This one will be very descriptive of what I’ve seen and experienced for Mongolia.
Month 10 of the race takes the squad from Malaysia to Mongolia. This remote part of the world was only accessible to us by going through China during a very tough travel day. From the very primitive dwellings, infrastructure and being a very quiet city it has a slight apocalyptic feel. There are not that many trees to be seen but you can see very thin forests out beyond the city on the mountains.
Most animals I have seen here still have their wild side in them. Dogs here a very big and not safe to interact with. Horses in Mongolia are not completely broken either. Wolves run around in the countryside so sleeping under the stars is not an option here. We were told this during our youth camp when we slept in our tents for two nights in the countryside.
Even though we have had larger exchange rates in previous countries we have visited, the currency here is extremely lacking in value. I have seen store clerks dealing huge wads of paper money which is only way to have a significant amount. It reminds me of Wiemar Germany in the 1920’s when inflation made the German money so worthless it was only good to be burned.
My team was involved in a youth camp out in the countryside and it was the most primitive camping I have every done and I loved it! It was so simple that some of us even went out to milk a nearby cow for milk. It was a good mixture of believers and non-believers all to participate in games and hear the gospel being preached. I have also participated in games that I never saw before and did not know existed. This is by far the most outdoors-like month I have had on the race ant it took ten months for it to happen. All of the stuff we needed for training camp but never needed again became valuable during this month. Apart from this we have been serving a church again and teaching English.
