Tsenkher Hot Springs

Us not so keen to join Zoe on an overnight horseback ride, Jen and I opt to rent mountain bikes and do a day trip from Tsetserleg to the Tsenkher hot springs.

We read a fair bit online about how difficult the ride is. In the end, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but it wasn’t all that hard either. Anyone with a basic level of fitness can do it. That said, if it weren’t for google maps and the gps in my phone, it would be MUCH more difficult.

As we learned on our 600+ kilometre off-roading journey a couple days prior, roads in the country side appear and disappear continuously.

And there are no road signs anywhere.

Lose Ten Pounds in Ten Weeks!!

I’m just picturing me on the cover of Cosmopolitan. With a pair of slightly larger jeans. And my thumb pulling them to one side exposing a gap beside my right hip.

And the said headline on the left side of the cover.

You flip the magazine open quickly to catch a glimpse of my secret while you wait for the person in front of you to pay for their groceries. Hopefully you can read the article quick enough that you don’t have to buy the magazine.

You find my article after a hundred pages or so of ads.

And then you read my solution in the first paragraph of the article: “Go travelling!“

Huh??

The truth is, I really do lose a solid ten pounds in the first ten weeks of a trip. Always.

I don’t think there is one specific cause. I think it is a whole bunch of things. And they all happen completely effortlessly.

I drink tea every morning instead of coffee
- Mainly because coffee almost always makes me poop. And when you are on a bus in Mongolia, you don’t want to have to poop for hours on end. But it is possible that that change in habits somehow contributes to me losing weight too.
I don’t really eat much at all on days where I will be on a bus for a long time. Which is a lot when travelling.
- Again, I don’t like to have to sit there and go to the bathroom all day. I’d rather just be hungry.
I usually eat yoghurt and nuts for breakfast instead of eggs and toast
I still drink beer (beer tastes ten times better after a long bus ride), but I drink less of it
Other than breakfast, I eat just as much, if not more
And I don’t do silly things like avoiding carbohydrates or gluten (Does eating gluten somehow make you gain weight??)
I walk a lot more
- Because there is always so much to see and do. And I like avoiding buses and taxis when possible for fear of confusion and being ripped off.
I don’t jog or anything annoying like that, but I do tend to get on a push-up binge. I’m doing forty a day right now.
I tend to do outdoorsy things when they’re available. Like hiking and biking. But I often do those things at home too.
My brain processes WAY more information than normal, and your brain uses twenty percent of the energy your body goes through.
- According to the Internet, thinking harder doesn’t affect that number in anyway. But I can’t help but to be skeptical of that.
I usually sleep like a rock
- Due to all the walking and information processing I’m doing each and every day.

People always want a quick fix. I get it, I’m one of those people. But again, I don’t think it’s just a matter of maintaining one or two of these habits when I get back. And unfortunately some of them can’t be maintained. There’s only so much walking one can do at home. Without getting bored out of their tree.

But maybe I’ll try.

Trip Update: Tsenkher Hot Springs

We rent a couple of exceptionally nice Trek mountain bikes from the Fairfield hotel where we are staying. A little pricey ($20 each), but good value considering how nice they are.

We head straight south from Tseterleg. In fact, it’s basically one road straight from the hotel to the Tsenkher hot springs!

Hey this is a neat thing I learned yesterday: there are nine smoke-belching smoke stacks around Tsetserleg. Little ones. They burn coal. And they heat water. And the water gets pumped through underground pipes to all the buildings in town, through the buildings’ radiators, and back to the smoke stacks. Wild! I’ve never heard of such a system before. But then I learned it was a common thing from the Soviet era (Mongolia was part of the Soviet Union until 1991). Apparently the government is working to build one big one at the centre of town and getting rid of the existing nine.

The pavement ends immediately on the edge of town. It’s then perhaps a one kilometre ride to a couple of bridges crossing a river.

Then a massive valley. Pick a road. Or, head straight across like a crow, but slightly to the right. Don’t let those yaks boss you around!

Then the first of three mountain passes. But I’m a B.C. boy so I’d call all three passes more like “big hill passes”.

Down into the next valley where your challenge will begin: avoid getting a wet foot while you cross two rivers with no bridges.

Up and over the next pass.

Across the next valley. Don’t do what I did: flop over the handle bars choosing to cross another small stream at too deep a spot.

Around the hill to the left and stop for an apple break. It’s been a good two hours of riding by this point.

One final pass to climb. We walk the last bit – our butts getting pretty sore by now.

And a nice, long coast down the hill to the right. Horses, yaks, sheep, goats… All jogging this way and that in an attempt to avoid us.

As it turns out the Duut resort isn’t open yet for the season. It looks like a big, log cabin from northern Canada. Apparently that’s the good one.

So we make our way across the muddy road to another resort. They’re actually closed to the public as a company from Ulan Batar has it booked out for a work retreat.

But the lady goes and asks the group in the pool if we can join and they give us the thumbs up. We are in!

An hour or so of enjoying a couple Golden Gobis by the pool side. Then a few more employees join the pool party. Then a few more. Then a really drunk, but fairly amusing guy. He begins showering us all with belly flops.

Then bottles of vodka start making the rounds.

And now we are all friends.

A couple of the girls are pretty good at English. And so we learn they work for a Korean company that imports cars to Mongolia. Korea, both North and South are very friendly with Mongolia.

This all makes sense: I would guess fifty percent of the vehicles in Ulan Batar are Toyota Priuses. With steering wheels on the wrong side.

You might be thinking “wow, so many Priuses, that’s a great thing!” But the truth is, they’re all from Japan. And they’ve been sent here because their batteries are dead. So they aren’t hybrids anymore.

They’re just cars now.