Great White Lake

Nomads milking yaks.

A homestead.

My Mongolian group.

The network of two wheel tracks.

Driving north up the east side of the Great White Lake.

Fording streams.

The Great White Lake.

Tony about to hurl a cow pie frisbee.

Demoiselle Cranes.

Local kids checking us out.

Wednesday, July 4^th.

I was up early, and it was finally a very sunny morning, so I went for a walk to where I was last night and re-took some of the photos of the wooden huts I took last night. I watched from a distance as a family were out milking the yaks. I watched a man take a young yak from the corral and take it to its mother so it could nurse. A woman was milking a yak beside it and when she finished she took her stool to the yak that was nursing and plunked herself down. The man came over and picked up the young one and unceremoniously dropped it back over the fence where it paced back and forth trying to get back to its mom. 

We took a group photo before our convoy set off at 9:00 this morning. We drove from the camp to ­­Great White Lake and drove along the shore of the whole 16 km length of the lake on very rough overland roads. We drove on dirt tracks for the whole day, but thankfully it was not a long driving day today. We saw lots of beautiful scenery. About midday we entered Buhuu's home province.

We got to our camp about 2 and settled in. We had a half hour so I went for a quick walk back down to the river we had just passed where I had seen a pair of Demoiselle Cranes feeding and dancing. I got some good photos before rushing back for lunch. After that we to a trip to the nearby town of Moron to buy supplies. Most people went back to the camp after that but Ellen, Carol, Phyllis and myself wanted to walk through the town to see what a typical Mongolian town looked like so Buhuu came with us. We had a nice walk through and around the town taking photos. This town was built by the Soviets years ago. We saw the new hospital, the power station, the school and boarding house for rural kids, and the few shops. On the way out we walked up a hill that gave us a good elevated view of the city. Then we walked through the forest back to camp.

When I got back I made use of the camp hot springs. Again, it felt good to soak in the warm thermal waters. Then I shaved my whole head. I had a beer with Fred and Bryan before dinner. Dinner was very simply with undressed spiral pasta, yak meat with no gravy, beetroot and spicy kimchi. Very strange dinner. Then Buhuu gave us all a shot of Mongolian vodka and a little packaged cake like a Wagonwheel, to celebrate one of the driver’s birthday and the 4^th of July. As usual most people went back to their gers after that while some of us hung around to talk. Tony and I had another beer and I showed Fred and Phyllis one of my Blurb books. Then we all retired.