Mindy in Mongolia: Ice Festival 2011

Ice Fest! It was so much fun but so cold! My bus ride was fine and took 17 hours but most was during the night so I was sleeping. I stayed with Crystal (a CYD volunteer) who lives in a ger. It was quite interesting to watch her make fires! At one point, her hand was in the flames and she didn’t even flinch. I’m not even sure she noticed! She is pretty hardcore after surviving the winter in a ger! Cliff, Cody and Brian (other volunteers) gave me a tour of Murun while Crystal was at work. It was a pretty nice town! They had really good restaurants too! We took a van to Khatgal (the town on Lake Khuvsgul) the next day and stayed with a 3^rd year volunteer who is working at the Health Dept. there. It is so pretty up there because there are so many trees and they are houses, stores, businesses, etc. look like log cabins! I loved it! The lake is huge (I think the 2^nd largest in Asia) and the festival was on the tip of it. There were boats frozen into the ice and ice sculptures everywhere. A lot of the sculptures were of dinosaurs which I didn’t understand but I went with it. There was also a giant slide! It was scary though because the steps and everything are made of ice and the kids were just pushing people out of the way! Also, don’t wear jeans on an ice slide – you don’t get very far. The reindeer people didn’t come but that is who I really wanted to see. I heard afterwards that it is bad for the reindeer’s health for some reason. I got back to UB on Saturday morning and met some friends for an early lunch and they said I looked dirty! I said, “Well, I just showered on Tuesday.” I didn’t even realize it had been 5 days! That’s sad!