Not long after dawn (4am) a parade starts in and out of the ger to get things - a jacket, a pot. About 6:45am the entire stove is removed. I get the message that we should get up so go outside. The sky is wonderful, clear and blue. The sun is shining brightly and mist is rising from the river. Hopefully our shoes will dry out today (Keira is wearing crocs, but Alesia decided to wear leather slip-ons and walked into the river on our first day). Just after 7 I wake Toya (again). She slept in the car with the driver as she wasn't keen on sleeping on a dirt floor. We are in a Delica 4WD van. The seat configuration is great. It can seat nine with seat belts. The back six seats can be set up as a bus, facing the one way, or like on a train, facing each other. At night all of them fold down in some way so that the entire back is like one big mattress.
The view from the toilet: an eagle circling, a horse having a sit in the grass, small white wildflowers dotting the grass, the horizon a long way away. I ignore the fact that this is the most open, wobbly toilet platform I have ever used. Keira and Alesia don't go anywhere near it.
The herd was rounded up again this morning. Now a sheep lies neatly on its back, skin peeled back, ready to be chopped up. I pointed it out to Keira and she said "It is not saying baa?" so I said it died. Keira replied "What is died?" So we had the beginnings of one of those value-building conversations. I wasn't expecting to address so many fundamentals with the girl's on this trip - such as what to do with body wastes and the meaning of life and death. Chris looked at the sheep ready for butchering, muttered "Hakuna Matata - Circle of Life" and walked over to watch (sorry, you will only understand the joke if you have watched the episode of Hollowmen in the ABC about health policy).
Chris was told that the river next to the gers is the same river that Genghis Khan drank from as a child, so he washed his face in the river
and marvelled at his connection with the hero.
and marvelled at his connection with the hero.
One of the local boys jumped in the van and we went hunting for wild strawberries. We drove up to the edge of the pine forest, parking amidst thousands of wildflowers. The berries prefer to grow wild in the damper parts of the forest - the parts full of mosquitoes. Keira and I lasted about five minutes foraging before heading back out to the sun and breeze (which kept about 70% of the bugs away, we still had to stand waving our arms about). Chris and Alesia kept on going with the others and came back 20 minutes later with handfuls of intensely sweet mini berries. We returned to drop the boy home and said goodbye to our hosts, business making sausages from sheep intestines. Then we drove back to Batshireet, which looks much prettier in the sunshine.
We drive and drive and drive until we reach the village of Binder for lunch - tuna sandwiches on Buriat bread. We keep on driving and driving until we reach the river crossing. We have to use a rickety old barge that is basically dragged between two old wooden loading ramps (loading ramp implies much more than was actually used). When we arrived a 4WD was up to its door handles in the river on the other side - it had fallen off the makeshift ramp. We sat and waited for our turn. The bargemen abandoned the 4WD in the water (to shrill shouts of disapproval from one of the women in the car) and came over to our side. The girl's caused a big stir - little barbie and big barbie - as the bargemen never get little foreign blond children at the crossing.
We got our car on and the men pulled the barge over to the other side. Meanwhile the stranded car backed out of the river after the occupants piled lots of rocks under its tyres. Then it was our turn to descend. Baabaa (our driver) wouldn't let any of us in the car, and we were happy to get out anyway. We crowded around the sides and watched the delicate alignment of the barge with the logs set up as the exit ramp. Baabaa is an excellent driver, so it was only a matter of minutes before he had the car off the barge and up on the bank. Then the bargemen dismantled the temporary ramp in the water and moved the barge over to the permanent ramp. We looked at each other blankly, and then Toya explained that there was a silt build-up on the permanent ramp so the barge didn't line up with it properly. Baabaa had a good shovel in his car, so they had borrowed that to clear away the silt. I have no idea why they didn't find a shovel earlier rather than build the temporary ramp out in the water, but I guess we were only getting part of the story...
After our crossing the girls went for a paddle in the river to cool off and ended up swimming in their undies. Chris took the chance to have a wash. Baabaa found a slow leak in one tyre, put the spare on and it was in worse condition than the original so put the original tyre back on (and then spent the rest of the trip getting the hand pump out occassionally). The other car that had been stranded drove onto the barge via the permanent ramp and everyone was happy!
Then we drove and drove and drove and drove. At one point we stopped to watch a newly born foal figure out how to walk, while its mother kicked at any other horse that came near it.
Finally we reached Dadal, a village only about 20km from the Russian border. It was after 7pm and we dithered about where to camp. The tour office said we would spend two nights here, by the river which was noted for its beauty. They neglected to mention the giant bugs swarming. We went down to the river where people were collecting water - they said that there were no camping spots anywhere free of bugs....We thought we would do better up on the hills near the forest, so we went up there and found just as many bugs, but it was late and we needed to set up camp. This was our first night in tents after the two nights in gers. We were one tent short and one sleeping mat short. Toya agreed to give up her tent and sleeping mat and stay in the car with the driver. As I fumed and sorted things out in the tent Chris started whistling "I lied about being the outdoor type" by The Lemonheads.
Video link to the song
Audio link to the song
