During the first week of June Judith travelled with 2 colleagues and 17 students to the Khentii region of Mongolia on one of the school's experiential education field trips for 5 days of canoeing on the Onon River. The Khentii is the homeland of Chinggis Khan and is a 12-hour drive north and east of Ulaanbaatar. The first 3 hours was on paved roads, followed by 9 hours on dirt track over the steppes. We travelled in a school bus and 2 Russian vans to the village of Binder which was our starting point on the river. We camped in a large field beside the Onon River just outside the village.
Russian Fourgon vans are extremely well-suited to travel on the steppes but they do break down. Ours suffered from a shredded fan belt but the driver had a spare fan belt in the vehicle and like most Mongolian drivers we've met, was adept at fixing his vehicle in record time. He waved on the other 2 vehicles in our convoy and caught up with us a half hour later.
We forded several streams en route and while we saw almost no people we did see many horses, goats and sheep.
Our canoe trip took us 120 km along the Onon River, with amazing views and sightings of many different birds. Each evening we hauled our canoes out of the water and pitched our tents on the banks of the river. Each day had a different, if equally stunning view. One of the vans held our camping gear and food, though we stowed our rain gear, water, lunches and camp stoves in dry bags in our canoes for our mid-day stop each day. The van met us at day's end, and with the exception of a couple of herders, our van driver was the only other person we saw along the river.
We paddled 2 to each inflatable canoe, with a rubber raft bringing up the rear. Of the 13 grade 6 and 7 students, only 1 had been in a canoe before. We had 4 grade 11 leadership students with us who all had some canoe experience. No one capsized and we paddled the 120 km without incident, despite a few tricky sections of the river.
Lunch stop on Day 4
It was a fabulous week!
Sunset in the Khentii, next to the Onon River.
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