MONGOLIA - PART 1 - YOU HAVE SEEN THIS ALREADY!

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- NOTE: The China and Mongolia entries have already been posted, and you have probably already read them (if not, why not??!! - just kidding). Basically the website crashed and lost everybody's travelblogs - rubbish!! Hence the delay in getting the rest of our travel blogs out. Very annoyed. So the photos from Beijing and Mongolia part 1 are lost, and it will take us forever to upload them again, so no photos for these entries - but photos for all the rest -so read them if you have the time! Thanks, Nic and Anton xxxx

Who knows what the capital of Mongolia is?

Neither did we. It's one of those places you rarely think about, like Zanzibar, or Bhutan, unless you get asked a pub quiz question about it, and it's just another one on the list that isn't going to win you any prizes.

And because of that, we really wanted to go. And it just so happened that while we were going to be here, the annual national Day Festival - Nadaam - is on.

Ok, so we touched down in Ulaan Bataar, the country's capital (quizters take note). UB is probably the ugliest city we have ever been to. And we’ve been to Sunderland (just kidding Anna!) Mongolia, until the early 90’s was a Soviet-controlled country - Communism was in full force, and Russia, whilst not owning Mongolia, definitely called the shots. So UB is a city full of ugly concrete state buildings, ugly concrete high rises, big powerstations called things like ‘Power Station #3’ (the Communists had a lot of imagination). It’s just an ugly, ugly place. It’s saving grace however, is that it is surrounded by 4 beautiful huge mountains which stem the urban sprawl, and here and there pockets of surprising beauty exist - mostly in the form of monasteries, the few which survived the destruction of most of Mongolia’s religious buildings during the Soviet years (religion is the opiate of the masses, it makes the workers accept their lot in life, destroy all monasteries, kill the monks, kill the soul of the people - such forward and enlightened thinking there).

Anyway, our main reason for being in UB was not to holiday in a hotel that resembled a prison cell, but to attend the magnificent Nadaam festival. This is a 3-day nation-wide celebration that honours the day Mongolia won their freedom from the Chinese. Ok, so I think I should give a potted history of Mongolia here (apologies for inaccuracies). Genghis Khan (or Chinggis khan as the Mongols call him) is the greatest man ever to have lived in this millennium. (Not necessarily my personal opinion, but recently voted by the world’s leaders). The reason? He brought together the warring tribes of Central Asia to make up, roughly, what is modern-day Mongolia. He was a fearful and murdering, but he also unified the country, and kept out the Manchu’s (now Chinese). He was worshipped and revered, and when he died, his body was buried in a secret place that is still unknown, and those who attended his funeral were slain, and then 2000 horsemen trampled over his gravesite to conceal its location further, and they too were slain. He was buried with apparently, millions, possibly billions of dollars worth o gold and silver. Hence the longstanding interest in finding his grave…..Anyway, this was all in the 12th century. Since then, things haven’t gone so well, and the Mongols were successfully invaded by the Chinese, in the 1920’s and then by the Russian Communists soon after, who liberated them from the Chinese, just to install themselves instead . The reds and whites had many a tactical battle in Mongolia, and the end result was that Mongolia became a Communist state, the early 90’s when it became a democracy. So, Nadaam celebrates freedom from the Chinese.

Nadaam is essentially 3 days of hard drinking (Mongolians are most famous for their horsemanship and their drinking), wrestling, archery and horseracing. We attended the opening ceremony at the national stadium, which consisted of all the great and good in Mongolia - actors, singers (there was a Mongolian hip-hop group and a rock band called Chinngis Khan) dancers, people in religious costumes people representing all the tribes of Mongolia, as well as some Mongolian beauty queens and Miss Mongolia herself (got the biggest cheer) all putting on a huge and fabulous singing and dancing show and a parade. Then the games began - the atmosphere in the stadium was brilliant - this is the Mongolian version of the Olympics or the World Cup - and everyone was really excited. There was cheering and laughing and drinking and general joviality and exitement. Old and young were there and the stadium was packed. People in Gucci sunglasses were sitting next to people in traditional dress, and everyone was getting on and having a great time. The wrestlers filed out - all 540 of them - they pair up, and start to wrestle at the same time. You win and go through to the next round if you manage to wrestle your opponent to the ground - his elbow touching the ground satisfies this requirement. The wrestlers are for the most part HUGE with big fat bellies, but there were a few whippersnappers in there. They wear the most bizarre outfit - small tiny pants, embroidered boots, a tight jacket with no front and a hat which looks like it is a radio transmitting pole or a communication device of an alien mother ship. Apparently the jackets with no fronts is a ploy to stop women from sneakily wrestling by pretending to be a man. The wresting goes on for pretty much the three days, and a young, skinny boy one, showing that it is all down to technique. After the wresting, we went to watch the archery. It was so cool. Men and women wearing tradition Mongolian dress (a robe thing with a sash round it, called a ‘del’, Cossack or Mongolian embroidered boots, and a felt fedora) all line up, and aim their bows and arrows at stacks of tiny black rubber tin can targets a good 500m away. The craziest thing is that standing behinds these targets are the judges, who sing songs and chant to protect themselves from the flying arrows. The archers draw their huge bows back, take aim, and fire. And no one got hurt! The chanting must work…..

Then, some the horseracing. This takes place outside of UB, so we had to drive there. The world and his dog was heading there, so the road was grid locked. No worries though, our driver just took matters into his own hands and drove the wrong way down a 3-lane road. It was very Starsky and Hutch, with cars zooming the other way and swerving to avoid us (but I was quite scared). So we got to the horse racing. I should explain a little about Mongolians and horses. Essentially, you will never meet a Mongolia who cannot horse-ride. Since the time of the Khans, it has been in their blood. Mongolians grow up on horses, and they are globally acknowledged as being the best horseman in the world. They love and worship their horses - killing one is major offence - like killing your mother or something, and if one dies of natural causes, they cut off its head and put a pile of stones over it, and it becomes a shrine to worship at. So the horseracing is a big deal. Thousands of people were thronging the hillside where we were watching it from. Some people had arrived in cars, a lot had come on horseback, so whilst you were watching, sometimes you could feel a horses nose snuffling behind you. The race is 25 kms long, and the races are divided by the age of the horse. I should also tell you that the jockeys are children. But they are not bought from poor families to be jockeys by unscrupulous horse owners, like the children camel jockeys in the UAE, although this did go on a bit a few years ago, before the government got involved and put a stop to it. We waited for while, and then is a big flurry of dust, we saw the horses thunder by. The winning horse I considered sacred, and people clamor to touch its sweat, as this is supposed to bring good luck. Though we never got within a km of the winning horse, there were just so many people. Nadaam was rounded off by a Mongolian throat singing concert (they use different parts of their larynx and palette to create dual notes, which sounds a bit like ET singing, but is a really skill and very cool to witness) and some fireworks in the main square. These were great, and everyone was ooing and ahhing. We watched them form a bar off the main square. Then, bits of charred firework started falling on our heads, so we were too scared to look up in case something fell in our eyes. Then we noticed how low the fireworks were falling, and failing to burn out. Then we heard a scream from behind us, and turned around to see a Mongolian man with fire and sparks coming off him because a huge piece of lit firework had landed on him. He beat it out though, and was fine, and carried on watching!. So we sheltered for safety under some pub umbrellas. Anton picked up a huge piece that fell into the ornamental pond next to us - it fell out of the sky like and sizzled in the pond, like kryptonite. And this really summed up our Naddaam experience, which we were so privileged to have witnessed - crazy, a bit dangerous and very exciting. On to the Gobi desert next……

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