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Published: August 16th 2006
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Dates have got a bit muddled but bear with us - part of this entry was supposed to be in yesterdays......
Spent a fairly relaxing day exploring the city after the train journey. Ulaan Baatar is undergoing big changes with lots of new buildings, huge adverts for electronics and many huge American cars and 4X4's. Things change only a tiny distance out from the centre though and the poverty is obvious. There are many young children running around without shoes asking for food and money - UB apparently has a real problem with street children who live in the sewers and heating pipe systems under the city. It's really sad to see, some of nthem look as young as 5. We bought some food to give to them and it's really amazing to see how they share everything - the one who gets the food calls all the others over and they share it out. They pick up ice creams that people have thrown on the floor and all of them finish it. Some of the restaurants have donation envelopes for the charities that try to help them - we put some money in but hoped this wasn't a scam.
The setting for the city is beautiful, surrounded by hills, one of which has an enormous picture of Ghengis Khan etched into it. This year is the 800th anniversary of Genghis Khan who united Mongolia and started expanding the Mongolian empire (they eventually conquered a large section of the world, from China to Hungary), so they have images, videos and information leaflets with warriors all over the place.
We went to a nice cafe for lunch and sat outside on a table shaded with a large parasol. Near the end a fierce updraft wind grabbed two of the very heavy metal parasols, lifting them 15 meters up in the air to come crashing down a few moments later. Luckily nobody was hurt, but one fell inches from an innocent pedestrian walking by 10 meters away.
We went out for dinner at a Mongolian restaurant and coincidentally met the two Dutch girls that we shared a compartment with on the train. We all had very nice soups with mutton (adult sheep’s meat) and very large main meals, again with heaps of mutton. The amount of meat proved a little overwhelming for us (I think between us we must
have eaten an entire sheep!) and we felt a little squeamish by the end! For dessert we tried the local tea made from milk with dried mutton mixed in.....definitely an aquired taste and very different from a nice UK brew! The other traditional Mongolian alternative was salty tea which we skipped! Luckily Thor also ordered a normal cup of hot milk with honey, and Jen got a nice Mongolian beer.
After walking the girls to their hotel (through an extremely dodgy part of town) and finding the way back to our own, we definitely slept very well that night.
The next day we were picked up by our guide Tebe and our driver in a very nice Toyota Land Cruiser, much to our delight as we had read to expect an old Russian jeep without shock absorbers and air conditioning. We travelled 90 km to the Terelj national park in no time as our driver seemed to have aspirations of being a formula one racer - we bounced and crashed our way over less than well paved roads, overtaking everything in sight - probably a good thing as we didn't have time to get travel sick....The Park was
Mmm.....
Yes, that really is a enormous bone filled with tasty bone marrow really lovely - grassy valleys, rocky hills, clear rivers and it was cooler and fresher than UB. We got settled in our Ger camp and had lunch. We have a very nice Ger with two beds, a table and a wood burning stove. The top of the ger can be opened to cool it down. After lunch we drove out in search of the Turtle Rock, which is a 40 meter high rock formation with a canny resemblance to a turtle. We climbed it and found a nice little shady outlook point where we relaxed for a while looking at the surrounding countryside scattered with gers and animals. The nomad families generally keep 5 types of animal - horse, sheep, goat, camel and cow. They roam around in small herds and it's amazing to see - they look wild but apparently the owners can tell exactly which are their animals from many km away.
After lots of photos and a pleasant run-in with a friendly camel we were off to visit a nomad family. As tradition says, guests are always welcome and served Airag (fermented mare’s milk) en mass and other milk-based Mongolian delicacies. Airag is slightly alcoholic (only
3%) so we were slightly perturbed to see our driver slurping several bowls of it. The families make it fresh every few days. We both found the Airag slightly better than we had feared, resembling a mixture of sour milk, yeast and lemonade - although I doubt that we will be taking any home with us! The milk products seem to be various cheeses and are all pretty sour tasting - Tebe our guide loved them and gobbled lots...
The family were very friendly and it was interesting to see inside a real ger rather than the tourist ones - it's incredible to think they cook, eat, sleep and socialise in such a small space. Everyone has many jobs to do, even the children, and they are busy constantly. Some gers apparently have electricity and even TV but others are much more basic. They have many traditions and etiquette relating to the ger - the door always faces south, the elders and honoured people sit at the back of the ger which is also where they keep their treasured possessions (family photos and a buddist altar, guests always sit to the left at the back, you should never refuse
anything given to you or whistle inside, you should accept all things with your right hand initially and so on.....I'm sure we forgot many of these at the time. This family had two girls - we can't remeber their Mongolian names but their Western names were Crystal and Silence - they were very curious and very sweet. While we were there, other people from nearby families came round for airag and to see us, which is apparently very normal. The family generally moves 2-4 times a year with the seasons to the best grazing for their animals - they can pack up in a few hours and be off. Once the children are old enough they often get sent to the city to go to school, where they stay with relatives. Mongolians think education is very important. We were amazed to learn 47% of Mongolians live as nomad families in gers - although this proportion is decreasing.
Later that afternoon we went to a horseman show where local riders showed off their acrobatic skills whilst galloping around on the back of a horse - they were incredibly skilled and their horses very trusting - the riders could make
their horses fall to the ground on demand! We also watched the 3 'manly' sports of horse racing, Mongolian wrestling and archery. The wrestling was very funny with the men wearing little more than tiny pants and big boots! Afterwards the audience could try out their archery skills and Thor managed to hit the sheep skin target with all four arrows, to the disappointment of a group of Australians who only got one...
Back at the camp we had a very nice curry (beef this time) and spent a good two hours talking to Tebe about everything from China, Russia, the World Cup, gambling addictions to the intricacies of haggis.
The same Australians proved very entertaining later that night, with various native dances from around the world. We think the vodka probably help them along nicely...
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