The next morning Pembuck and I headed off to Chandmandi-Ondoo, a small town to the east. We rode through fields and fields of wild delphinium, edelweiss, and yellow poppies. Like cowboys in a Western film, we rolled into town and tied our horses up to the hitching post.
The town was a maze of wooden houses and dirt roads and Pembuk had a friend at the very edge of town. We rode there and decided to camp in his yard for the night. To celebrate our visit out came the vodka, naturally.
I'm the early morning the rain started, and it continued to rain throughout the day. In a tiny house we spent the day making noodlrs, dumplings, soups, yogurt, yak vodka, and best of all, blueberry jam. No one was idle but everyone spent the day quietly, especially Pembuk who spent the day rolling around on the floor nursing a hangover.
Due to the rain, we spent another night there and left the following morning. As we were packing up, the daughter of the house passed me a jar of the beautiful blueberry jam that we had made.
All the rivers were flowing out of their banks and as we rode through the valleys, some of the crossings became downright scary. Pembuck would pass me his phone and jacket in case his horse had to swim, then take his horse into water so clogged with sediment that it looked black. After finding a path through, we would gingerly urge our horses through, tucking our legs up as high as possible in an attempt to keep our feet dry. Our deepest crossing had the water up to mere inches of the saddle and I was thankful to be on such plucky little horses.
With Khatgal on the horizon and the rain continuing to fall we decided to keep riding to Pembuk's house making 52 miles in 11 hours of bone jarring trotting. I have never been so happy to arrive at a house and stretch out on the floor with a bunch of strangers.
After a morning of watching a beautiful lady round up her cows on an ancient bicycle wearing a floppy sunhat, we jumped back on our horses and went for one last day of riding around the town. With no pack horse, we galloped everywhere, racing the length of the abandoned airport runway so fast that the wind made tears stream down my cheeks. We zig-zaged back and forth tryin to cut each other off and laughed until we were both breathless.
I had to stop off at a Guesthouse where I had left my passport and running shoes and as we walked into the kitchen, we came a cross a group of 4 Mongolian ladies with a bottle of vodka. They invited us to sit and everytime I drank a shot I was given a cheer and a "thank you very much!" in a very short time the bottle was gone and we jumped back on our horses to weave our way back to Pembuk's house.
Once there, Sho-ya, the french men's guide stopped off on his motorcycle and with great determination asked to buy my saddle bags. We drank milk tea and debated. I said those were my only bags and he offered to trade me for "yak". He gestured for me to jump on his bike and I found myself bumping along back roads to his winter home where he pulled out hand scraped yak leather bags. He was so hopeful and wanted my saddle bags so badly that of course I said yes. He broke out his biggest smile and I found myself the proud owner of a set of well made, extremely pungent yak saddlebags.
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