TRAVERSE Issue 10 - February 2019 | Page 77

square. Our destination was the first 5-star hotel ever built in Mongolia located at the stunning Terelj National Park, via the biggest statue of a horse in the world, with of course, Chinngis Khan sitting astride. In fact, the statue was so big you needed to take an elevator to the head of the horse where one can walk out to marvel the view across the landscape where legend has it that Gh- inngis, (as he is locally known), found his golden sword, a sword that guar- anteed battle success, it must have worked as he built up the largest em- pire the world has ever known! Our first shakedown ride on the dirt was via the wonderfully remote Kerlin River Valley to Mongoramit, in the far east of Mongolia, not far from the Chi- nese border. The recent rains had indeed swol- len the rivers and it wasn’t long before TRAVERSE 77