Day #83: The Black Market

---

Naran Tuul market is known by everyone locally as the Black Market, though not everything sold there is counterfeit. I went today with the intention of buying flip-flops, but when I found a pair I liked and asked the stallholder for help, she shouted "net, net" and angrily shoo-ed me away from the stall, so I came away empty-handed.

It was anyway interesting to walk around the market, which is so huge that it is overwhelming and disorientating to begin with. The biggest sections are clothes, shoes and fabrics and there is a large food hall where you can buy whole carcasses, but the most intersting part is the section for kitting out a ger, where I saw all the ephemera I had become accustomed to observing in gers multiplied by thousands. It was surreal to see endless piles of stoves (chimneys sold separately), rows and rows of colourful Thermos flasks, and stacks of milk tea bowls, alongside traditionally decorated furniture and beds. Other items I have never seen sold in such numbers were the horse-riding equipment and rope.
.

---