Monday, February 18, 2008

Kharkhorin



For the long weekend of Tsagaan Tsar ("The White Month", i.e. the 1st month of the new Asian year), Deborah, Mavis and I went to Kharkhorin, the ancient capital of Mongolia before Kublai Khan moved it to Beijing. We stayed with herder families in their gers, which was amazing, though very cold & draughty on the floor ....

All in all it was a great 4 days, although tinged with early disaster. We arrived at the first ger camp on "Hogmany", as it were, and the driver was soon off his @#$% with vodka, and even more so the next day, and so they had to send a replacement driver from UB. Luckily we weren't too far away that they could do that.

This first picture is of a fox eating a dog's head. We had been driving for several hours towards Mongol Eels, when we saw two black-backed vultures tearing into something. This fox was sitting back, waiting till they had finished so he could have his turn.

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