Aug 15 2009

Mongolia 2009 – Part 5 – Lake Khovsgol

Published by at 4:21 pm under Lake Khovsgol,Mongolia

After the horse trek in the west was finished, I went to the north of Mongolia for a few days to check out the area around Lake Khövsgöl. The lake is known for how deep it is and the clarity of its water. It’s big enough that it contains about 1% of the world’s fresh water. The scene is pretty mellow and after two full days of a horseback ride, a boat ride, and a short hike, my guide and I packed up to head back to UB.

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Looking down the shore of Lake Khovsgol. The water is deceptively clear: in some places you think you could swim to touch the bottom but it’s much, much further down than you think.

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A look up the lake from Khatgal, the town at the southern end of the lake.

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Here I am inspecting the Mongolian Navy whose home port is Khatgal. 🙂

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At the top of the mountain behind our ger camp.

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My guide, Byambaa. He’s far more fit than I am so I was happy that I beat him to the top. Then again, he paused for 15 minutes to call his girlfriend back in UB.

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A beautiful sunset over our ger camp the night before we left.

On the way back to the airport, Byambaa took me by one of the highest concentrations of deer-stones in the world. These are remnants of an older civilization and there have been many interpretations of the markings on them but he said that recent research indicates that the society was a matriarchal one and these stones are monuments to the leaders. They’re called deer-stones because of the deer usually etched into them like in this picture. They believe these represented the tattoos on the leaders’ bodies.

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One of the deer-on a deer-stone.

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Me next to one of the few deer-stones left that has a person’s head on it.

After seeing the deer-stones, we drove to the airport and flew back to UB.

– Dave

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