Beautiful Country

This week was quite an adventure.  Grandma stayed in UB working on our English booklets that we are trying to get done in the next two weeks and I went to XAHX (pronounced: Haunk).  XAHX is a town of 3000 people up above the largest lake in Mongolia by the Russian border.  To get there it is an 11 hour drive, thru Darkhan, Erdenet & Murun to the Lake and then another 8 hour drive along the mountain around the lake to the town.  It had been raining for two days prior to our arrival and it rained again the night we arrived at the Geir Camp at the bottom edge of the lake, so the road was impassible.  We then started hunting a boat that could take us there, 140 kilometers (90 miles).  We found a man that used to be a province councilman that was from XAHX and he offered to take us, if we would pay for the gasoline.  It costs $350 for the gas and so four of us were going to head across the lake:  me, my translator, the councilman, and his boat driver; then the immigration Colonel from Murun decided he wanted to come, so two hours later (noon) 5 of us set off across the lake.  The lake is crystal clear with no fish.  The ice is 3-4 feet thick in the winter, which is too thick, and on the lake too long, for fish to live.  After a gasoline-smelling, bucking-water-slapping 3 hour boat ride we arrived in XAHX.  The city Governor and a few others met us and took us to lunch. We then took a tour of the three water stations they are requesting help with. Then back to the boat, another bucking-bronco boat ride across the lake, ending with an hour long rain and wind storm just before dark to finishing the journey.   It is beautiful country, very remote. The mountain separating Mongolia and Siberia was covered with snow. It is always covered with snow.  We saw some reindeer, yaks, and the normal herds of sheep, goats, horses, and cows. Along the countryside numerous little stands are selling horse milk to tourists and passersby.  We obviously learned a lot. We have decide to build the requested water stations so we will be going back a few times next spring. 

An interesting side note:  It is so remote and difficult to get to that in the months of January-March they drive (and of course slip and slide) in cars, trucks, and semi-trucks across the lake.  They can make it in two hours.  The big trucks take their cab doors off so that if the truck breaks thru the ice they can get out.  Every once in a while a truck goes thru the ice.  There might be another boat ride or around the lake jeep ride for us but no rides in a wheeled vehicle across the ice for us, even if it is 4 feet thick!

Other than the above adventure it was a normal week working as humanitarian missionaries in Mongolia.