Blog 3: Mongolia

As we got on the train from Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar, we realised that we'd only have one more night train after this one; we would sure make the most of it by having more instant noodles than we could care to admit and by staring out the window for hours. Regrettably, we did not find anything that could remedy the former, but the latter absolutely made up for it: Lake Baikal was there to wave us goodbye for a good hour and a half. Wishing to go for a swim one more time, we realised again that this lake looks more like an ocean, as it stretches farther than the horizon, even on a clear day. After we'd separated from the lake, the landscape grew increasingly towards what we were expecting Mongolia to look like. Scarce vegetation, rocky and sandy hills, the occasional tree, and mostly nothing. The border control took place at around 19:00 and lasted till 01:30... It took hours because we were checked at both the Russian and the Mongolian side of the border, and the entire train has to be screened. We were woken up at 05:00 with the words "Wake up, documents!", but they were never checked. Waking up that early wasn't all that bad, since we were able to witness our first Mongolian sunrise, and see our first few gers, which was very exciting! After all, the Mongolian nomad life of the steppe is something that we came to experience and hope to understand better. We arrived in Ulaanbaatar (UB) at 7:20 and were picked up and transfered to our hostel. After second breakfast in the hostel, we set out to a few local organisations that arrange tours in the most commonly visited areas of Mongolia. We settled on a four day tour that showed us the Mongolian steppe family life, the mini Gobi desert, and three local families. After having made this decision, we still had about two hours left to have some lunch before our briefing. What could this briefing be about, we wondered, and we were not disappointed in its contents.

The two people we'd met at the company taught us some useful phrases and words, how to pronounce things "properly", and gave us a complete overview of the history of Mongolian culture, politics, and society over the past 1400 years or so. The unexpected history and culture lesson was quite unexpected, yet very welcome. Suddenly, we had answers to many questions about how the Mongolian empire managed to reach the size it did and also managed to sustain it. The empire covered all of East Asia, some areas of Russia, and even the Middle East and Europe. Long story short, it worked so well because of the nomad lifestyle: one family would occupy a small piece of land and remain in contact with the nearby families which were all situated at distances between 50 and 100 km. This meant that very few people were actually required to be present to "cover" an area that was very large and that, should one family be killed, it could easily be replaced to fix the grid. Furthermore, because there were so few people present, it was relatively non-invasive. The mission of the families was to understand the lives of the indigenous of the area, and enhance it by inviting them and providing them with food and technology. Take a minute to imagine that someone told you: "You don't have to work, please just drink, eat, and rest" in the year 900... I'd be keen to stick around! Besides the very effective social management, the Mongolian empire was also the first to work with taxed trade routes, permits, passports, and even visa! Furthermore, their political system was pseudo-democratic and not mandated by a single family's bloodline. This combination of social, economic, and political control led to the 400 year existence of this massive empire! We were impressed and overwhelmed with the amount of information. We had little time to process everything and learn the Mongolian phrases by heart as we left on this "Ger to Ger" trip the next day! But first, we went to see the famous throat singing, traditional dances, and live Mongolian music in a very lavishly decorated concert hall. The unusual sounds took some getting used to, but we definitely enjoyed the unique experience and the feeling of "we are in Mongolia" really dawned on us then, truly amazing.

After leaving the hostel the next morning, we searched for a taxi and as it turned out, anyone who was willing to drive you for some money had the unofficially official taxi driver licence. We arrived at the busstation, which had no signs anywhere and only Mongolian script, were directed to the right bus by someone, and waited. We learnt that busses all have licence plates which are organised into where their destinations are, and that they can be recognised by these plates. Perhaps the Mongolians figured that this system would render signs useless? We'll let it slide for this once, haha. After about two hours driving, the bus suddenly stopped on the side of the road. We were wondering what had happened or if something was wrong, however, after seeing all the men go to one side and women to the other to pee, we gladly joined them. Once we arrived in the little village, we looked around if we could find our first family with the Ger to Ger sign, but since we arrived earlier than planned we decided to wait in the restaurant. All eyes were gazing, making it even harder to tell who would come to pick us up. We tried to read the menu to maybe get some food, but it was futile. Eventually we settled on coffee and tea. We were still wondering by whom and when we would be picked up, when a traditional looking Mongolian man suddenly stood in front of us with a big smile on his face. Of course, we were much easier to find than the other way around. He took us with him to the car and we were on our way, however not before dropping off a friend (we guess) and getting 20 kg of rice and flour each, 6 potatoes, and some sweets. After about a 20 minute ride through the increasingly empty steppe, we arrived at the gers. They had four gers: one for sleeping, which we called the Sler, one for cooking (Ker), one storage ger (Scher), and one with unknown contents.. We were shown to their guest Sler and were offered a typically Mongolian milk tea, after which they left us alone for a while. We later went for a camelback ride to a nearby holy rock and shrine. While camels look aesthetic, they make up for it in lack of comfort. After a good hour and a half of bouncing around on a spine, we were happy to see the shrine. The two camels were still raising their young, who would simply follow their moms everywhere without having to be instructed in any way. The cute tiny fluffy and jiggly hills on the backs of the babies made us crack up more than once. We ended the day with some sheep herding, which was truly a family endeavour; everyone was helping, even the children who were about 2 and 5 years old. However, once the kids had discovered that a much quicker and significantly more fun way of getting around was on our backs, they stuck to us like tape!

The next day, our host father for a day brought us to the next family that had their gers set up next to a small river. In the distance, you could see the mini-gobi. Having another few hours of nothing to kill on the steppe that hosted the simple and relatively unchanged traditional Mongolian lifestyle, we decided to make our way up to a shoulder of a nearby hill. The 15 minute climb introduced us to several insects that we had never seen or heard of before and that even gave us a hard time imagining what kind of insects they might be. One kind had mantis-like legs, a massive rear part of the body with a giant needle sticking out, and came in camouflaged editions, as well as a red one. On the hill, we saw our host father for that night herding in sheep in the distance. We chucked upon the realisation that keeping your animals, which could mean anywhere between 200 and 800 sheep, horses, and camels, within a days walk from your ger was actually the main activity of the day for a man. When the man got home, we left for a nearby shrine on a hill, from which we had a great view of the surrounding valley. That evening, we stared up the sky in awe for a little over an hour, and took some amazing long exposure pictures of the night sky. The milky way was brighter than either of us had seen in our lifetimes; our gazes were pointed upwards untill our necks hurt too much, when we decided to call it a night.

The third day, we were situated on a hill and had a great view of the contrast between the mini-gobi and it's surroundings. On horseback, we left to explore it from a little closer. We entered a thin strip of desert via, surprisingly, a river and marshy lands. The first trees we'd seen in days grew in the sand, which is very unusual. No wonder there were multiple advertisements for research groups that are interested in this peculiar case of desertification. We were even quite interested ourselves! That evening, we had a lovely dinner with other guests that were also staying at the same family. The Korean doctor and his wife were very eager to share their Mongolian vodka, kimchi, and other Korean foods with us. Later, we took some pictures of the night sky together, which resulted in the pictures that our phones can take looking pretty measly. But don't worry, they still look pretty epic! Hopefully we can manage to upload some. The next day, we walked to a rock formation on a hill nearby. We climbed to the top and had a great view on the area surrounding us, including the eagles that were flying around us! In the afternoon we had to take the bus back to UB. We trusted our host family that they would bring us to the bus on time, but while being in the car of the daughter of the family, it didn't seem all that organized.. We waited for a bit next to the road, without going to any bus station. We started to worry that we were not in the right place and would miss our bus. However, after a good while waiting next to the road, our bus came and simply stopped at the side of the road to pick us up!

The next day in UB we spent resting and washing some clothes. In the afternoon, we went to a Soviet monument a bit south of the centre from where we had a good view of the city. Standing here, we realised how big UB actually is and how far it stretches. The centre with some high rise and more fancy looking buildings were easily distinguishable from the outskirts with gers, small houses, and soviet flats. We walked back to our hostel for a good night of sleep to be ready for our next mini trip: National Park Terelj! We took the bus to Terelj the next morning and were dropped near Turtle Rock, where our local host would pick us up. This N.P. contained green hills with many trees and rock formations, so different from what we had seen the few days before! Once installed in our ger, we walked to the other valley, passing a rock formation with one very big rock standing in the middle with only a small surface area to balance on. In the other valley, we walked through a field full of Edelweis flowers towards the meditation centre. On the path towards the centre, many sayings from Budism were displayed, which we patiently read. We enjoyed the silence of the meditation centre and the view on the valley. On our way back, we wanted to visit the Turtle rock, so we hitchhiked to the rock, took some pictures, climbed the back as far as possible, and even went through a small gap between the stones to get to the other side! The evening sunlight was warm and gave a nice warm glow to the rocks. Having spent another day walking and looking around, trying to enjoy every moment and?memorise every detail, we walked back to the ger. The following morning we took our bag and started our trip to the village Terelj, which was two valleys further, so we crossed two passes, enjoying the views and nature. Once we reached to road to Terelj, we realised there weren't many people with whom we could hitchhike, so we would go with anyone in any direction. A Monolian couple picked us up and invited us to go with them to the river. That sounded even better than Terelj, so of course we couldn't say no! At the riverside, they started to unpack everything, they had prepared an entire picknick with sheephead, wine, melon, and a lot of other food! We were not allowed to leave or reject any of the things that were offered to us, so in the end we shared everything. We told about our trip and sang a Sinterklaas song for them in exchange for a Mongolian song. After this fantastic lunch, we left them for their siesta and walked back to the road to hitchhike to the big statue of Genghis Khan. Soon we arrived at our new destination. The statue was big, but besides that not very impressive. We walked around for a bit and decided to head back to UB.

Our last day in UB, we went to the museum of national history. We learnt about the old ages and about the Mongolian empire. After having absorbed enough information for the day, we walked around the university area and found a cinema. We decided to go and see "Alpha", a movie about how humans might have started to domesticate wolves. Although not any English word was spoken in the movie (luckily there were English subtitles next to the Mongolian!) it was a good way to spend our time! In the evening we had a date with our Mongolian friends (the once that invited us for the lunch) in a night club. We found out that they had invited multiple friends and some family, all to meet us and have a fun night! Beer and vodka was ordered and of course we still couldn't reject any of it. We ended up on the dance floor with around 15 people in total, all rich business people of whom no one could really dance (including us, except we weren't rich). Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun and after two final vodka shots we went home, being a bit tipsy. Walking home, we reflected on the amazing adventures that we had in this country and how crazy it was that we had met and got to know these locals. Truly unforgettable! Slightly worried about tomorrow morning, we went to bed. Waking up at 6:30 was not a lot of fun, but we managed to get to the train on time. Thank you, Mongolia, for the unlimited adventures! Next stop: Beijing!