A Visit To The Countryside, Day 3: A Whole Lot Of Wishes

I woke up at 8 am with a desperate need to pee. I'm talking I-drank-way-too-much-water-and-haven't-gone-in-hours-and-I-want-nothing-else-than-to-pee pee. So I pulled on my shoes, headed to open the door, and – the door was still jammed. I cursed myself for being too lazy to try to unjam it the night before, and started to get creative. I rammed the door with my shoulder, I use a small comb and angle it in the small crack between the door and the doorframe, I get a bobby pin and wiggle it with the comb. I try everything.

Eventually I started thinking I've got to climb out of a window, doesn't matter how small it is. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I moved the curtains out of the way to open the windows only to find that there are iron bars across both windows. I may have been desperate, but there was no way I could squeeze through those. I also realized that this was a huge fire hazard and given the live fire we had in the room, we all could've burnt to death way too easily.

I slammed into the door a few more times in desperation, waking my sister up. Using her swiss-army pocket knife, she tried to wiggle the door free. It didn't work. She then pulled out a screwdriver and tried to unscrew the entire doorknob. Didn't work. After some time at this, we gave up, me wondering exactly how long I could hold the pee – because I really didn't see this ending well – and hoping that the owner would pass by the window and come to our rescue.

About an hour after initially waking up, I saw her through the window and we began shouting, waving, and knocking on the glass. Because of the way the door was set up, she easily un-jammed it from the outside with a kitchen knife. My sister headed toward the bathroom with her toiletries, but I shoved her out of the way, screamed "I need to pee!" and ran toward the toilet. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed.

We had a breakfast of eggs and a hotdog, then all moved over to another room, in this case a wooden ger. Settling in, we changed and got ready for what the day would hold: a visit to a magic tree that grants wishes, horseback riding, and a boat trip on the lake.

We drive over small hills in the countryside, stopping about twenty feet away from the magic tree. Its trunk is twisted – "like a snake," the inn/ger owner had told us – and is surrounded by a circular pattern of rocks. Hundreds of blue sashes are tied around a nearby rope. "You have to be careful what you wish for," Ella said, "A woman came here wishing to get pregnant and now she has several children."

I marveled at how the tree was twisted. The owner claimed it was natural, but how was that possible? "She said there was a fire one hundred years ago and all the trees burnt down, except for this one," Ella told me. I stared at the beautiful blue sashes, then picked up a rock and circled the tree three times, throwing the rock on the circle that surrounded the tree. I whispered to myself Wish #1.

We got back in the car and drove further up the small mountains, stopping to hike up the last bit. At the top was a gorgeous view of the lake and the small town below. I took numerous photos, then bitterly complained that the photos were nothing to what I saw in person. Ella agreed. They couldn't compare. At the summit was a buddhist mound of sticks, rocks, and more blue sashes. We each picked up a nearby rock, circled the pile with the wish in our minds, and tossed the rock into the pile. Thank you, Wish #2.

On our way back down we saw an abandoned cabin. Ella called it creepy. Bashi wondered what was in it. I dared them to look, but they refused, so I did. Peeking through a gape that served as a window, I saw an entirely empty room with no solid floor, filled with rotting wood and trash. Lovely.

At the car, we took out the fish the ger camp owner had given us. There were three, all small. They looked salted or smoked; I wasn't sure. We were told to pinch off the tail and head, and then peal off the skin. Taking a tentative bite of the fish, my face lit up with surprise. It was good, REALLY good. I devoured the rest of the fish, savoring each bite. There were four fish, but since our driver was allergic, he gave us his. Ella, Bashi, and I split it up and wow did I love it. What an amazing lunch.

"Okay, now we're going to go back down and eat lunch," Ella told me. Wait, what was this then? Just a snack, a gift from the owner, I was told. Okay, the fish was small, I can eat more, I thought. We were brought a small bowl of fish and I figured hey, this is pretty good. Perfect portion size with the fish. But after I finished the soup I was brought another dish, complete with chicken, rice, and fries. I stared at the dish. Could I really eat more? A deep breath and ten minutes later, my plate was empty and I was stuffed.

There was little time to dwell; we were going horseback riding. I called them Mongolian ponies because that's how they were internationally recognized for their small stature. Ella refuted. "They're horses," she insisted. My horse liked to go fast, never one to lag behind. Ella trailed behind by several dozen feet. Every ten to twenty minutes though, her horse neighed; Bashi's horse would neigh back, then Ella's horse would trot and catch up with us. We joked that a conversation was going something along the lines of...

"Hey, wait for me!"

"Psh, hurry up. You're so slow."

As we continued, Ella and Bashi's horses started to walk side-by-side. "Our horses are definitely friends," Ella said.

My horse had decided that it wanted to go so far ahead that I had trouble staying behind the guide. We made our way back up to that same peak with the Buddhist mound. Well, here goes Wish #3. We circled and threw our rock, then climbed back down toward where we had left our horses. Arriving back at camp, I asked Ella how much the horse ride had cost. "10,000 tugriks, so like five dollars." I gaped. We had been gone an hour and a half.

Our last adventure of the day was a boat ride on the lake. According to Bashi, this was what had made him decide to come along. He wasn't much for the countryside, but this lake was another matter. In the boat, wind picked up at rapid speeds; it was absolutely freezing.  We rode to a small island where dozens of small seagull-like birds circled above. As we stopped at the island, I could see that the water was amazingly clear. You can even drink water from the lake unfiltered. Just north of the island we stopped at was a thin layer of ice still covering the surface of the lake. It was June.

I insisted now that we look at the nearby outdoor bazaar where vendors sold handmade products from the countryside. They were beautiful and I kicked myself for bringing so little money along on this trip. I bought a comb made out of goat horn and a warm winter hat for myself while loading up on gifts for friends back home. Warm yak socks and a woolen scarf beckoned to me because wow, would those be helpful in a D.C. blizzard. But, I hadn't brought enough money and was resigned to turn away.

We returned to the ger camp shortly after 7 pm for a meal of buuz and fruit salad. With a limited supply of fruit salad, Mongolian fruit salad meant apple slices mixed in with gummies and covered in yogurt. After dinner we returned to our wooden ger, where Bashi stuffed the space between wooden planks with toilet paper out of fear of bugs falling through. I decided it was time I wash my hair. I heated water over the fire, then poured it over my head, scrubbed with shampoo, then rinsed with the water. Oh, it felt good to have clean hair.

Small children from the next ger over found it amusing that I wasn't Mongolian. First they guessed Russian, then repeatedly showed up in our doorway or window pane shouting "American lady" in Mongolian. It was nearly 11 pm before they finally retired to their own gers. The sun didn't set until 11 pm either and at midnight, it still wasn't dark. I had never been this far north before and was amazed by the persistent light that pervaded the sky.