Back from the Gobi I have been staying at the hostel to relax and plan for the next trip. I have not yet ridden a horse in Mongolia. It makes no sense right? So I have to do it, by a short trip to Terelj National Park.
The hardest part of traveling alone is when you have to find someone to do things together. The tour to Gobi was nice. But having everything organized for you is not that fun. So when it is possible to go by myself I would. Or I should say, when there is one more person going with me, I would definitely take the more risky but fun way.
So I was lucky to be able to grab 2 guys to come with me. One from the Uk and the other from Beijing. They turned out to be nice people.
The bus schedule was not the same from every source on the Internet. And there was no number for the bus and there was no English. We waited at the Pepsi stand on the west side of peace avenue and at 12pm we got on the bus.
As for accommodation, we planned to (or should I say I plan to?) randomly ask some gers for a night's stay. But we were taken to one of the gers with someone speaking English which we did not like much cause there were too many settlements around. We would prefer one that stands alone in the park. At last we did not stay and just do the horseriding.
The park was much more non-touristy and scenic than I had expected tough. I thought I had done the Gobi and it must be better than the more touristic Terelj park, which is not far from the city. In this time of year (early September) the leaves are turning yellow and the area was covered in different colors. It was stunning even without a bright sun.
The horseriding trip was a highlight of my stay in Mongolia. I have done horseriding in Tuscany of Italy and Cambodia and this definitely was the most scenic and fun ride I have ever had! It was just 10 USD for 2 hours which was crazy. The Mongolians must be thinking, why would someone pay for riding a horse when they are born to be horseriders? We did not wear any helmets and the Mongolians just brought us the horses and there we went! Help yourself, which I'm pretty used to it.
The Mongolian horses are superb. They have their own way. When they like to trot, they trot. To canter, they canter. They are super tough. We went through slopes, forests, swamps, rocks, rivers. Half of the horse was in the water when we pass through the river so we all had our shoes wet, which was very fun. The area was very beautiful. And we felt so free as we had no strings attached and we could just trot or canter as we like in the grassland. Our guide, a tough Mongolian horse man, would just come along when he had to and sometimes just singing on his horse in the peaceful nature.
We had such a good time on the horse and glad we did that.
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