Sunrise behind the hill

When I wake up, Ursula comes back from a sunrise walk. There is a chilly wind and blue sky. Promising. And yes, it will be around 20 degrees today, a warm summer day.

Walking to the Ashishai Sant hill

Armed with a promising box lunch, we walk uphill – directly behind our camp.  Our driver, Pudje, has taken over the lead, as he is from the area. Lark tree forest and soft ground – this is the taiga.  Pudje  scratches off the resin of the lark tree and chews it lie a chewing gum. I try it and it has a bitter taste.

We have to be careful not to step on the mushrooms, there are puffballs, russola, chanterelles, relatives of the bolet and many more. Here we could just collect them. Pudje kneels down in front of a white mushroom in the meadow, looks at the bottom of the stem and frowns. Yes, he is right, also the lamellas are white. It is a death cap.

Though late in summer, there are many flowers, like carnation or gentiane

Worshiping the ovoo on the top

On the top of the hill, there are two piles of branches decorated with colorful ribbons. Pudje adds a few branches. As this is how Mongolians show their respect for nature in Mongolia, we do the same. Then we walk around the ovoo – clockwise- and I notice that Pudje takes his cap off.

We enjoy the view. Our lunch box is delicious:  Soup, dumplings (bansh) with beef and a cabbage-carrot salad. Then we continue to a pretty swamp field. We share it with a herd of Yak.

Back in our ger

Around 3 PM we are back in our ger and enjoy our siesta to recover from our short night in Ulanbaator.