Post # 128 Hahorin (Karakorum).

Day 159 572 days to go. Distance today 52km total 8680km. It’s 4pm Monday  7/5/2012 Hahorin (Karakorum).

The ride today has been really hard and really spectacular with so much cool stuff along the way. Im currently sitting in the hotel room all squeaky clean having my washing done by staff as a treat. Kang is eating his entire food supply which is pretty impressive. Despite the shorter distance the hills were constant and long and hand in hand with that notorious headwind. But the effort is so worth it!! I saw my first Mongolian camels today. Camels are called ‘Timer’ and goats ‘yama.’ A small herd were grazing in a field we passed OMG!! They look so odd with huge hoofs and beards and a thick winter coat shedding for summer and giving them the best Bob Marley look. Quite untidy actually but I wouldn’t say that to the head herd honcho. We walked closer towards them and the others were a bit startled but not him. He just stood his ground checking us out. This herd of goats and sheep then came through he valley. It was really funny seeing just how smart goats are and sheep aren’t. Clearly the boss camel wasn’t moving or letting the herd through. The sheep all went up to him and stodd there looking ahead where they wanted to go but not sure how to manage that. Every goat just took an immediate wide birth around and kept going. Slowly the sheep cottoned onto to this and followed. What a wonderful treat to watch. Im loving the little marmots. They are in most fields if you stop long enough to ‘critter spot’ particularly in the early morning and evenings. They scamper between holes and leave a path of little footprints which Kang has nicknamed ‘good roads.’ J I saw one little critter today being snared by a hawk which was tragic but an impressive display of nature at its brutal best. At about 50kms out of Hahorin we came out to an open plateau that Kang said looked like a scene from Tibet. It was amazing, The ride along the plateau was the hardest yet with cross winds meeting and blowing in gusts out of control! An incredible experience!!! The cross winds were sending a all of dust spirals down the plain wow so weird!! It really loved today after a crap start at the ger. Another man was very drunk this morning and wanted to push his drunken masculinity on me as I was preparing to head off. I blasted him the best mouthful of assertiveness I could muster and left him looking holding his ol’ fella looking the right idiot. It was a crap but good experience to be more specific about ger choices. A single ger with a family is the safe go. Makes now for a good story and Im definitely the wiser. Kang said so accurately, alcohol makes good men act badly’ and isn’t that the truth. We’re heading off to town now to do some shopping and have a looky around for that internet cafe. Talk soon

PS I ended up finding the café and have updated the post while Kang checked out the Erdene Zuu temple this morning. Ive run out of time so the next update should be from Tetserleg in a couple days time x