15th – 22nd July 2014

Next on our mission list was a short walk to Orkhon Waterfall – stunning!  There is the upside of all that rain we had, a waterfall in full glory!

Two guys walked over and promptly posed for a photograph

Pics of us with our guide and driver, Gala and Banza, and waterfall pics

We did a spot of river (well, stream) jumping to get there and back

Love the concentration tongue Stefan!  More of a skip than a jump, no?!

Near to the waterfall was a slightly unusual exhibition of skulls and carvings.

Creepy.  Reminds me of the film alien!

The  animal of choice here is the yak, they are so cute!   Cows with dresses on 🙂

A river we were supposed to cross but the bridge was out, so we may do this on the way back

The usual offerings of milky hot tea, be that camel, horse or yak milk, hot and slightly salty, were always very welcomed, especially after a long wet day in the saddle.  The families often have meat hanging up in their gers, drying it out for use at a later date.

They also have curd made from the yak’s milk

The yak butter was pretty tasty!

Our cosy toasty stove in our ger

This stove also has another story, that I am slightly ashamed of.  The morning we were leaving we’d just lit the stove up to warm us up, and my shoes were slightly damp from the day before still.  Wanting to put my feet into cosy warm shoes I thought I’d place them onto the stove directly, just to warm them a little, I placed them not on the sole side down, but the lace/top side down.  I checked them after a couple of minutes and all was fine, so I got a little complacent and left them for a few minutes….I suddenly remembered them, just as I smelled that acrid smell of burning synthetics, and as I picked my shoes up the melting plastic was stringing it’s way back to the scalding hot stove, where a little pool of hot black chemical liquid now lay.

The laces had melted, I’d managed to melt out one of the external lace loopholes, and part of the tongue.  It is an understatement to say that I was so annoyed with myself!  So annoyed that I couldn’t even bring myself to take a picture of the melted black puddle on the stove!  They were nice decent shoes, and I knew I was being an idiot by putting them on the stove, but I still did it!

I also knew the stove would get very hot, but still did it!  Poor Stefan and Sebastien, I don’t think I stopped going on about it all day.  It’s just so annoying when you know you shouldn’t do something, but for some dumb arse reason you still do it!  Oh to be human I suppose, or is that just me?

On a more positive note, they weren’t ruined, they just had to be laced a little differently,  with new laces of course because these ones had all but disintegrated!

Our toilet at the ger site – for those times when you just can’t bear to be apart!