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Hotel: Mika Hotel (UlaanBaatar, Mongolia)
I was totally wiped out this morning, but we had to have an early start to go see the Nadaam ceremonies. We had a simple breakfast of toast, jam, yogurt and tea at the hotel before our guide arrived. Several other tourists were joining us today in the minibus for the 2nd day of ceremonies. Naadam is a combination Olympics/national holiday in Mongolia, always starting on July 11th. Mainly an excuse to party down, the games demonstrate the three 'manly' sports of wrestling, horce racing and archery. I had missed the horse racing yesterday afternoon, but the archery and wrestling competitions were continuing, in the Naadam stadium on the south side of town. This was my first time to see the city by daylight; it surprised me being a lot more modern than I expected. It was an interesting mix, new Korean and Japanese cars jostled on the roads with older Russian vehicles. The Mongolians have strongly embraced capitalism and the West since the downfall of communism in the early 1990s but thankfully there wasn't yet a McDonalds or Starbucks to be seen. The stadium itself was surrounded with dozens vendors and their gers (yurts), the traditional Mongolian nomadic house. Once inside the stadium, which is plastered with ads for Coca-Cola and local businesses (all in Cyrillic, the Mongolians use Cyrillic with a few additional letters), we sat down to watch the wrestling. Unfortunately we really needed binoculars; even with the best 'tourist' seats, the wrestlers looked tiny out in the middle of the field. The wrestlers would face off against each other; both of them dancing about wearing gaudy blue or red speedos with a frontless shirt/vest. The reason for this is to prevent women from entering the wrestling, at one time a woman entered in disguise and won the event! We soon headed over to the archery competition. There were a half dozen Mongolians wearing their traditional silk costume (del) and conical hats standing in a line shooting towards theline of judges with the targets literally at their feet. Quite a spectacle, the judges would point to a target, and the archer would send the arrow (blunt ended) screaming towards it! The archers were all ages and both men and women are allowed to enter this event. It was quite warm by this time and looking around for shade we noticed a tent where there was the sound of chanting. This was the ankle bone shooting competition, a team event, which consisted of flicking a bone or plastic chip towards a sheep ankle bone target. Team members sat on one side, the opponent's team on the other side of the target, both chanting and singing. Several of the wooden tracks used to flick the chip were quite elaborate; some had level bubbles built into them! After the ankle bone shooting, the tour guide took us to a local restaurant for lunch. Next we were off to see a folkloric dance and song show. The wind had started to pick up by this time and gritty dust was blowing through town, coming off the Gobi heralding the approach of a storm. The storm broke just as we arrived at the theater, and what a storm it was.. rain was coming down so hard you couldn't see across the parking lot! As soon as it started, it was over, and the sun came out again. The show was fantastic, with fabulous costumes and songs including throatsingers. We headed back to the Naadam stadium for the closing ceremonies. This is where all the awards were given out for the events. The winning horses were brought out just below us, and policemen lined up around the stadium to keep the audience from jumping out of the stands; apparently touching a winning horse is considered good luck! Mongolian horses are small, barely 5 feet tall, but they are very strong and sturdy. The horse races are around 25kms, and some years some horses are literally raced to death. All of the announcements were in Mongolian, so it was a little hard to follow what was going on! The tour guide took us to a Mexican/Indian restaurant for dinner, seemingly an odd combination for Mongolia, it turned out to be excellent! Chinggis beer is quite good.

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