Ulaangom, Mongolia
Leaving Ulaanbaatar, I prepared for rough times. With my canned food, Steripen, and tent, I figured I could end up just about anywhere and be ok. The plan was to go into the countryside, find nomadic families, and learn to rides horses to see the great scenery.
I first reached Tsetserleg by a big bus from Ulaanbaatar, which was quite comfortable and went over the potholes in the road without much problem. I didn't really know what was in the town, but all Mongolian towns are really small outside of Ulaanbaatar. The city center was maybe three blocks, so I just walked around and found a cheap motel. There wasn't much but dusty roads in the center, and dirt roads to the houses around the center. I saw the city and nearby Buddhist temple in 2 hours or so, then found this place that served semi western food and had wifi, so I chilled there.
While there at the cafe, I met a Mongolian guy named Sergelen. He had lived in the US for 10 years, managing some resturaunts, and so spoke Engish without a problem. We ended up having drinks that night, and while chatting he mentioned that his coworker there knew nomadic families around, and checked if any would host me and teach me how to ride a horse. Turned out that his coworker had a cousin in such a family, and they would be happy to have me. They were coming to town in 2 days, so I ended up hanging around town for that much time as well, poking around the hills surrounding the city and hanging out with Sergelen after he finished his work selling school uniforms.
Sergelen's coworker was having a gathering for his baby - a Mongolian tradition, where the family gets together for the baby's first haircut, a mini coming of age, around the age of 4. We went to the tail end of the gathering, where we sat around the food table and I was offered food, encouraged to drink vodka to be manly, and met the cousin of the coworker. I also cut a lock of baby's hair, and made a wish for him!
After the party, I piled into the family's van. Since they live together in 4 gers (nomadic yurts) with a lot of their extended family as well, we really filled up the van. We even ended picking up people who needed a ride (they paid the driver some), in Mongolia everybody is a taxi. So there ended up being 3 other adults and 4 children with me in the back row as we drove for over an hour. In my ger lived the old man, his wife, their son, and sometimes a kid too. The son and I slept on the floor, and we fell asleep to a warm fire.
The next day, I lived the life of a Mongol; I had paid them a bit to teach me the ways of the horse. We got up all together at around 7, and went to work straight away. The son, Baterdene, and I drove the truck to the river, where we filled up large drums with water. Then the herding work begins - we mounted horses, and drove the sheep and the yak out to graze. They kinda just run away all together away from you, so you ride back and forth behind them, and they baa and meeeh and go out to graze. Breakfast comes after the initial herding, some dairy-soured biscuits, bread, and milk tea. Now this isn't yummy the bubble milk tea you are thinking of, this is literally milk dumped into tea, then salted. I didn't like it at all at first, but now I think I have grown accustomed to it. After breakfast, Bat Erdene and I rode horses out for a while, reaching the peak of a nearby hill and looking at the view. We then went to where the sheep were, and drove them to greener pastures, as well as some mares that were wandering around. Now, this Bat Erdene was kinda an unscrupulous guy. He kept on saying this one phrase about my camera (all of them spoke only Mongolian so we had to rely on hand signals). At first I thought he wanted me to send him some pictures from my camera. It took me a long time to understand he wanted the camera itself. I couldn't fathom why he would possibly think he could just take over my camera by saying it was his. Anyways, Bat Dung, as I will nickname him, was a very persistent guy, and kept demanding after I said no way. I was pretty uncomfortable after that, and decided I would leave the next day.
We went back for lunch after the herding work, simple goat noodle stew, then headed out again on horseback to drive the sheep and mares around. I wasn't too graceful on the horse, but I was learning fast. Mongolian horses are herded in the wild; when they aren't being ridden, they just run around everywhere, and eat and do whatever they want. They have to be caught a day or two before being ridden and tied to a line to calm them down before they can be ridden. As such, my horse kinda just liked to do whatever it wanted, and I could't do much at first except sometimes make it go and make it stop. If it didn't feel like turning one way, I just couldn't make it turn, and it would always love to stop and munch on grass when I was trying to make it go. Later, I did figure out the art of turning a horse, but for now either I was in tow, or ran with all the other animals.
At dusk, Bat Dung took me on a motorcycle to herd all the yak back to base. These days, the nomads often just use a motorcycle to move their flock, since it is easier than doing it by horse back. We drove and beeped at the yak, and when they were back, many of the family went out for milking time. I watched them milk the mares and yak, and was even dressed in a Mongolian traditional costume, and pulled baby yaks in and out of pens. Sometimes the baby yaks suckled, and sometimes they were pulled away so the yaks could be milked. This continued till nightfall, and after it was dark, stewed goat or sheep (I don't know it all just tastes hella meaty) was served after the day's hard work. There was an hour or so to chill, before it was lights out, and bedtime. Oh and why would nomads in the countryside with no grid power have lights? They all generally have a 50W solar panel and a battery these days, which they use to opetate a light, a satelite TV and sometimes DVD player, and to charge cell phones.
The second day, I left on the road west. Bat Dung followed me to the road, to send me off and to demand my watch now; seems he had given up on the camera. I was trying to flag cars down, and hoped he wouldn't try to strongarm me. There was maybe a car every 5 minutes on the road, and after a few passed, a small truck with 2 guys stopped and gave me a lift. They turned out to be an ice cream truck - not a dingy one, but the back was stocked, and we would stop at village stores and negociate ice cream selling deals, with me mostly standing there looking professional and helping unload boxes. The guys knew like 10 English words, and I knew around an equal amount of Mongolian words (plus all the words for the farm animals), so we would make lots of gestures. These guys were pretty good at it; at one lunch stop we would tell each other where we were going to eat and where to go without saying a single word.
We reached Tariat, the village next to a lake I wanted to see, and made lots of ice cream selling runs, so I decided to just walk the 3 miles left to the lake. On the way, a passing guy on a motorcycle looked at me, and I nodded at him. He stopped, and spoke in Mongolian, and I tried to talk a little. Soon, he offered me a lift on the back of his motorcycle. He lived in a ger on the lake, Tsagaan Nuur, and invited me in, with the usual offerings of milk tea and dairy biscuits. I couldn't really say much, so I ended up showing them pictures of me at home on my phone, which was a pretty useful way of talking. I also played with their kid, and kids from their family in neighboring gers, and ended up eating dinner with them, offering up some of the sausage I carried for them too. I was going to camp that night, but they invited me to stay the night in their ger too!
However, the next morning, they charged me some money for the stay. I was miffed, since I actually was going to camp in the trees, and felt like they looked at travelers just as another tourist. But I did see them kill goats in the morning - they just slit their chest, reach in, and stop their heart, before skinning and gutting them. I headed back out onto the road after a short hike, and hitched a ride with a truck convoy. My driver even spoke some Russian, and so it made basic communications between us a breeze compared to the past few days. I realize now that basic introductions and instructions really require only a very limited amount of words, and so I consider myself super lucky if someone even speaks Russian out here. That way, so many misunderstamdings are avoided.
The road to Tosentsangel, my next destination, was all dirt road. In a big truck, you actually don't get jolted too much, and sometimes it actually even feels nice, watching the land go by slowly and dust plumes going up everywhere. However, we must have only covered 200 km after a full day's drive, and we weren't even all the way to Tosentsangel. So that's maybe an average of less than 25 kph, including the chill breaks and river wash we had.
The trucks stopped by the road, and I camped out by them before we went off the next morning, and arrived in Tosentsangel by 9. I went to the river to wash and clean up, since I figure the town might not have water anyways, then attempt to figure out the buses. It seemed no one was driving to Uvs province like I wanted to, and so I decided to try to hitchhike there. All the guys who stopped weren't going to Uvs, and one guy even took me to a house, where nice people were, offered me bread vodka, and even gave me extra bread for the journey.... Mongol hospitality. But I was pretty disconcerted there, as I had no idea how to get out, and thinking of changing my route to the popular city everyone was going to. Hours later, by chance, an Ulaanbaatar - Uvs bus stopped at a gas station near me, and I managed to pay my way on board. So I headed out on a dirt road, and we bounced on that all night, along with minor breakdowns the drivers would have to fix. It was really hard to sleep on that bus, and a brutal night. But by morning, we had reached a paved road, and soon got to the city. Oh I was so happy to see modern comforts... I hadn't had a shower in 5 days. However, I discovered the power wasn't working in my hotel's half of the town, and so there was no hot water until 10pm, I was told. Well, I wasn't going to let cold water stand in the way between me and a shower. I had the coldest, but most refreshing shower of my life.
Leaving Ulaanbaatar, I prepared for rough times. With my canned food, Steripen, and tent, I figured I could end up just about anywhere and be ok. The plan was to go into the countryside, find nomadic families, and learn to rides horses to see the great scenery.
I first reached Tsetserleg by a big bus from Ulaanbaatar, which was quite comfortable and went over the potholes in the road without much problem. I didn't really know what was in the town, but all Mongolian towns are really small outside of Ulaanbaatar. The city center was maybe three blocks, so I just walked around and found a cheap motel. There wasn't much but dusty roads in the center, and dirt roads to the houses around the center. I saw the city and nearby Buddhist temple in 2 hours or so, then found this place that served semi western food and had wifi, so I chilled there.
While there at the cafe, I met a Mongolian guy named Sergelen. He had lived in the US for 10 years, managing some resturaunts, and so spoke Engish without a problem. We ended up having drinks that night, and while chatting he mentioned that his coworker there knew nomadic families around, and checked if any would host me and teach me how to ride a horse. Turned out that his coworker had a cousin in such a family, and they would be happy to have me. They were coming to town in 2 days, so I ended up hanging around town for that much time as well, poking around the hills surrounding the city and hanging out with Sergelen after he finished his work selling school uniforms.
Sergelen's coworker was having a gathering for his baby - a Mongolian tradition, where the family gets together for the baby's first haircut, a mini coming of age, around the age of 4. We went to the tail end of the gathering, where we sat around the food table and I was offered food, encouraged to drink vodka to be manly, and met the cousin of the coworker. I also cut a lock of baby's hair, and made a wish for him!
After the party, I piled into the family's van. Since they live together in 4 gers (nomadic yurts) with a lot of their extended family as well, we really filled up the van. We even ended picking up people who needed a ride (they paid the driver some), in Mongolia everybody is a taxi. So there ended up being 3 other adults and 4 children with me in the back row as we drove for over an hour. In my ger lived the old man, his wife, their son, and sometimes a kid too. The son and I slept on the floor, and we fell asleep to a warm fire.
The next day, I lived the life of a Mongol; I had paid them a bit to teach me the ways of the horse. We got up all together at around 7, and went to work straight away. The son, Baterdene, and I drove the truck to the river, where we filled up large drums with water. Then the herding work begins - we mounted horses, and drove the sheep and the yak out to graze. They kinda just run away all together away from you, so you ride back and forth behind them, and they baa and meeeh and go out to graze. Breakfast comes after the initial herding, some dairy-soured biscuits, bread, and milk tea. Now this isn't yummy the bubble milk tea you are thinking of, this is literally milk dumped into tea, then salted. I didn't like it at all at first, but now I think I have grown accustomed to it. After breakfast, Bat Erdene and I rode horses out for a while, reaching the peak of a nearby hill and looking at the view. We then went to where the sheep were, and drove them to greener pastures, as well as some mares that were wandering around. Now, this Bat Erdene was kinda an unscrupulous guy. He kept on saying this one phrase about my camera (all of them spoke only Mongolian so we had to rely on hand signals). At first I thought he wanted me to send him some pictures from my camera. It took me a long time to understand he wanted the camera itself. I couldn't fathom why he would possibly think he could just take over my camera by saying it was his. Anyways, Bat Dung, as I will nickname him, was a very persistent guy, and kept demanding after I said no way. I was pretty uncomfortable after that, and decided I would leave the next day.
We went back for lunch after the herding work, simple goat noodle stew, then headed out again on horseback to drive the sheep and mares around. I wasn't too graceful on the horse, but I was learning fast. Mongolian horses are herded in the wild; when they aren't being ridden, they just run around everywhere, and eat and do whatever they want. They have to be caught a day or two before being ridden and tied to a line to calm them down before they can be ridden. As such, my horse kinda just liked to do whatever it wanted, and I could't do much at first except sometimes make it go and make it stop. If it didn't feel like turning one way, I just couldn't make it turn, and it would always love to stop and munch on grass when I was trying to make it go. Later, I did figure out the art of turning a horse, but for now either I was in tow, or ran with all the other animals.
At dusk, Bat Dung took me on a motorcycle to herd all the yak back to base. These days, the nomads often just use a motorcycle to move their flock, since it is easier than doing it by horse back. We drove and beeped at the yak, and when they were back, many of the family went out for milking time. I watched them milk the mares and yak, and was even dressed in a Mongolian traditional costume, and pulled baby yaks in and out of pens. Sometimes the baby yaks suckled, and sometimes they were pulled away so the yaks could be milked. This continued till nightfall, and after it was dark, stewed goat or sheep (I don't know it all just tastes hella meaty) was served after the day's hard work. There was an hour or so to chill, before it was lights out, and bedtime. Oh and why would nomads in the countryside with no grid power have lights? They all generally have a 50W solar panel and a battery these days, which they use to opetate a light, a satelite TV and sometimes DVD player, and to charge cell phones.
The second day, I left on the road west. Bat Dung followed me to the road, to send me off and to demand my watch now; seems he had given up on the camera. I was trying to flag cars down, and hoped he wouldn't try to strongarm me. There was maybe a car every 5 minutes on the road, and after a few passed, a small truck with 2 guys stopped and gave me a lift. They turned out to be an ice cream truck - not a dingy one, but the back was stocked, and we would stop at village stores and negociate ice cream selling deals, with me mostly standing there looking professional and helping unload boxes. The guys knew like 10 English words, and I knew around an equal amount of Mongolian words (plus all the words for the farm animals), so we would make lots of gestures. These guys were pretty good at it; at one lunch stop we would tell each other where we were going to eat and where to go without saying a single word.
We reached Tariat, the village next to a lake I wanted to see, and made lots of ice cream selling runs, so I decided to just walk the 3 miles left to the lake. On the way, a passing guy on a motorcycle looked at me, and I nodded at him. He stopped, and spoke in Mongolian, and I tried to talk a little. Soon, he offered me a lift on the back of his motorcycle. He lived in a ger on the lake, Tsagaan Nuur, and invited me in, with the usual offerings of milk tea and dairy biscuits. I couldn't really say much, so I ended up showing them pictures of me at home on my phone, which was a pretty useful way of talking. I also played with their kid, and kids from their family in neighboring gers, and ended up eating dinner with them, offering up some of the sausage I carried for them too. I was going to camp that night, but they invited me to stay the night in their ger too!
However, the next morning, they charged me some money for the stay. I was miffed, since I actually was going to camp in the trees, and felt like they looked at travelers just as another tourist. But I did see them kill goats in the morning - they just slit their chest, reach in, and stop their heart, before skinning and gutting them. I headed back out onto the road after a short hike, and hitched a ride with a truck convoy. My driver even spoke some Russian, and so it made basic communications between us a breeze compared to the past few days. I realize now that basic introductions and instructions really require only a very limited amount of words, and so I consider myself super lucky if someone even speaks Russian out here. That way, so many misunderstamdings are avoided.
The road to Tosentsangel, my next destination, was all dirt road. In a big truck, you actually don't get jolted too much, and sometimes it actually even feels nice, watching the land go by slowly and dust plumes going up everywhere. However, we must have only covered 200 km after a full day's drive, and we weren't even all the way to Tosentsangel. So that's maybe an average of less than 25 kph, including the chill breaks and river wash we had.
The trucks stopped by the road, and I camped out by them before we went off the next morning, and arrived in Tosentsangel by 9. I went to the river to wash and clean up, since I figure the town might not have water anyways, then attempt to figure out the buses. It seemed no one was driving to Uvs province like I wanted to, and so I decided to try to hitchhike there. All the guys who stopped weren't going to Uvs, and one guy even took me to a house, where nice people were, offered me bread vodka, and even gave me extra bread for the journey.... Mongol hospitality. But I was pretty disconcerted there, as I had no idea how to get out, and thinking of changing my route to the popular city everyone was going to. Hours later, by chance, an Ulaanbaatar - Uvs bus stopped at a gas station near me, and I managed to pay my way on board. So I headed out on a dirt road, and we bounced on that all night, along with minor breakdowns the drivers would have to fix. It was really hard to sleep on that bus, and a brutal night. But by morning, we had reached a paved road, and soon got to the city. Oh I was so happy to see modern comforts... I hadn't had a shower in 5 days. However, I discovered the power wasn't working in my hotel's half of the town, and so there was no hot water until 10pm, I was told. Well, I wasn't going to let cold water stand in the way between me and a shower. I had the coldest, but most refreshing shower of my life.
Tosentsangel