Period: August 1997
Partecipants: Andrea Lombardi, Axel Kaiser, Marco Taverniti
Mongolia was for me always the most exotic and unreachable of the destinations. But halfhearted I had begun to read some books about Mongolia. In one of this tales I stumbled over a description of the Tschulut river which flows near the famous Tree of 100 branches. The tale stated that this river disappeared here in a deep canyon, this intrigued me a lot. I ordered hastily some Russian military map, this were the best and only maps for Mongolia at this time. A careful study convinced us that the river flow, indeed, in a canyon for about 200km until flowing into the ?????? river. I contacted almost all the canoe and rafting expeditions who had been in Mongolia before: French Slovakians, Italians and Americans. All this people concentrated their efforts on the Altai mountains. While the Tschulut is in the chengai mountains situated in Central Mongolia the only forested area in Mongolia (except the areas near the Russian borders). Convincing my friends for this new adventure proved to be an easy task, not so much for the preparation.
At this time, travelling in Mongolia, was very difficoult. deprived of the Russian economical help was near collapse and even food was difficoult and time-consuming to find (When we arrived there we saw that the situation was really not so bad). We needed equipment light enough to be carried for 100km on our backs (in case we didn't find a lift from when we leave the river till the next city), a boat for three people able to handle IV grade white water and to carry anything needed for 2 weeks in the wilderness.
We did our planning so good that we carried with us: boat, wetsuits, Camping gear, medicines and even supplies for 17 days and didn't pay a single kilo of overweight. About the equipment used you'll find more in the EQUIPMENT page. Now here is the tale.
Ulaan Bataar
Here we are after a troubled 30+ hour trip from Rome to Ulaan Bataar. Some
Idiot told me to check our luggage only trough Mosow as Aeroflot tends to loose
luggage. Recollect it in Moskow and then check it in for Ulaan Bataar. Only
problem was that we couldn't take our luggage in Moskow because we didn't have a
Visa. We spent several hours trying to make the groundstaff understand that our
problem,
Da Da Da was the answer. So after some hours of despair we 'enjoyed'
the hospitality of Aeroflot and now we are at the luggage belt with crossed
fingers. And, really, all our luggage appears and life is beautiful again. To
the astonished Customs we explain that we are Italian Pizza bakers (look at the
picture of our paddles), this was corroborated by the fact that we had a lot of
food with us including flour.
Outside the airport we met Dorschkotov (I'll call him Dorsch from now on). I contacted a Mongolian agency trough the net and booked a jeep and a guide. Dorsch told me that somebody he had never met phoned him to pick up some foreigners. He were supposed to speak English but didn't understand a single word, we were lucky that he was a University professor in holiday who studied in east Germany and speaks good German. First we checked in in our prebooked hotel where were supposed to be also the travel agency. Nobody knows nothing about the agency and after 1 hour in the hotel the police raids the Hotel and we have to leave. This first impact is quite confusing as everybody discusses for hours and we are not able to get a minimum of information.
Dorsch offers us, for a little money, to sleep at his home. We accept, when
his wife arrives at home a big quarrel start, ands after half an hour she leaves
with her suitcase. Dorsch tells us not to worry and that he will accompany us on
our trip as long as we need. He leaves to look for a jeep and driver while we
rest and prepare some Pasta. 
Than we make some shopping in a supermarket for
foreigners, they have a very limited choice of European goodies we find more on
the black market. we spend the night discussing with the cheerful driver about
the price after several hours and pages full of figures we agree on the price
and he understands that he has to bring us to the river and collect us 10-12
later at an prefixed point.
Next morning we leave early on a quite new UAZ ( the omnipresent Russian jeep). Ourselves with tons of material and Dorsch and the driver just with a plasticbag each for 3 weeks.
The Steppe
Soon we leave behind the tarred road (in Mongolia where, at this time, only 300km) and enter the rolling grassland classic for Mongolia. In the afternoon we stop at Tsetserleg, which once was the capital and a few temples and palasts are still visible, some of the very few which had survived Chinese and Russian depuration. The architecture remembers very much the Tibetan buildings.
We find lodging in a nearby town, here we try for the first time the original Mongolian cuisine, disgusting and tasteless. According to several books the Mongolian cuisine degenerated in the last centuries from luxurious (Dschengiskhan imported fresh tropical fruit from Thailand) to boring and tasteless, mostly mutton meat/fat boiled without salt or spices.
Next day we experience a thunderstorm before reaching the Tree of Hundred
branches. 
A huge tree adorned with plastic strips, between the roots you place
your prayer hoping that it will be fulfilled. We stay overnight at the lake????
The lake was created by a volcanic eruption only 80 years ago. The lava blocked a river (a tributary of our Tschulut) forming the lake which is in danger because the flowing water is eroding the natural dam.
Next morning we have the first glance at the Tschulut, we decide to follow its courses with the Jeep for a while. In some points the canyon is several hundred meters deep and we see a lot of white water at its bottom. Our stomach starts to clench, our tests in Italy running white water were disastrous.
While we follow the Canyon we see. in the middle of the steppe, a great mass of people with horses. Dorsch, who seems to have relatives everywhere, says that he knows them and that today the are celebrating some kind of holiday. The first contest is the horse race. The horses are mounted by 4-6 years old children, the important is to arrive not who arrives first. Then we have the luck to assist at the real Mongolian wrestling, the wrestlers wear a garment which covers only the arms and the shoulders and is very tight, to avoid be grabbed by the adversary. The winner makes an imitation of an eagle and going around the looser symbolizes that he, the stronger, protects also the weaker. After this he throws pieces of cheese to the spectators (us) and a bottle of ????? goes round.
After this great intermezzo 
we follow the river again until it disappears,
roaring, into a narrow canyon. 
This last vision troubles us, while we prepare
our gear and the provisions for the trip we are very silent. At 2 o'clock in the
night Marco wants to explain us his emergency plans if one of us gets hurt,
while we shout him to shut up.
The River
Next morning we inflate our boat next to a bridge, soon a great auditory assembles. Our boat is very particular one big sausage shaped inflatable which we can open with a watertight zipper to store our gear. Once finished we close the zipper and inflate, there are other two inflatables for each side and we sit on the central, big sausage like on a horse. After some hours we are ready and start. The first km are very agitated until we don't gain confidence with the boat, a branch sweeps me into the water at one time. We decide not to run a few harder rapids (probably 4th grade) to avoid any damage to the boat. A few hours on the river and we are at the entrance of the canyon and the Jeep is waiting, we told them to wait for us in case we had some problem. Now that everything is OK we send the Jeep away, after we told them to wait at least for 12 days at the end of the river. Now we are on our own.
We spend the afternoon fishing for trouts, it takes a lot to fish three little trouts and we cook them on a stick.
Next morning its raining better snow and rain mixed. Its very cold and the prospect of running the canyon ahead is not very tempting. But: Its a dirty job and somebody has to do it. So we go, contrary to appearance the canyon is not very difficoult and we proceed quickly, even if we have to get of the boat and go by feet for a few times to scout the river. At 2 o'clock we are so frozen that we need to stop, our hands are so stiff we can't hold the paddles anymore.
We set up the camp and after a few hot teas we start fishing. 
In a few
minutes we have about 5-6 Kg of big trouts, from today it takes us only 15-20
minutes to fish our dinner. Much longer it takes to prepare the fish. They are
so big we cannot roost them on a stick and so we have to build a grill out of
green branches and make a big fire to have enough charcoal to roast the fish
without burning the grill. He happens the first tragedy: I forgot the olive oil
on the Jeep!! Marco and Andrea are upset. we deal with the calamity like real
men, we still have some spices for the fish.
Next morning, and for the rest of the trip, the weather is wonderful, it's a delight to paddle on the river.
There are some stretches
where we understand why this river is called Tschulut, which means 'the stony
river'. Zig zaging trough the boulders is quite challenging with our boat with
our 5.3 meters long boat and we are afraid to damage the boat, but the material
is strong and light, the whole boat weighs only 13 Kg.
We still have to manage a few rapids but as the days passes they are fewer and farer apart.
In the next days we get accustomed to live on the boat, we don't stop anymore for food or rest but eat and doze while the current carries us along.
The nature is wonderful, eagles fly over our head we see traces of animals everywhere even if they elude our gazes.
Where the canyon opens up we meet some nomads, which don't seem to be too curious about us. As we are ahead of schedule we make akso some side trip by foot to explore the countryside. As the river now is smooth and fast flowing we manage to make about 35 km a day
Our daily schedule is quite full, we don't have a lot of time to relax. In the morning we need about 2 hours to get everything ready for departure then we paddle for about 6 hours, set up the camp, fish the dinner, clean the fish make the fire and cook takes another 3 hours.
After 10 days we enter the ????? river and after a few Km we see Dorsch and the driver weaving. They had anticipated our meeting point ascending the river for some 20 km.
An hour later we are already on our way back to Ulaan bataar. The trip back gives us some more insight in Mongolian live. After one dinner out, they served us fat and potatoes, we decide to cook for ourselves. We find Czechoslovakian spaghetti, which are reduced to clue after only 2 minutes in boiling water.
As we have still a few days left we decide to make another river in the north near the russian border. I found in the guidebook a remark about a beautiful river.
The landscape is very different huge birch forests cover the mountains, here the Tundra starts. The people are not so friendly anymore and look at us with distrust. Maybe because in this area are goldmines under Russian control. We see a lot of phisical deformations both on animals and people, maybe there is some chemical plant here, also the water is covered with a strange kind of foam. We stay for 2 days on the river trying to stay away from people as much as possible, in some moments they are very hostile. The only friendly people we meet are two fishermen with enormous trouts.
we are happy when we leave this area. we spend another 2 days in Ulaan Bataar sightseeing, we spend one evening drinking and dancing Macarena with some jovial locals who insisted to pay our bill, when they got the bill they almost fainted.
