have dinner together for the last 10 days). 

We went out on our own for dinner and found a cafe next to the big supermarket and ordered pizza, Greek salad and beer. Got beer, pizza and Caesar salad. Not totally fluent in Russian menu's yet but the food was really nice. When we came back to the hotel we went all the others. They were already back from the dinner which hadn't been all that great. Had a beer with them.

Did more internet during the night. Sometimes it is an advantage to be four hours ahead of DK timezone.

Our lunch stop in an abandoned building

Bagage crew, Carl, Al and Paul

Salad and pizza for dinner