July 11th and 12th was Mongolia’s Nadaam Festival. It’s the time of year that all the Mongols look foward to. The main attractions at Nadaam are it’s three major sporting events: wrestling; archery and horse racing. A fourth event was recently added - ankle bone shooting? (It’s an accuracy contest by flicking an piece of ankle bone (from some animal, I don’t know which) and knocking down a target.
We caught the opening ceremony on day one - zzzZZZzzzZZZ…. Just your typical sports event opening day stuff - live music, speech from the Mongolian President (I could be wrong but I think I heard him say “Your either with us or against us.”), little kids prancing around with flags and banners….
Getting hammered drunk is also a major attraction during Nadaam. Well getting hammered drunk is a major event all year in Mongolia. I’ve never seen so many staggering drunks in my life. I thought Seoul and Tokyo had a lot of drunks. But Ulaan Baatar takes the cake. Alcholism is a major problem in Mongolia. It’s a pretty sad seeing so many passed out people in the middle of the day.
Anyway Nadaam was uneventful for us, but apparantly it’s the must thing to see when it happens.
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Yvonne and I took a two day horse riding/camping trip to get away from Ulaan Baatar. ( 2 1/2 hours on horseback each day - with our backpacks! My butt and thighs are extremely sore today). We’re so ready to leave the city. We’re pretty bored just passing the time.
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We met a couple of Korean guys in our guest house dorm room. They are planning on traveling around the world for 2 years! I thought I was the only crazy Korean guy traveling but these guys have me beat. It’s nice to see a couple of Koreans willing to take a chance on life - quit their jobs, ignore their families conservative pleas and go traveling.
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Tonight we leave UB and will take a train back to Beijing. (By the way I forgot to mention the terrible pollution in Beijing. I’ve never seen the sky in Beijing. The pollution is so bad the visibility level is maybe 1 km) We’ll have a 12 hour layover in Beijing then hop on another train to Shanghai. I’m ready for some good Shanghainese food! I definitely lost alot of weight thanks to the Mongol diet. Adios UB! See you all in Shanghai.

Pictures

Nadaam festival opening ceremony

Mongolia president walking around the stadium

Horse back riding in Terelj

The 2 crazy Korean travelers

We’re back in Ulaan Baatar. I’m pretty wiped out from our long road trip. 10 days of bumpy dirt roads, I was so relieved when we reached the flat, asphalt pavement. The three of us (our friend from Hong Kong, Morlene met us in Beijing and we all took the train together into Ulaan Baatar) were so tired of bouncing around in our 4 x 4 Russian van. We hired our driver, Ishka (Morlene kept calling him E-Shack), at the Nassan Guest House in UB. Unfortunately Ishka did not speak English…only a few phrases like “Are you hungry?” “are you tired?” but he did provide us with several Mongolian phrase books. If we needed something we would point to a phrase or word in our book. Communicating was difficult but we managed to work things out.
We covered over 2100 km on the road. It’s amazing how our driver arrived at our destinations. Once we left Ulaan Baatar it was dirt road the entire way. No off-road maps or marked trails in Mongolia, just rely on nature to find your way. Ishka would use the mountain ranges to navigate his way across the countryside and desert. He was always staring off into the horizon while he was driving. We were convinced he was lost, but we always arrived on time if not early to our destination. Not a day would pass by where Ishka would not run into someone he knew. We would be in the middle of nowhere and he would recognize another jeep or minivan driver. The cars would stop and the drivers would shoot the shit for several minutes. One day he ran into his sister in the middle of the Gobi!
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One night we stayed with a nomadic family in their ger. (Gers are the round dome tent structures the Mongolians live in). We had no choice that evening because our driver had a hard time finding us accomodations in a tourist or family runned ger camp. (Think of it as a cheap motel but you’re room is a ger). Ishka pulled his van up to the nomads ger camp, engaged in some small talk and the next thing we know we’re walking inside with our backpacks.
The family was extremely nice and hospitable. The husband and young son were the horse herders. While the wife did the cooking, cleaning and taking care of the infant daughter. A picture perfect family in the Mongolian sense. Anyway, we’re in this nomadic tent and out comes the food offerings. Salty Milk tea, Yak cheese. We all sip our tea and take a piece of the cheese. To refuse would be insulting. To barf in front of our hosts would be even more insulting. The tea was tolerable, actually I found it quite bland. The cheese on the other hand was extremely sour, I could best describe the taste as expired plain yogurt but maybe some one could have pissed in this expired yogurt. It was pretty difficult to stomach. This was the appetizer. Later on comes the main course, hand-made noodles with dried mutton meat.
The wife was quite the noodle maker. Needing, rolling and cutting the dough. But I lost my appetite when I saw her fueling the boiling water by touching the dried horse dung with her bare hands and tossing it into the cooking fire. After touching the dried horse shit she immediately went back to the noodle making. No hand washing! At least she tossed the noodles and dried mutton into the hot boiling water. I was praying to God to please kill the horse shit germs in the boiling water. I guess it would have been rude to inquire about the water temperature. The soup noodle was served piping hot and yes we ate it. To refuse would be insulting. To barf in front of our hosts would be more insulting. So we sucked it up and ate the noodles (we had to pull out a few hairs in the process). We did not hesitate to refuse seconds.
Hanging out in the nomads tent. We were quite the curiosity to them. They were really into seeing their photos immediately on the screen of our digital cameras. They were really tripping out at our inflatable sleeping mats and stuffable sleeping bags. It was really nice having this “cultural exchange” for the evening. Yvonne had several “cultural exchanges” with the dried horse dung that was tied on a rope hanging down the middle of the tent. (The nomads must hang the dried horse shit for good luck or something). A frustrated Yvonne smacked her head several times into the dried poop.
The next morning we were served breakfast, rice with dried mutton. To refuse would be insulting. To barf in front of our host would be more insulting. We did not hesitate to refuse seconds. We packed off, said goodbye and left the nomads. After the wonderful cuisine we swore off the mutton meat.
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Remember when I prayed to God to ask him to kill the dried horse shit germs? He wasn’t listening. Montezuma’s revenge conquered and destroyed my stomach. Yvonne and Morlene were spared the misery I had endured for one evening. They’re not so convinced that the noodle soup did me in because it was served piping hot. Anyway thank God for Ciproflaxin. I popped a couple of Cipro pills and felt alot better the following day.
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Alex e-mailed telling me to eat lots of Mongolian bbq. Alex my friend I hate to tell you Mongolian bbq does not exist here. It’s definitely a Chinese restaurant thing invented in the states. Alex don’t fear you’ll be glad to hear there is something close. The Mongolians have a delicacy where they cook a marmot with a blow torch. Lonely Planet says Mongolia is the only country where you can use a blow torch to cook your food and fix your car - dual usage. However, I don’t plan on eating a marmot so you’ll have to travel to Mongolia and experience it yourself.
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On the day we got back to UB from the Gobi. We all showered up and headed for lunch. While we were eating lunch I spotted a bright purple Dosa patchwork skirt walking towards our direction. It was our friend Lorenza. Not that this was a surprise because we were eventually going to meet up due to coincidental traveling schedules. But seeing this familiar purple object walking on the streets of Ulaan Baatar was a nice, brief surreal moment. It’s so great to be halfway around the world and seeing good friends along the way.

Pictures

The famous horse dung noodles. The chunk that she’s holding is their delicacy, mutton fat. Cutting in slices of it was in honor of us. And we all got some in our noodles. Yummie!

Horse dung supply.

The random meeting of Ishka and his sister.

Yvonne learning to herd sheep.

Ay-ya! 10 day road trip sounded so great when we started in Ulaan Baator. But oh my gosh the food is insanely difficult to swallow after a few days. We are on day 8 and can’t wait to get back to civilization and food other than mutton! It might be more bearable if the gers we are staying in every night actually didn’t also smell so intensely of mutton! Give you an example of the smell content. Last night I spent most of the night sleeping with my head covered in my sleep sheet. I would be waken by the smell of mutton every time my head slipped out of my sheet! Only TWO more days!

Other than that, the country is quite beautiful. The Gobi is impressive, but some of the natural sights that have claim to fame I think are far surpassed by some of the desert scenery we have in the U.S. We started going west from U.B. and will be completing the loop by going south into the Gobi and back up to U.B. At this point we’ve reached the furthest south we will go and will now head north back up to hopefully cooler weather. The first two days were actually cold and a bit rainy. So we hit the desert the water consumption went up considerably. We will be resupplying here in what is consider the capital of the Gobi, Dalanzadgad.

We are contemplating buying spaghetti and tomato sauce for the last two days. Although yesterday we were pleasantly surprised by our request of no mutton with rice, potatoes, and cabbage. The latter two being cooked in a chicken broth and plain rice. Who would have thought that would be the best meal so far! The food might be a bit more tolerable if we knew that the preparation of it was sanitary. But having found hairs in my food pretty much every night to date, except last night, it’s hard to swallow.

Well, I think we should get out of this internet cafe and try buy edible food and a shower. No shower for two nights and it looks like none tonight. So we’re going to try to get one in town before leaving. It’s a good thing we’re not visiting anyone right after this trip.

:) Don’t you all wish you could smell us now.

Pictures

Our friend from Hong Kong, Morlene, trying to keep the sand storm out during our 30 hour train ride to Ulaan Baatar.

Our driver, Ishka, and the 4x4 Russian van we will spend the next ten days in.

Blue skies at long last!

Typical prayer mound.

Phallic rock with vagina hill. A reminder to the nearby monks of what they shouldn’t do.

The ger we stayed at with the famous horse dung noodle soup. Yes, that is a satelite dish and next to it covered by a cloth is a solar panel for electricity. Very typical setup at most gers.

Baby camel at one of the ger camps we stayed at.

Sand dunes ger camp, owner’s baby napping with their dog.

Sand dune sunset.

Morlene and I at our sand dune peak.

Glacier at Yolym Am.