BootsnAll Travel Network



Next stop: The Wild West

I pick up my Kazakhstan visa tomorrow and have to figure out how I’m going to get to Olgii in far western Mongolia.  This region is more ethnically Kazakh and has been through a series of ups and downs since the fall of the USSR.  When Kazakhstan achieved independence thousands of people returned to their homeland leaving Olgii in a depressed state.  In recent years the region has seen an resurgence and I’ve heard nothing but great things about this remote area.  It is the Wild West.
I face the the options of either taking a three day bus journey from hell, or shelling out the money to fly over to have more time to enjoy the amazing area that surrounds Olgii.  This is the land of eagle hunters and the remote Altai mountain range that spans the precarious border region between Mongolia, China, Russia, and Kazakhstan.  I can think of no place more remote, a place lost among unknown peaks in the heart of Asia’s vastness.

Just across the Altai’s in Kazakhstan is the region that mothers have in mind when they threaten to send their naughty children off to Siberia.  It was here that the Russians sent Dostoyevsky to do a five year stint of hard labor for his subversive Communistic leanings.  He later based his semi-autobiographical memoir, The House of the Dead, on his experiences here.  Since then the Soviets have turned regions west of the Altai into a nuclear wasteland, detonating thousands of bombs here over the course of the cold war.

I will stay on the Mongolian side that has enjoyed a more pleasant history but reportedly retains the feeling of isolated beauty.  All I have to do is get there.



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