From Khuvsgul Lake we went south and to Murun again. There we found some friendly Mongolians who filled up our gas bottle, which was not that easy in the beginning, but when the guys saw that we had a lot of adapters for our bottle, they got curious and in the end, together we managed to fill the bottle up and had quite some fun doing that.

From Murun, we took another offroad track to a lake. The track was absolutely Mongolian, but we felt pretty used to it at that point and so it all went quite easily. At the shore of the lake there were billions of insects…

…and so we parked a bit away from the shore on a small hill where the wind was a bit stronger and there were fewer insects.

It was a beautiful lake, but we stayed only one night.

When we continued, we came across a regional Naadam and took a look around. I liked this game in which the players flicked pieces with their fingers to hit some targets.

Every player had a nice leather bag especially for his slide and stones.

There were plenty of opportunities for snacks, mostly served from small shops like this one.

The kids were playing some lottery games.

And the older people shot bows, which Racki and I felt to be very interesting and nice, so we said again that if we came across a nice bow and arrows, we should maybe get them.

Of course there were beautiful horses.

And the traditional wrestling.

The atmosphere between Racki and me was a bit tense. I’d say for no proper reason, but just because… of reasons. As can happen sometimes…

When we took a small corner just a couple of kilometers before our destination for the day, we came across some very drunken Mongolians who had somehow managed to crash their mini transporter against a pole at the side of the track and then crashed in reverse up a stone pile. We got our recovery stuff out, some sober Mongolians joined the party, and together we got the mini transporter back on the track again. The drunken guys were very happy and able to continue their drive.

Since we’d entered Russia, I had the impression that I was hearing and sometimes feeling a clonk sound when driving Rosinante, especially on little bumps, rocks, or corrugated tracks. At one moment that sound got more intense, and we stopped to have a look.

From previous sound diagnostics, we had learned to first remove Rosinante’s underbody armor because that useful but sometimes very annoying thing had misled our diagnoses quite a few times. While removing it, the thread of one of the screws fixating the body armor broke again. But that could not have been the source of the sound we were looking for.

Again, I tried to find the reason for that sound lying under Rosinante, and then I found it! It was the inner end of the driver’s side front CV shaft that had play—the part that was sticking into Rosinante’s front differential. I was not amused, and having this tension already between Racki and me, the first minutes after finding this on a very small track in Mongolia were not easy for me. We already knew how demanding the tracks were and how difficult it could be to find spare parts and have things repaired, based on experiences from friends who had visited Mongolia in the past.

And a damaged and maybe soon broken front differential—meaning no 4x4 and no low gear in Mongolia—sounded not good to me at all.

But just a couple of hundred meters away from where we found the source of the sound, we found a nice camp spot by a river, and Racki and I calmed down and started a constructive dialogue about what our options would be.

Meanwhile, the yaks enjoyed the refreshing water of the river and calmed down as well.

Racki and I contacted all the mechanic friends we had, and I started a topic on Reddit (you can read it here, but be warned, it contains some spoilers for future developments on that topic). After that and some more research, we got various opinions about the issue ranging from “I would not drive like this, could destroy the front differential” to “I’ve seen worse on a brand new Hilux” As always with car topics…

We decided that we would try our luck with the mechanics of the nearby village.

The people at the first garage were absolutely not motivated to deal with us and the translator app to have a look at our issue. The guys at the second garage were motivated and had a look, but lacked the right tool to investigate further. We needed a 36mm socket to proceed with our diagnosis. But one of the Mongolians told us via translator that we could go to his home and check if he had the right tool.

This guy was absolutely lovely. At his home, he had an old small truck with lots of used and some broken tools, and he had the right socket. So we decided that we would try our luck and check the issue with the help of that nice man.

We removed the CV shaft and found that the play was definitely at the inner part sticking into the differential. So we decided to detach it from the wheel to not stress it further and have it checked in a proper garage. In this photo you see the result of our work, and at that moment we felt very good about our decision. But oh boy, this will change soon…

The whole family of our new friend was super nice, and they showed us their beautiful Mongolian house. They gave us snacks and a very Mongolian drink that had been boiling all day on the stove: Mongolian tea with milk and vodka.

The father was very proud of the prizes and medals he got in horse races.

A friend or uncle, pretty drunk, joined us as well. It was super nice, and we felt very grateful that this man had helped us and that his family was so welcoming.

We decided to change our plans, take another potentially less demanding route to the volcano we wanted to visit, and then continue our way to Ulaanbaatar (the capital of Mongolia) to have Rosinante fixed. And if there were a nice garage on the way, we would maybe check Rosinante’s issue with them.

On the way, we came across these magnificent vultures.

There were quite a lot of them.

And we found these nice feathers.

And we met these guys, maybe searching for front differential topics for their cars, maybe TikTok, maybe Pornhub… Especially the fellow on the left impressed me with his elaborate technique for resting his head while eating and using his phone.

After we’d brought our friend Zdenko to the bus station of Murun, we returned to the west shore of Khuvsgul Lake to join the Shaman festival. When we arrived at the festival, there was not much going on, but we were patient and slowly things started to happen. We met again with one of the oldest active shamans in Mongolia who has a long shamanic lineage. For the festival, she wore lots of medals on her dress.

There was a lot to see and hear. Singers…

…dancers…

…having fun and giving a nice and interesting performance.

We talked a bit with the locals and had a good time witnessing the Mongolian festivities.

There were a lot of speeches in which locals and foreigners were praised and thanked. The elderly woman with the grey hat was from Switzerland and was one of the first foreigners who had met the shamans at Khuvsgul Lake decades ago. Back then, she had followed a vision which led her to the shaman people.

A lot had changed since then, and it was interesting to learn about the history of these people. Since the Swiss lady had been with the shamans, she had become a student and gotten into the shamanic rituals, beliefs, etc. Before that, she had already been with the natives of North America for years.

About thirty years ago, there had been no artificially produced stuff in that region around Khuvsgul Lake. The locals produced and manufactured everything on their own. No plastic, no materials that would not rot. When plastic arrived, the locals did not know anything about it, and the Swiss lady had a hard time explaining to them that plastic would never rot. The locals could not understand that at all, and only when she told them that plastic would hurt their horses did the locals understand, take it seriously, and mostly stop throwing plastic into the environment.

The connection between the Mongolian shamans grew, and the foreigners visiting them spread their beliefs, rituals, and ways of life to Europe. There was some financial support as well, and at the festival, a lot of people got honored for their help.

For the kids, there were lots of free sweets!

The festival continued with traditional wrestling, which was very interesting to see.

We only witnessed the youth wrestling because the schedule and locations where things were happening were often pretty unpredictable (even though there was an official schedule). But there were horse races and more as well.

Before and after each fight, the fighters performed a short ritual which reminded us of a bird of prey flying around a pole in the ground. It gave the fighting a nice, cultural, less violent touch.

In between the festival activities, we hung around with our host and our friends Merel and Leon. All of us stayed in our cars at the yurt camp of our host. She was a very interesting Mongolian lady who had some trouble with her camp and a very honest way of communicating.

So we learned a lot about her life, Mongolia, her daughter studying in Germany, and lots more. I think it was very nice for our host to have us around, talk about what was going on in her life, and maybe have some input from very different people like us.

Our highlight was the shamanic ritual we witnessed one morning. We got up early so as not to miss anything, but in the end, the whole ritual started a bit late.

It was very fascinating. First, every participant built up a little personal space in front of the animal totem that stood for their birthdate. The personal space consisted of a small altar, milk, vodka, sweets, a drum, a shamanic costume, and several other things. Every participant had an assistant helping with everything.

Every participant sacrificed some of the stuff he brought with him at his altar. After that, everybody started meditating and playing the jaw harp to get into a trance-like state. The golden plate, this lady was wearing, was acting as a shield in the “trance world” which was supposed to protect her from bad ghosts.

After that, the personal assistant of every participant helped to put on the shamanic costume which connected him to his “natural side/self”, blindfolded the participant, and sprayed some milk and vodka on him.

The next step was putting on a shamanic mask.

And after that, the energetic, trance drumming began, which, depending on the individual participant, got pretty intense. Some shamans needed assistance so as not to lose all connection to their environment.

After the energetic part, they calmed down and told their assistants what they had seen, witnessed, and experienced in their trance states.

There was a lot of milk involved and it was a very nice ritual.

And I liked how these people got into it and how their beliefs brought them together. It seemed that they got something from it that connected them to their natural selves.

Once more we met our friendly host and then it was time to continue our journey with all the impressions we got from the shamanic festival.