“Shoooooe” I whispered, “Shooooe”. Head down, ears forward, he kept on eating the grass. “Oh pleeease” I urged eyes darting ahead trying to focus in on Bex who was trotting into the distance on the blonde bombshell, “shoe shooooooe”. Chomp Chomp. Another daisy lost its head. It was a cool morning in Mongolia in the heart of the Terelj National Park.

We’d already stuffed our faces with bowls of hot salty milk tea and deep fried donuts smothered in fresh clotted cream and sugar for breakfast. This was our standard breakfast. And afternoon tea. Once or twice it was lunch too. Everything here is dairy. Or deep fried. Except, of course, the boiled mutton that the dairy and deep fried things are served with. Vegan’s would not make it out alive.

Our host family had been busy since dawn checking off the list of things needed for a happy nomadic life. Finding the roaming animals – yaks, goats, sheep, cows – and feeding them. Cleaning the ox, then patting him. Fetching water to drink. Mucking out the simple wooden enclosures the young cattle are kept in overnight to protect them from wolves. They were the only fences we saw really because private land, and consequently ‘boundaries’, in Mongolia basically don’t exist.

We’d woken bleary eyed with a stowaway (probably riddled with rabies) old dog sleeping under the bed from our first night in a traditional Mongolian Ger – a circular tent made of wood and felt, think ‘yurt’. It was the only ger we slept in on this trip that didn’t have a powerhouse of a wood-burner heating it up in the middle like a sauna all night but was still very beautiful inside with painted wooden beams.

For the first time on our trip as I packed my things away like a classic cold camping morning I didn’t moan that the all-weather sleeping bag was taking up a third of my 45L backpack. When the forecast warned it could drop to -5 degrees we weren’t taking any chances. I don’t do cold. And the stowaway dog didn’t look like the kind you want to cuddle up to all night.

For a summer morning in the “Land of Blue Skies” the weather was looking decidedly dodgy so we flounced all pony-fashion rules and got the tarpaulin thick waterproofs on that we’d bought in Asia’s “biggest” market the week before. Just in case. If it had rained overnight we could have laid them on the roof of the Ger and been fine. There is enough plastic in the hood to warrant getting the Plastiki back in the water.

I was filled with a sense of casual anxiety as the two horses were led out of the forest towards the camp. The tingly butterflies in my stomach were a mixture of the 7 tablespoons of sugar I’d consumed at breakfast and fractured memories of the Ethiopian racing stallion I’d galloped through Uganda’s Lake Mburo National Park having nonchalantly told the stables I had “quite a bit” of horse riding experience. LIAR.

This was the first of our 8 day horse trek through the wide glacial carved valleys, thick alpine-esque forests glorious rolling hills and peaks of north (inner) Mongolia on a journey to the Princess Temple. On route we would stay in the homes of Mongol nomadic families and for one night do some good old fashioned camping in the wilderness. Our saddles, in true traditional Mongol style, are made from wood.

Mongolian horses are famous all over the world. They are the ultimate War Horse. I know, because my friend told me. The same friend, who I now know also told me, correctly, that they are commanded by voice, not reigns and stirrup kicks. You tell them to go (“Choo”), you tell them to stop (“Stop” – I’m serious, it really is “stop”). I’m sure the local guys can tell them all sorts of things but that’s as far as our phrase-book went for speaking to animals.

The summer Naadam festivals celebrate local and national champions of Mongolia’s most prized sports of wrestling, archery and riding. Their horses are fast. If you could measure average ‘speed per inch’ of a Mongolian pony against the front runner at Newmarket the latter would be left for dust.

I say ‘speed per inch’ because they are really quite small. Not Shetland pony small. That would be stupid, but still quite little. They do gallop, very fast, and they love a good canter too, but it would seem the standard mode of movement is a lightening quick trot that compared to walking or running is exactly recreated in the Olympic speed walking competition. Only with four legs.

I felt better when I could see them heading over because, I figured, in a real speed emergency I could just put my feet on the floor and dig my heels in.

“Shoooooe…” I cooed.

“Choooooo…” I tried.

“Schooooo?” I tested, thinking maybe he liked a Swiss accent. He didn’t even lean forward. We were having a communication break-down and we hadn’t even left the camp. We couldn’t leave the camp, because I didn’t know how to ask my horse Haarem how to start our journey with a simple step.

Humph.

I used to be convinced I had the magic gift of speaking to animals. I really believed it for years. But sat there on my wooden saddle the sugar high coming down I could feel one of those failed Doctor Doolittle moments coming on. Like when the dairy cow projected diarrhoea all over my face on a school trip to the Theobalds farm while I was telepathically singing her a lovely song.

That sinking feeling that guided my ‘when I grow up’ animal focused career decisions from wanting to be “a rabbit” (aged 4), “a vet” (aged 10), to a “business man like daddy or a writer like mummy” (aged 13). My animal days were over after that goat attack in the nunnery (aged 12).

Just when I thought I might have to get off the old plodder and drag him to the next camp the father, Choko, of the family came up behind us and spoke to the horse. He, quite simply ordered him to “CHOOOOOOOO”. It was like cracking a studded whip. No communication break down here.

Yee-Hah. We were off!

Riding through the national park was stunning. There are no roads, just light tracks and no fences. It is wide open.

We’d organised four homestays with nomadic families through the social-enterprise organisation Ger to Ger who help you set off on supported self-guided trips around Mongolia. It’s an amazing way to see parts of a country by living, a bit like a fly on the wall, with real families who are going about their normal business.

Between rides we were able to get stuck in with milking cows, playing archery, practising our nearly fluent (yeah right) Mongol , driving the ox and cart, collecting firewood and water and learning the subtle survival skills passed down by generations of herding families who endure life in felt tents during winters that see the mercury dip below -40 for huge chunks of the year.

Even at the end of spring and dawn of summer, while we were there, the great lakes like Khovscol where we’d intended to go but passed on the 60 hours of travel by public bus to get there after our ‘border crossing’ experience, the lake was only just defrosting and nights a chilly -4 still.

Of course, while some are shivering in the north, in a country the size of Western Europe, it might come as no surprise that those who’d opted for the Gobi Desert trek on the southern border with Outer Mongolia (aka NW China) were sweating it out on the sand dunes in 38 degrees of dry, dusty and relentless heat.

Mongolia, a beautiful country of great extremes.

I’d read before we arrived in Mongolia that after a couple of weeks the smell of boiled mutton permeates your nostrils to the point that everything starts to smell of it. I thought the writer was being a bit over the top. They weren’t. And it’s not because you think everything smells of it. Everything does smell of it.

My mini hot-pink lavender-stuffed pillow, a gift from good friends before I set off nine months ago, has survived countless stinky abodes. It has soldiered on without a whiff of contempt for the stained old mattresses I’ve laid it on, turning each one into a lovely familiar place to slumber. Not anymore. It smells of damp sheep.

On our fourth day we set off for the final two day ride to the Princess Temple aiming to cover the bulk of the cross country trek through rivers, streams, marshes, hills, valleys and woods in the afternoon, set up camp and ride the final 7km early in the morning before heading back to the family.

We had four horses in total, one each, one for our guide and one pack horse for our camping bare essentials, like the pink pillow. Oh to travel light. It was a bit of a circus.

Bex’s horse was a lazy old beast seemingly without a care in the world and in no rush to do anything. Even walking seemed to be a bit of a drag. It was like we’d taken him out on a Bank Holiday without offering him time-and-a-half while his friends drank beer in the garden. This was disappointing after the blonde bombshell she’d ridden the days before whose greatest love in life was practically prancing across the valley at great speed while being impeccably well behaved.

Mine was the reverse and only wanted to run. It’s like he wanted to relay race there not stopping for a breath except to say “there it is, the temple. Okay, ready to go home now? Charrrrge”. Like Chengis Khan was riding behind us with a pointy stick.

For the first day all I yelled was “STOP! “STTTTTTOP!” This is not because I was being a wimp. Although sometimes I was. It was because he would only run if he’d turned left first. Trot trot forward with huge enthusiasm into the open valley between the mountains towards our destination and then after 5 legs he’d slam a 90 degrees turn and start cantering into the middle of no-where.

To turn him back around to the direction of the temple I had to go left, left and left again. Like Zoolander, he would not, under any circumstances turn right. Or run straight in the original direction we were facing.

I called him “The Horse That Only Turns Left” and quite a few times wimpered, “The Maniac”.

Every time Bex caught up she’d be singing/shouting/begging her slothful steed to “CHOOOOOOO” to encourage him out of his stroll. It rarely worked on Captain Slow but would be like a fifth gear explosion injection for The Maniac who would gun forward for 10 seconds and then, like clockwork turn left and head for the hills.

In both cases they were a bit clumsy and regularly tripped over stones stacking it in a nose-dive forwards so you go from calm to “my face is about to be smashed into the ground” in a micro second when you least expect it. The favourite stumble seemed to be by or over the only litter we saw which either amounted to empty vodka bottles or, rather strangely, shoes. I should say ‘shoe’ in the singular because there was only ever one. Vodka bottles and shoes, bizarre.

Things improved as the day wore on. We didn’t come across any rabied dogs that we’d been warned about which was a blessing as we’d opted out of the £150 rabies injection back in London. Ah the joys of risk-taking on a shoestring budget.

We marched on as I learned to ride in circles at speed and Bex developed a tone of command that would have a deserting army spin on their heels and charge forward to the frontlines.

The sun was shining. A picture postcard for Mongolia. I finally understood why it’s called the Land of Blue Skies. The scenery of thickly forested glacial valleys was stunning. Blue against green. Rivers gurgled and rushed by carving new faster routes, re-shaping the land without a care for the Planning Dept on their journey from the peaks of the hills.The wooden saddle was starting to feel like an extension of my rump and before dinner we hiked to the top of a hill to gawp with wonder at the view before crawling into the tent to pass out.

At 5.55am we were up and getting ready to go. The morning was the same. Not a cloud in the sky. We set off at the sparrow’s fart of dawn in t-shirts and leggings packing everything sensible into the impossible network of ropes and knots in bags on the pack horse.

This is an instant Fail in any Boy Scout ‘outdoors’ badge exam.

After just twenty minutes threatening clouds began to draw together, creeping with intent over the horizon like they’d been called to a meeting.

The temperature dropped and we still had 6km to go through a lot of fast running streams / rivers and knee deep marshy terrain. Captain Slow had not had a personality transplant overnight and The Maniac hadn’t changed his mind about turning right. Then it started to hail. And thunder.

It’s the thunder that is the bit that caused the most concern. June in Mongolia is “lightening” season. Full blown fork lightening season. I noticed, quite quickly, the thin forest of burnt stumps on either side of us. Zapped trees. It wasn’t looking good.

Before leaving Mongolia’s capital Ulaan Batar we’d been given a ‘lesson’ in ‘your best chance’ of surviving a bolt lightning storm. It goes something like this:

• Don’t start crying hysterically. Keep Calm!! (Double exclamation mark required)
• Get off your horse
• Let the guide tie up your horse’s feet so it doesn’t bolt (I know, I know, I think this is mean too but it’s in their interest as you’ll see below)
• Find some low top trees (only if there are taller trees nearby)
• Put your pack on the floor
• Sit on it
• Put your ankles together
• Pray

Bolt lightning is like a wizard points his wand from the sky and it zaps down to earth vs sheet lightning which is like someone turning on a strobe in a blacked out cave.

We’d seen a bolt lightning show striking the hills from the bus a week before. It was terrifying even then, from a really safe distance.It’s not helped by the fact that everyone seems to have a lightning story. My least favourite tale being when a bolt hit the middle of a football match and electrocuted all the players and fans.

They say the damage would have been less if people had had their ankles together. Reducing your ‘grounding’ to a single conductor i.e. two feet become one, significantly reduces the power of the charge (I’m sure it’s more technical than that) and increases your chance of survival.

The thunder cracked and rolled ahead, the sky was black and it pelted hail and heavy rain but the few flicks of light seemed to be high up in the clouds and quite ‘strobey’. It gradually passed but the squall was wide and continued to rain for hours. Ankles wrenched apart we saddled back up and made our way, dripping wet, while the pack horse sagged with the weight of all our lovely dry ‘outdoor’ clothing, towards the temple.

The rain had given The Maniac a new lease of life and we picked up some speed. Maybe Captain Slow had a bolt in his bottom because he followed suit quite nicely and we made off ahead of the guide on our own. The sound of galloping hooves brought us to a stop as one horse charged into view between the trees. I waited for the pack horse to enter the scene. He didn’t.

We deduced from the tidal wave of Mongol and an Oscar winning high-speed am dram performance from our guide that he was gone. Run off, he told us. Maybe “go home”. With all our stuff. All, our stuff. Including I had to admit to Bex, the bag with the passports and visas I probably should have had on me. How was I to know he’d do a runner? I wondered if the rules of finders-keepers of washed up treasure applied to a roaming pack horse stuffed with useful things. I didn’t like the answer on loop in my head.

I’d hoped to get our rain stuff out of the bags at the temple, and maybe a snack but it wasn’t to be and by the time we arrived to the temple of ruins, I mean the Princess Temple (I probably should have read the info pack better thinking we were heading to a beautiful active temple) we were three drowned rats. If anything, it made me smile that the significance of this mini-section of a much bigger trip was, as usual, very much about the journey, not just the destination.

Mind you, the fact it was a deserted temple of ruins meant we could build a small fire in the arches of one wing where we deep steamed our clothes and pondered the options for entering China without a passport or visa.

After a couple of hours and having finished the bag of sultanas (weep) from my wet pocket we set off for the long ride home discovering to our joy and mixed horror the pack horse carefully tied behind a tree by the track. Our guide nearly fell off his horse in hysterics.Apparently practical jokes have no language barriers.

For your own Mongolia adventure by horseback check out our adventures today!