Khövsgöl

After having crossed the Chinese border with Mongolia, I decided to spend a few days in Ulan Baatar (talk about the city in my next post) before leaving for Lake Khövsgöl (Хөвсгөл нуур). The lake is located in the northwest of the country near the Russian border. It is 1645 m above sea level, 136 km long and 262 m (!) deep.

Lake Khövsgöl or Hovsgol is the small brother of the world's biggest lake, lake Baikal

We (me, Gerry (Israel), Fabio (Italy) and Hariki (Japan)) geared up our bag packs and traveled with local transport for a 24 hour journey to the lake. We soon regretted our choice to do as the "Romans in Rome" (i.e. local transport), the roads (if any) were bumpy and the Russian van was completely overpacked (20 people cramped up in a too small van). One of the worst rides of my life, most definitely...

Mongolia's favourite mode of public transportation

After a devastating 20 hours of bumpy and dusty roads, we finally managed to arrive in the town of Moroon. There we took another bus to finally arrive at Khatgal (Хатгал), a small wild-west ghost town where residents still live in harmony (and without television) with nature. A great sight in itself, though surreal.

Down town Khatgal

The lake and the surrouding nature was however the prime attraction of the area. Simply stunning...

Lake Khövsgöl

The trip was an amazing adventure; full of smoked fish, horse riding (three days with a Russian saddle), milk (really lots of it) and a bluer than blue sky (No pollution? Not a sign of!).

It feels strange going from the most densest populated area of the most densest populated country to the least densest populated area in the world. Where are the people!? Strange feeling...

Next time more on Mongolia.

Love,

Marijn