So I realise, when scrolling through my old posts, that I published a post about my travels without really explaining why or what I did etc. Especially since I went to Mongolia and that's not a country you just decide to go to one day. So here I am, nearly a year after I went, explaining why (with extra pictures too that are much better than the previous).
Our sixth form runs in conjunction with a company called World Challenge. You get an experienced leader, one of your teachers (or two in my case) and support from the company to raise a specified amount to fund your trip to a foreign country, where you complete volunteer work, a trek and have a period of rest and relaxation where you can explore the country. These trips can range from a week to a whole month. Mine was the latter and for the 18-month preparation period, I was terrified as to how I would ever survive that long with only contact from the same people everyday. I'm not going to lie, it's difficult to be with the same people for a whole month. They soon grow to be, some sort of, a family. Family get annoying, it happens. It's an emotional experience that will test your limits and I can tell you from experience that it is VERY testing; crying is inevitable, embrace it.
But this is all about Mongolia, or the road less travelled, as I like to call it. It's a completely unique experience and the culture shock is massive. But what I truly noticed was the kindness that you experience from each and every person I met in that country. It takes you to a truly nomadic experience, whilst embracing the rise of an amazing city; Ulaanbaatar.
During our trip, we went to a Mongolian festival named Naadam which includes wrestling, archery and horse racing; all of which are very important to nomadic life in Mongolia. This was a small town and we had travelled for over 10 hours. The one tip for Mongolia is that to get from one place to another can take numerous amounts of hours; all of our bus/foregone journeys were all probably over 10 hours in length.
As a group of 18 people, we were particularly lucky to be able to have cooks included in our budget, but we still helped out along the way. World Challenge is all about teamwork, and without this you'll not have a good time. We were consuming about 4000 calories per day to make up for the amount of walking we were doing, particularly on the trekking part of it. I mean, you can't walk over 100km without a lot of food. So here's me and my friend; I'm grating carrots whilst she learns how to make vegetable dumplings.
The kindness of a stranger is shown truly when you learn to embrace each other, and can learn from each other. Both our cooks were considerate, taking into account the diets that few in our group have, including me, and cooked both a vegetarian and meat-based meal.
Our volunteering was helping to build a garden for an orphanage, just outside of the capital city.
Part of our trip was trekking to which we did both a walking trek as well as a horse trek. Horse riding is incredibly important to the way in which nomadic Mongolians live and the horses aren't quite like the ones in England. Again, why lie, I was terrified and for the whole 5 days, my horse was held by a wrangler. This will probably be the most horrifying experience I will ever have. But by the end I was used to it, but that didn't necessarily stop me from crying with relief when it was over. At least my wrangler was kind and taught me Mongolian phrases along the way (which I am ashamed to say I have completely forgotten).
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| Lake Khovsgul |
A trip of this magnitude is not for the faint-hearted but I encourage those of you interested to visit. You make bonds with new people and begin to really see what even your friends are truly like, especially when you're in a tent with them for a month (you make a cute little tent family)
P.S. they have some great Vegan/Vegetarian restaurants in the capital which you should definitely wake up from a 4-hour nap for.
What's the strangest place you've ever travelled to?
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