Cycling Adventures 1: Utrecht

A bus from Edinburgh, a ferry from Newcastle, another bus from the port and a train from Amsterdam saw us to Utrecht! At the train station we were met by my friend Ilir whose huge smile seemed to have grown since I saw him in 2011 in Bolivia. It was great to see a friendly, familiar face. Ilir kindly hosted us at his place in lovely Utrecht for a few nights.

Love this guy. Torch or cigar?

Along the canal

We weren't in the Netherlands long before Ilir had procured a handful of bicycles from friends for us to borrow. Cycling along, Ilir gave us a tour of town and introduced to us to some important local cuisine: Frikandel, a minced meat hotdog. Whilst Japan excels at drinks and coffee vending machines, the Netherlands appears to be winning at 24/7 hot snack vending machines. Pretty handy, but I was definitely more excited about my reunion with the Stroopwafel. (Back in Bolivia in 2011, Ilir and the stroopwafel had saved us from a Sunday morning without breakfast!) Fresh stroopwafels are the best. Someone really needs to start selling fresh stroopwafels regularly in Melbourne!

As well as enjoying a picnic lunch at Ilir's apartment, an afternoon drink in the sun, stroopwafels and fried snacks, we had some Vietnamese street food in Utrecht! Not exactly what we expected but it was great and we had a few of the things we fondly remembered from our time in Vietnam back in February. 

Reunion with bubble tea

From Utrecht we also took a half-day cycle to visit areas outside the city. It was great being on a bike in the sun, cycling past farms and windmills and, of course, goats on backyard tables. 

Cyclists

Goat's castle

We also dropped in to see Rob's family friends, Neil and Margot. Neil and Oliver were old family friends, and were at school together in England.  There was once  an actual fight between Oliver & Neil where fists might have been involved, a fight that has been re-enacted on each reunion between their families!  

Neil and Margot were in the middle of moving house.  The fact that much of the Netherlands is built on reclaimed land is not lost on their house, where the first level, is kind of ..shifting at each corner, and not all shifting in the same direction.  They're moving out while renovations/rebuilding is happening, and then they'll be back!

Rob stood in for this reenactment 

Confused about what happened to his mouth!

Resident duck at Neil and Margot's

It was amazing how many windmills we saw in a short amount of time. The Netherlands is surely the country with the most bridges than all the other places we've visited, well per capita anyway. Our short cycle was a good way to get an initial feel for the Netherlands and warm up for the days to follow.

Windmill

Cycling on grass and water

Windmill and the clever Dutch water system

After a 6-day cycling loop around the Netherlands we returned to Utrecht for a final day before heading to Amsterdam. We enjoyed a coffee, did some shopping and met up with Ilir for a canal swim. We actually failed to take many photos in Utrecht so you will have to take our word for that it is a beautiful city. (Or you could go yourself!) Ilir has certainly chosen a great place to live. 

Bicycle love

Ah! Coffee on the canals

Taking a dip!

Turku travel and the mysterious coffin

After a comfortable bus trip from Helsinki we walked our luggage into Turku. Our first couch surfing host for the trip had told us that Finland's biggest medieval market would be on that day. Oliver, Rob and I took turns scouting out the market and trying some food before heading to our respective accommodations. It was a nice way to enter town and the weather was stunning. It reminded us of having a tasty spit at our friends, Amy and Dave's house!

What a spit!

Our couch surfing host, Pia, was very friendly and let us borrow her bicycles to wander around town. (Rob's bicycle didn't last long but that wasn't the point!) On our first night Rob and I bought some wine and cheese and salad and enjoyed our first European picnic by the river.

View from our picnic dinner

Turku seemed like a great place to do some cycling and see a teeny tiny bit more of Finland than just Helsinki. We probably could have allowed a bit more time for cycling around Turku and the islands. In fact, I have extensive plans for another time. It sounds like there is accommodation set up all around the archipelago for cyclists who have been cycling around all day, hopping on and off ferries and having picnics! 

In the end, we did a nice day trip cycle to Ruissalo Island. We packed a lunch to enjoy amongst nature, treated ourselves to coffee and ice cream and then put our foots to the pedal to make it back in time to return Rob's bike rental! It was hard work making it back in half the time we took to get there, but also great to get some (forced) exercise.

Cycling on Ruissalo Island

A pleasant way to enjoy Turku is to jump on the ferry and have a drink as you float down the river. Our captain was a bit of a character and we chatted to him for awhile. Oliver asked what typical Finnish food he recommended we try that night and he said "Swedish meatballs" with a smirk. This was quite amusing because Finland was part of Sweden.

Ferry drinks

After the ferry we headed towards our dinner destination, choosing to go with Ann Dashwood's recommendation, rather than our ferry captain's! Why did Ann have a restaurant picked out for us from across the other side of the world? Well, Ann had thought about taking a plane all the way from Australia and meeting us for dinner at Tinta restaurant! Unfortunately Ann couldn't make it but had a wonderful meal - she chose well for us!

What was less clear was the view from our table. An empty coffin placed beside the river. Unique art instalment? Missing body? We still aren't sure...but it HAD DISAPPEARED the next day!

A great dinner along the river

View from our table

In Turku we farewelled Oliver as he journeyed onwards to Sweden, Germany then France. Rob and I hopped back on the bus to Helsinki for further exploration before our flight to Dublin.

Mongolian Tour: Terkhiin Tsagaan (The White Lake)

...As Kat has already mentioned, the beautiful reality of our roadtrip across Central Mongolia was that we could see the landscape changing each day as we drove.

One of the places where this was most evident was around Terkhiin Tsagaan, or The White Lake.  

White Lake "Terkhiin Tsagaan"

The lake was formed from the eruption of a nearby volcano called "Khorgo", the crater of which you can (and I did) comfortably walk around in about 30 minutes. 

Rob on the far side of Khorgo

Standing on top of it feels a bit like being at the top of Rod Laver Arena, except a Rod Laver at 3000m above sea level that had the tennis court removed and replaced with a very steep slippery slide of loose basalt rocks.

Kat watching the tennis

The lake itself is beautiful and the weather for us was just perfect.  There were clouds bouncing off the lake, boys building their summer ger camp, with yaks and horses grazing on the lush pasture and hills surrounding our roasty warm ger. 

Yak party

Mongolian take on a horse float

Kat and I enjoyed some quiet time walking along the lakes edge to one of the many vantage points where we could look at the lake and the tourist camps, but also where we could watch the horse mobs making their own way with no human control to some pre-determined destination.  While on the road, through the book I was reading ("Guns, Germs and Steel"), I had just learned about the hierarchy that apparently exists amongst horses.  Generally led by a stallion, Mare A will have her foals following her and always be followed by Mare B and her foals etc. So, because I've never been around horses enough to learn this, I had to go on a fact checking mission before writing this down, according to this reference it's TRUE!

Krueger, K., Flauger, B., Farmer, K., & Hemelrijk, C. (2014). Movement initiation in groups of feral horses. Behavioural Process., 103, 91–101. viewed January 9, 20144, http://www.rug.nl/research/behavioural-ecology-and-self-organization/_pdf/kr_ea_bp14.pdf

Horse hierarchies

It was amazing to actually see this in action only hours after reading about it.

We also had the opportunity to visit a local family who run a herd of yak.  From their camp they make all kinds of dairy products: milk, butter, yoghurt and curd all from their own yaks. The yoghurt was good but I could not get enough of the the butter - absolutely devine!  I must have done a good job on complimenting the yoghourt as Bimba was still trying to feed it to me 4 days afterward, when it was starting to get a bit funny (with no refrigeration).

MMMM yak butter and bread

The day was polished off in style with Batar and Bimba preparing a hot rock BBQ.  Meat is cooked by super heating rocks and laying the meat on top of them with some cabbages and vegetables on top to hold the heat in.  Just don't accidentally eat a rock!

"Batar Special" Mongolian Hot Rock BBQ!

My one wish for this part of the trip was that the water in the lake wasn't so cold, we could have had some lovely swims!

Afternoon lake views

Mongolian Tour: Gobi and Sub-Gobi Desert PART 3

The red cliffs of Bayanzag and a sandstorm hits

Mongolia has been and is a paradise for both archaeologists and palaeontologists. We were almost blown off some startlingly red cliffs (Bayanzag) on a very windy day. Many dinosaur skeletons and eggs were found there but we just tried to stay upright and enjoy the view. 

Bayanzag

Bayanzag

Bayanzag

After returning to the van and continuing on our way, we encountered a lonely outpost in the middle of the desert. The "town hall" is used as a meeting place for locals and sometimes tour guides prepare meals here!

The "town hall" of the area

Not long after spotting the town hall we encountered a sand storm. We already knew Batar was an excellent driver by this point, but any lingering doubts would have been quelled when he got us through the storm in almost zero visibility. 

 THE SANDSTORM HITS

The sandstorm approaches

The sandstorm arrives

Navigating the sandstorm

"Roads" become rivers

When we arrived at our accommodation for the night we were keen to celebrate our survival, not to mention Tasha's birthday. 

Monastry ruins and runaway horses

In the middle Gobi we visited the Ongi monastery ruins. We were introduced to the area by a man whose brother was a lama at the monastery. He told us about how monks were either murdered or forced into labor. Seeing a place that has been devastated by a regime imposing itself on a culture, as it has here, is always heartbreaking. This would have been an even more majestic place in its prime. The scenery in the area was again lovely, the environment in Mongolia does have the tendency to turn you into a broken record in this respect.

View from the Ongi monastery 

Ruins of the Ongi monastery

Some of the most enjoyable lunches were prepared roadside by Bimba. This one occurring without even having to pull off the road!

Roadside lunch

A brief toilet break (Mongolian wild style – use your jacket if you need privacy) gave us the first impression of a change in climate. Horses abounded that day and soon we would reach the ancient capital of Karakorum.

Running horses

Horsies on the loose

Best clouds in the world

The ancient capital

The centre of the Mongolian empire for a long period, Karakorum was founded in 1220 in the Orkhon valley. This ancient city was busy point on the route of the Silk Road. For me, it really drove home the incredible power of the Mongolian empire. 

The Mongolian empire

We visited the first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia. There was an archaeology dig at the site and I had previously read that much of the ancient city was yet to be found underground. Pretty exciting!

Erdene Zuu: the first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia

Erdene Zuu

Turtle rock formerly at the entrance of the ancient town

River stop along the way

Bimba wants blonde hair!

After the bumpiest day on the road yet, we arrived at the beautiful White Lake where we would spend the next few days. 

Terkhiin Tsagaan (White Lake)

Rob enjoying the view at Terkhiin Tsagaan 

~ TO BE CONTINUED~