Mongolia: Tales of Dairy, Horses, Rainstorms and Campfires

Chapter 1: I explain why China will never be a real world power.
(In which I do not so much enjoy the Beijing airport.)

Chapter 2: There may be mutiny.
(In which I wonder if Joel and Nick will ever forgive me for this. And then the sun comes out.)

Chapter 3: Seriously? All of this for a rock shaped like a penis?
(In which, despite the title, I talk mostly about a beautiful monastery.)

Chapter 4: And then we rode.
(Scott told me the title for this entry was lame. Live with it.)

Chapter 5: Obligatory Travel Puke Story
(In which we cover the puke story, of which there seems to be one on every trip.)

Chapter 6: Misery is, well, miserable.
(In which we cover the worst day of the trip.)

Chapter 7: This entry NOT appropriate for vegetarians.
(In which we slaughter a sheep.)

Chapter 8: Today is short!
(In which there is a bathtub.)

Chapter 9: Manual Labor, Perfect Riding, and "The Terminator"
(In which we talk about my favorite day of the trip.)

Chapter 10: You will think that I made this bullshit up.
(In which we ride out in style, and a perfect rain shower.)

Chapter 11: Out of Mongolia
(In which I get all teary and emo.)

 

Mongolia Chapter 11: Out of Mongolia

In truth, not having written this entry is as much about the crazy business of my life as it is about not wanting to have to write it, because writing means that I'm done reliving the trip. And I'm not ready to be done reliving it. I wasn't ready to be done living it.

We wake up on our last day, and I don't think that I'm the only person who, as I'm packing, takes another look at the piece of my horse's tail that I'll take home with me. And I miss my horse a bit. And we won't be a group any more today. LZYP is heading off on another two days of riding. Siri, Aaron, Tina and Donna have one more day of hiking. And Pook, Nick and I are headed back to UB with Mandaa and Mad Max since we all have morning flights.

In the category of things that I am thankful for, though, I am thankful that I get to spend our last day with Mandaa. She was really extraordinary, and I would have been sad to just have to say goodbye to her at the hot springs.

So there is breakfast. And then there is much hugging and wishing well and saying goodbye. Though we do catch up a couple of times on the road out, it's never the same again. Never as a whole group. It was a lucky group. We had good weather. We had good horses. We had an amazing staff. And for the most part we all gelled well. We were a lucky group.

The first half of the drive is on paved road, which is nice. We have to cross over a river, so Mad Max stops to wait for Nia and the second van, thinking that they may have trouble crossing the river. But in fact, they smoke us crossing the river. We meet up with the rest of the group one more time at a ditch break. Mandaa tries to convince Nia that we should switch vans since Mad Max's van is having a full injection problem, but Nia is having none of it. We take one more picture as a group - or to be more accurate as the group we were on the first day, because the truth is that we are no longer a group without Lizzie and Dava.



Mandaa has plans to stop for lunch at a place where we can ride camels, but the boys are both on their last change of clothes and don't want to ride. Mandaa and I ride though. And it's a nice, fun way to end the trip. We even saw an actual herd of camel on the way there!



And then the ride goes offroad again, which means that the van gets quiet. Because, as in most places where the roads are bad, by the end, it is hard for you to handle the roads unless you are somewhere in your zone. However, when I say the van is "quiet", I mean aside from Mad Max's music mix. It appears to be one extended play cd that he plays on repeat for the entire eight hour drive, so at least four times through if not five. It has some traditional Mongolian music. It has some house and techno. It has some good pop, both Mongolian and American. And.It.Has.Celine.Dion.

Yes, it does. It has the worldwide power ballad "My Heart Will Go On." This is the first song that plays when we get in the van in the morning. And I look at Pook and make the joke, "Will your heart go on after this trip?" Ha ha. That was funny the first time the Celine Dion song played. It was not as funny the FIFTH time the song cycled through. But it does settle the argument: Is Celine Dion inspirational the world over? Yes. Yes, she is.

As we get closer to UB, the road evens out, the smog increases, and we all know that this is ending. It's palpable. Mandaa proves once again that she's a superstar by taking the extra hour out of her day to drive us to an antique store so that I could buy a hair clip. On the way back from buying the hair clip, I finally spot Coca Cola. As you may or may not know, I drink Coca Cola (the full sugar, not the diet crap) like water. It's my vice. Okay, it's one of my vices. And when we're traveling on a trip of this nature, there is not Coca Cola for extended periods of time. So whenever we get back to civilization, I start needing Coke. NEEDING IT. There are few feelings in life as good as the first Coca Cola after time in the outback. And no, I was not paid to say that.

We say goodbye to Mandaa at the hotel. After a quick nap, Pook, Nick and I head out for our last meal. At an Irish joint. It's not really and Irish joint. It's an "Irish" joint. By which we mean we know there will be lots of white tourists in there. By which we mean, and I'm sorry but it's true, we mean there will be lots of white men with Asian women in there. I mean that in the not good way. Pookie and Nick have a conversation I'd just as soon not remember, but I'm sure they'd say the same thing about me at various points. We have beer. And burgers. Burgers! And then we go back to the hotel and say goodnight to Nick. And it's crazy, because we just spent two weeks in the country riding horses with him, and now he'll be an ocean away.

Sad.

In the morning, we don't talk a lot at breakfast. Mandaa meets us right on time to take us to the airport. It is really more heartbreaking than we let on to say goodbye to her. I have said it in every entry, but she was so exceptional. Not only as a guide (she knew EVERYTHING - there wasn't a question that you could ask that she couldn't find an answer to), but also as a person who appreciated the people in the group and learning their stories and sharing her own. I quote now from an email I received from her recently: "We had great time together."

We sure did.

Before the obligatory part where I get all emotional about the trip, I share with you a moment in the Beijing airport. Seriously, I didn't go to the Olympics, but I am baffled as to how this airport could possibly have handled Olympic traffic. Baffled. Pook and I, of course, must again go through the international transfer station. As with most international transfer stations, there are separate lines for each airline. Fair enough - except that in this case, there are no signs to tell you what line is for what. So you just get in a line and stand there until you get to the front of the line. Then you are told you are not in the correct line. But you are not told what line you should be in. Instead, you are pointed in a general "direction." Finally, somebody is sent out into the masses to start taking people and placing them in the correct line, which you would think would solved the mess, but ...

After we are placed in the correct line, things still seem to be moving awfully slow. I can't figure out why that would be until Joel and I finally get to the front of the line. Do you know what's happening in this line? THEY ARE HAND WRITING BOARDING PASSES! I'm not kidding you. They call the airline. The airline verbally reads all of your information to them and they then HAND WRITE your boarding pass. It's at least ten minutes per person. I'm not making this up. I took a picture of it.



And then we have to have our bags checked by security THREE MORE TIMES before we can get on the plane. Are you serious? People are using hand written boarding passes but you're going to search my bag THREE TIMES? I have no further comment.

And now, we reflect on Mongolia. Except that I probably can't do it as well as Joel did it in an email exchange we had after we got back, in which he said:

"Since I've been back, what I've most thought about is this: remember how we got out onto those plains, and Mandaa explained that there were no property lines, that there was no such thing as trespassing. I've thought a lot about that...how there seemed to be such simple rules and understandings in the countryside, and yet the crime rate was low, and violence was rare, and people took each other in. Now, of course I know that UB is not like that, and I know we weren't there that long, but it just keeps occurring to me how...well....complicated things are the States.


"Ultimately, when I listen to these songs on these Mongolian CDs, and I think back to those rides across the steppe, I think about how I was so happy because I was worried about riding, and eating, and watching...and not about paperwork, and deadlines, and car inspections, and trespassing, etc. I've thought a lot about how there will always be worry in this life, but i guess it comes down to what you're worried about....falling off a horse among good people, or having all the necessary insurance among greedy assholes."

Amen. I mean, mostly Amen. Of course I'm probably not the only one who had a hard time transitioning into a spot where I'm haggling with future employers about things like vacation day count and office hours. There are no office hours in the Mongolian outback. Your life doesn't exist one way from 9 to 5 and another way before and after. And I long ago resigned myself to the fact that life is a series of trade offs and one only needs to enjoy one's job, not LOVE it. And you accept that you do one thing or another in order to put yourself in a position to experience other things. And that the world is the way that the world is, and eventually (sadly), even nomadic Mongolia will probably have property lines. I know that what I should be is thankful that I got to experience riding horses in the rain in a field of wildflowers. And I am. But the hardest time to be thankful is when you first get back, because you have to accept that that just isn't your life.

But that part was a couple of weeks ago by now, and I've cycled into the thankful part. Mongolia won their first Olympic gold medal ever this year. In wrestling, naturally. And I felt proud, almost like I was a Mongolian. Pookie is learning to throat sing. And I hung my horse hair by my front door so that I can remember every day that no matter how stupid it may seem that I have to go to the social security office to stand in line for seven hours to get a piece of paper, just a month ago I was on a horse in a field full of flowers with some truly exceptional people. I'm thankful for a lot.

I'm thankful for Mandaa.
I'm thankful for Dava.
I'm thankful for the whole staff.
I'm thankful for Nick.
I'm thankful for Lizzie telling me not to even try to be conventional.
I'm thankful for Donna being such a happy surprise.
I'm thankful for such a wonderful travel group.
I'm thankful for wildflowers.
I'm thankful for horses, but mostly for Improvement.
I'm thankful for horse races that go on forever with children riding bareback.
I'm thankful for Nadaam.
I'm thankful for bug repellent.
I'm thankful for dairy, in all it's strange and unusual formats.
I'm thankful for ger camps and hot springs.
I'm thankful for singing children, who are healthier because they are in the country.
I'm thankful for VW Vans that are driven off road with expertise.
I'm thankful for curious locals who come to our campfire to talk.
I'm thankful for yak patties - but maybe just in that one case.
I'm thankful for cold river water on my hair, and warm water ladled over my hair.
I'm thankful for hikes up hills.
I'm thankful for stupas and temples.
I'm thankful for picnic lunches in the middle of nowhere.

And, I think, maybe, mostly I'm thankful that someday Joel and I will be old, and we'll be at some family holiday, and maybe one or the other of us will have rugrats, and we'll say to them, "Always find a way to live. We went and rode horses across Mongolia one time, and I can still tell you what it felt like coming down the last mountain pass when the wind from the rain storm started blowing in."

Guatemala next year!

 

Mongolia Chapter 10: You Will Think I Made This Bullshit Up

It's our last day of riding.

And we are sad. We are all sad, there's no two ways about it. We wake up the the horses grazing among the tents. We wake up to a herd of goats invading our campsite. Nope, I didn't make that up. A herd of goats is apparently too stupid to realize that a human campsite is no place for them. We wake up to them all over.



And the thing that makes this day so awesome is that it doesn't start out awesome. The morning ride is hot and uncomfortable and full of flies. We stop to visit our last family, and they are very, very shy so it's difficult to really interact. We ride a little further, and then we stop for lunch. Lunch is miserable. Perfectly miserable. For me, it's not the low point of the trip, but some people claim that it was for them. It's hot. Blazingly hot. If you go into the shade, you get attacked by flies. If you stand in the sun, there are less flies. If you're willing to stand in the sun next to the extra heat of a piece of burning dung, there are even less flies. Finally, some of us realize that the best spot to be in is in the thin line of shade next to the support van. It's shady, but the heat of the metal of the van keeps SOME of the flies away. But it's no luxury.

In fact, at one moment, the picture kind of looks like this:
Nick is leaning against the van with his eyes closed trying to nap through the heat and the flies.

Aaron has crawled partway under the van where there are no flies and is sleeping.

Tina and I are both sitting on camping chairs with our faces entirely covered with a bandana and using another bandana to swat flies away.

It's pathetic, and worse yet, Dava and Mandaa have decided that we need to stay in this miserable, bug-infested, hot field for three hours because if we try to take the horses through the last mountain pass in the heat, the closeness of the trees there will be too many horseflies and we risk horses doing things like rolling in the ground. So, here we are, on our last day, stuck in this horrible fields with the bugs and the heat.

It gets a little bit better near the end. Nick and I go over to the river and wade around. There seem to be less flies over there and the water is cool. It somewhat saves things.

We finally hit the horses. The uphill ride is nice. Slow. A little hot. Flies. But not unpleasant.

And then, suddenly, everything turns around. As we hit the top of the hill, a rainstorm starts to blow in. Appropriate, no? We begin our trip with rain and it looks as though we will end with rain. Dava goes off to the top of the hill to make a phone call. Based on what happens next, we're pretty sure he was calling God to give us a perfect ending.

The ride down the hill? Amazing. Because the rain is blowing in, there's a breeze, and it's shady. And the breeze carries all the flies away. And the horses seem to get into really good moods. And it's just beautiful to look at.

We hit the bottom of the hill, and Mandaa turns and tells us it's about fifty minutes to the ... wait for it ... HOT SPRINGS where we're ending the trip if we trot.

Let me just say, nowhere in the itinerary that we received did it say that we were spending our last night together in a hot springs, so it was a wonderful surprise to find that out. After over a week of camping and riding, the idea of spending time getting clean in a lovely hot springs was so welcome. Saying it was so welcome was an understatement.

Anyway, so it's fifty minutes if we trot, and what's pretty obvious to anybody who looks around is that the rain is not holding off for fifty minutes. I kind of keep wondering at what point Mandaa is going to make us get off the horses and put our rain gear on. But we trot through the lovely breeze, through fields of herds of horses.

In the distance, we can see the ger camp of the hot springs. And that, that is when the rain starts. But Mandaa seemingly knows what we want, and she turns around and just says "We gallop through the rain - we can see the ger camp."

And I kid you not. That is how we end our trip with the horses. Galloping through a field with a herd of other horses while the rain whips through our hair and keeps us cool and happy and clean. And I could be wrong, but I felt like even the horses were happy when this happened. Lizzie helps me get my hat off and I let the rain hit my head.

And I also thing we all feel the moment of loss when we get to the ger camp and get off of our horses and realize that we're not going to be getting back on them. I say goodbye to Improvement. I still think of him every day. I'm not making that up.



But the sadness is quickly masked, at least temporarily, by the joy of cleanliness. Joel and Nick and I get into our ger, and I go off to check out the hot springs baths. And then I do a retarded run back to the ger to tell the boys to get the heck out and get into the hot springs. It's so warm! And so clean! And there's heat in the locker rooms! And showers! And shampoo!

We all end up in the hot springs, relaxing and going over memories of the trip. It's still rainy, so it's beautiful out. And we plan out giving Mandaa and Dava and the crew their tips, and we're all like "And we'll go around the table and give our favorite memories of the trip and it will be so emotional."

Shows you what we know.

That's what we do. And we're all very honest and emotional with our favorite memories. And thankful, because we are. So thankful for the amazing experience that they gave us on this trip. But we apparently don't know how to make people emotional. You wanna know what Dava did? He went and cut a piece of horsehair off of each of the tails of our horses, and then he gave that hair to us in a baggie so that we would always have a piece of the horse we rode across Mongolia with us. And the minute he takes those out, Lizzie and I begin to cry.

That piece of horse hair hangs next to my door right now. I look at it every morning. It makes me think of Improvement. It makes me think of Joel and Nick and Mandaa and Dava and the boys and Lizzie and Donna. It makes me think of open fields and how stupid it is that I'm stressed about having to bill out my consulting hours. It makes me check myself. It takes me back, and I hope that it always does.

We got back to the hot springs for a while. And then we go to sleep. For the last night in the countryside. Tomorrow it is back to the city. And the city won't make you feel the same way the countryside did.

 

Mongolia Chapter 9: Manual Labor, Perfect Riding and "The Terminator"

This was one of my favorite days of the trip.

We've been warned that because of the rain we're a little behind pace on distance and today will need to be a long ride.

We head out on the horses from the mosquito camp. I don't want to make it sound like that was a bad campsite. It was actually quite nice - near the warm springs and the river and on flat ground. So take off, there's a nice gallop over a flat. Now, I'm pretty sure the plan may not have been to stop and visit a family on this day given that we're supposed to be making distance, but as we come into the valley, Mandaa and Dava notice that there is a family who's in the process of setting up their ger in a new location, and they figure we should stop and see it.

This is a blessing, a lucky stroke. As Mandaa explained afterwards, even if you offered a typical Mongolian family a lot of money to take their ger down and set it back up so that you could see, they probably wouldn't do it, the logic being "Why would I take down my HOME for you?" So the fact that we've happened across a family who's moving will make us some of a very, very, very small group of tourists that have ever seen this process. It's very, very lucky. And fascinating.




Firstly though, us being us, we immediately want to start helping to build the ger. Remember the analogy about "If you were an American family and suddenly a group of tourists showed up and started eating your food?" Now imagine that you're an American family and a tour bus rolls up and a bunch of tourists get out to "help" you while you're moving and THEN expect you to feed them and give them booze. But that's what happens. Watching the ger go up is fascinating. Our "help" requires them to undo and redo some of our work, but I think that they appreciated the spirit. The most complicated part seems to be getting the heavy felt cover on the top of the ger. The poles and the wicker lining seem to go up easily - but then again, this culture has been nomadic since the beginning, so they've probably mastered portable shelters.

As they're finishing putting the ger together and getting the inside visitor ready, there's some down time. However, in our group, there is never really down time, because we have Dava. Dava is that kind of host who never lets the party end. He notices that there's and ox, and, by golly, there's an ox cart! Ox cart rides for everybody! I'm not joking! The party slows down, and Dava's solution is to start giving hay rides on an ox cart.




AND THEN we realize that there's a basketball hoop (not regulation height!) in the back of the ger camp!!!!!! And so the party continues with basketball shooting, which is the best because it really brings us, our hosts and the Boojum staff together. And it's a beautiful day out. And here we are, shooting hoops behind a ger camp in the middle of Mongolia. It's one of those moments where you just go "Wow."



After we visit with the family for a while, we hit the horses and head to lunch. It's one of our last two picnic lunches, and it ends up being just so lovely. As we're laying there in the grass, we watch a rainstorm roll in front of us (right where we're supposed to be riding) and then roll out. So our lunch basically means that we avoid any rain gear for the day.

And then we head out. The afternoon ride is long, but it's so beautiful. Through a pass, then across hills and finally a meadow. Partway through, Dava gets off of his horse and picks wild flowers for all of the ladies in the group. That's how he is: he things to stop and pick wild flowers. Crazy, right? He's amazingly full of joy.



I can't say enough about how nice this ride is. Maybe just because it's so much longer. The views are spectacular. We're moving at a slightly upturned pace, which is more comfortable than changing pace up all the time. People are smiling and laughing, and the weather is PERFECT. Because it had looked like rain, the temperature had cooled down, so nobody is sweltering in the heat all day. Ideal. I can still feel the ride today. It ends cutting through a valley on a dirt road.

And then we get to our campsite. And it's so perfect. So, so perfect. There's a river. Nick and LZYP and Pookie and Aaron all skip rocks. Siri goes swimming. I sit peacefully. Dinner rolls in. We have run out of propane, so everything has to be cooked over the campfire, so dinner is boiled dumplings with mutton in them, and they are delicious. And then we have a perfect last night of camping.

It starts with a story and a horse ride. The story is from Dava. Actually, there are many stories from Dava on this night. He is sharing wisdom. Part of his wisdom is a story about how, one night, he was out with a group and before he went to bed, he counted the tents. One of the tents was missing. He's baffled because he can't figure out how one of the tents and its occupant just disappeared. But he goes to sleep. Now, this group of travelers was a little more bougie than we were and they liked to have the portable toilet set up. For us, the staff set up the portable toilet for about one day and then realized that we all preferred going off to the woods. But when Dava gets up in the morning, he goes off looking for the tent, and finds it set up over the portable toilet! Apparently one of the campers had had some issues during the course of the night and had determined that the move was clearly to just put their tent over the toilet. True story. There's lots of other story telling though - mostly about Ghengis and Mongolian travel stories.

However, about halfway through one of the stories, we notice that people on the other side of the table have become distracted and are looking at the huge hill on the other side of the valley. And then suddenly they're all making faces! And what has happened is that Mad Max has taken a horse to the top of the hill - presumably to see the view, though I question if perhaps it was to try to get a cell phone signal since he seemed to have a woman in every port. And on his way down the hill, the horse breaks into a gallop. And Mad Max flies off. Now, here is the awesome part. He falls off, and then he doesn't get up. And we all stare, and we all stare. And eventually Otgo the young horse wrangers heads out to check on him, but he does it at a very leisurely walk - and is seemingly more concerned with bringing the horse in. Meanwhile, Mad Max has gotten kicked by the horse when he fell and the wind is knocked out of him. It all ends well. Mad Max comes back to camp and we all act like we didn't see anything, but we all get to tell the story about how the only person who got thrown from a horse on the trip was a Mongolian.

Then the event that is how Lizzie (LZ) gets the YP added to her gangster name happens. YP stands for yak patty. Yak patty is because LZ is sitting next to me on a log, and she decides she wants to roll back off of the log and sit on the much softer grass. And she slides back, and immediately realizes that she's sat on a yak patty. She looks up and says, with this kind of "how bad can it be" look on her face, "I think I broke the crust!"

And then she stands up.

She sure did break the crust, probably because there wasn't any crust to break. That YP was FRESH. I mean, FRESH. Her pants are totally covered in yak poo. And it's dark, but there's no option but to strip it down and wash them. And reason 408 to love LZYP is because she thinks that this is a funny as we do. Here's a picture. It's one of my favorite ones!

And then one of my favorite things. One of the best things about traveling Mongolia on horseback instead of in cars is that you get so much deeper into the countryside, and people are a lot more curious about you because they see fewer tourists. On this night, as it gets dark and the campfire lights up, two nomadic men with their children wander down to see who's in the valley. They sit and talk with us, and the children sing and recite poetry. And one of the great things about this visit is that they have as many questions for us as we do for them. They wonder why we would come to their country and if we like it and what we like about it and what it's like in America. And as we talk into the night, they say the following, which stays with my heart because it's what travel is all about. They say, "You know, when you see America, you see it in the movies, and it's all fast cars and rich people, and you think that we must not have anything in common with Americans. And sitting here with you tonight, I realize that that's not true, and we actually have many things in common."

It stayed with me. That's what travel is supposed to be about.

And then I asked them what their favorite American movie was.

"Terminator."

I couldn't make that up if I tried.

That night the horses get to graze among the tents instead of separated. So you go to sleep hearing your horse. If the next day hadn't ended so perfectly, this would have been the perfect ending ...

 

Mongolia Chapter 8: Today is Short!

This day is a short day, but it is also a day when I get to wash my hair, which is exciting and lush. We awake in the morning. Mutton has been had (though it did not sit well with me), sleep has been peaceful, the hike the day before was refreshing. And before we start out, LZYP and I are sitting at the breakfast table debating whether or not we want to head over to the stream and wash our hair. Our hair is pretty gross by now. And Mandaa, because she is awesome and Mandaa, looks at us like we're silly and says, "I'll warm some water up and ladle it over your heads." And can I just say ... Amazing! Warm water being ladled over your head and clean hair in the middle of your camping trip is a luxury that cannot be accurately described.

We pack out and head out, and we're kind of circling around a valley so that we can start to loop back, and Mandaa wants to keep the ride shorter so that we can end and camp at a natural warm springs. So we kind of trot out across the meadow and then we stop for a while to enjoy the view at a stupa that is located on the top of a hill facing a huge hill that is worshiped by the locals.

Mandaa tells a story while we're riding about how the locals used to worship snakes as the embodiment of the mountain god. And during communism, the communist sent in an ambassador to kill the mountain religion off. And so he went in and killed a snake to prove his point. Not long after that, his family was all killed in a tragic car accident and he lived miserably for the rest of his life. True story. Lesson? I don't know what religion is what, but don't mess with the mojo of local worship. That is all. Here are some delightful pictures from our stop at the stupa.




From there it's a lovely lunch and a short but lovely afternoon ride, and then we arrive at the warm springs, where there is an actual bathtub that somebody has put up in the stream and you can stop it up and bath in some delightful spring water. Pookie, LZPY, Donna and I partake. Siri shows she's Nordic by instead bathing in the freezing river. Nick and Aaron show that they are boys by having a floating can race and throwing wet shoes at each other.



Dinner is delightful, but Tina describes the night accurately as follows (because, remember, we were next to a warm spring, which means next to a marsh, which means the bug problem was compounded by mosquitoes), "Yeah, that was the night we all kind of gave up and just spent the night in our tents."

And it's a good thing that we did, because the next day was so very full of activity ...

 

Mongolia Chapter 7: This Entry NOT Appropriate for Vegetarians

I love this day of the trip. I love it passionately. When I think back on it, it's one of my favorite days of the entire trip. Everything went right. Everything. And there was so much newness. And so much sharing. And so much that was just good.

As we set off, I'm in surprisingly good spirits for somebody who had had a miserable night the night before. Mostly because we are leaving the awful, bug infested location, but also it's sunny and nice out and there is no rain in sight. So that's good. We set out on the horses, and they seem to be happy to be leaving the bugs behind as well. After some riding, we stop to visit with a local family. The point of visiting with this local family is to buy the sheep that we'll later be slaughtering for mutton for dinner (this serves as your warnin that that's coming up). But we also get to ask questions and see their ger, and there is, of course, ayrag and about a thousand other types of dairy. The family has these lovely, lovely children whom we all fall in love with (but especially Dava). The children sing for us and I almost melt in my seat. The ger we're in is super lovely, and there's also a grandmother there. She says that she's 87, but Nick told me that all women lie about their age (I'm 29! Version 5!). As we leave, we take a picture of the family that we'll later send back to them. And while we're not looking, the sheep is bought and then put in Mad Max's van to take to that night's campsite.





Family visits were one of my favorite parts of the trips. People were so hospitable. There was this ongoing joke that Aaron and Tina started, though, that may not be as funny when I write it as it was in real life. But you know, it's not like these families had some kind of warning that we were coming. They're nomadic, right? So what would happen is that Dava would scope out random gers as we saw them, and if it looked like a family was neat and tidy, we would stop and visit. And in this case buy some livestock. And we would drink their ayrag and eat their food and sit all over their furniture. And the joke was - Imagine that this were an American family, and all of a sudden a tour bus of nine foreigners shows up and invites themselves in to eat your food and drink your beer. And Dava never left a place without drinking four bowls of ayrag minimum, so then it's like one of your unexpected guests pretty much came in and went "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer!" Yeah, imagine it!

Anyway, after our lovely family visit, we hop back on the horses. Because we ate so much dairy and spent so much time at the family, we decide to ride through lunch to make up some time. The afternoon ride is super nice. Along a dirt "road" and in between hills. And on top of hills where you were just constantly looking out at wild flowers. One of the Wranglers picks wild garlic for us. The horses seem happy. We are happy. We can't get over how amazingly beautiful things are. We stop for a nice little break where we take one of my favorite pictures of the trip. It's one of Pook's self portraits, but I'm sitting right behind him, and we just look very peaceful taking our break (though, fyi, there were flies all over us, too). After the break we ride for a little longer. But there's potential rain again, so we pick a campsite and stop.



In retrospect, I think that the fact that we stopped early was a blessing, because this campsite was fantastic. I was taking a nap during the wood gathering excursion, but apparently there was fantastic wood gathering going on. Also, to add to the injury list for the trip, Aaron goes to get some wood and steps on a branch that shoots up and cuts his face. Tina makes him wear a band aid over it for the rest of the trip, and I giggle every time I look at it. This was a funnier story if you were there to appreciate the way in which married couples sometimes interact with each other.

I wake up from my nap just in time for the sleep slaughtering. I really feel that this is perhaps better told with photos, but I warn you that you may not love the photos.

Here, the poor fellow is led from the van we transported him in to his eventual slaughter.



Here, Dava and Otuu put the touch of death on the sheep.



Here, there's slaughtering. That's my rain jacket Dava is wearing, and flies loved me the next day.



This is the removing of the pelt, which was the smoothest process I've ever seen.



This is removing the stomach. Look how much grass an average sheep eats!



Here's your final outcome. Not a drop is wasted. That pot of blood was used to make blood sausage later.



Here's how you dry out some sheep carcass before you cook it.



Here's the head and hooves after they were charred. I think they were later used in soup, but I could be wrong.



And then the meet is put in a pressure pot along with some hot stones that were heated in the fire, and that's how things are cooked.

In between putting the meat on to cook and eating, there is some dead time. Arron says, "Anybody want to go for a hike? A short one? Just up to those rocks that are about halfway up the hill? They're not that far."

Pookie looks skeptical. "Things here often look closer than they actually are, you know," he says. But we head off anyway. Hikers include me, Nick, Pook, Mad Max, Mandaa, Aaron and Tina.

Mandaa does nothing halfway. It is never even an option for her to only hike to some rocks that were halfway up a hill. She wants to hike to the very top. I AM WEARING TEVAS SINCE I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING FOR MORE OF A WALK THAN A HIKE. But in the end, I can't complain because Mad Max isn't even wearing shoes. Anyway, we hike to the first hill top, and the sun is starting to dip and it's so lovely. And then Mandaa says, "Let's keep going," so we hike to a second, higher hill where the view is even more stunning. And I am thankful for Mandaa being the type of person who just assumes that we want to keep hiking, and for my traveling partners being the kind of people who are excited about that. And of course I'm thankful for the stunning sun-dropping views we saw on that hike.




When we get back, the cook staff has made fresh liver and onions (real onions, wild ones, ones that got picked while we traveled) from the sheep liver. And what I learn is that liver and onions is DELICIOUS if it's fresh. I can't stop eating it.

Then the mutton comes out. Firstly, as Dava pulls the scorching hot stones out of the pot, he hands them to all the men around to see who can hold on to them. Pookie does an exceptional job. Then the mutton is served. Listen, I don't like fatty meats, and truth be told I got more than a little sick later, but it was worth it to experience eating something that had been alive just hours before. It was a new kind of sensation or something.



And even as I went to bed that night with my slightly upset stomach, I could hear them singing at the campfire. And it was all good. And it continued to be all good the next day when ...

 

Mongolia Chapter 6: Misery is, Well, Miserable

There are two potential contenders for the low point. The end of this day is one of them, and for me it was the low. Which is surprising since the day begins and then rolls out pretty perfectly for a long time.

In the morning, we break camp from that beautiful camp spot, that, while it's not my favorite campsite of the trip, it's close. We get on the horses and ride out over the same beautiful meadow we'd ridden the day before but in a different direction. We stop to visit a random prayer wheel and Buddhist shrine. We ride some more, through some lovely woods and across a lovely bridge and then at a fast trot across another meadow. I have an Oprah moment with LZ YP where she explains to me that diverse, unconventional people cannot expect to have normal, conventional relationships. There's a lot of talk about me and relationships on this trip. Lots of philosophy.



Lunch is in this wonderful little glade by a river. And it's a two hour lunch break, so people can bathe and wash clothes and their hair. And it's sunny so things can dry. And lunch is, of course, delightful. And laying in the sun after lunch is also quite delightful.

And then we get back on the horses and ride, with a minor ditch stop at a wooden structure and lots of riding through lovely fields, then up a small mountain for a fantastic view (And different people feel different ways, but I find the physical act of riding uphill very peaceful. I'm sure the horse disagrees).

At the top of the hill is pretty much where the misery starts. We want to stop for the view, because the view is spectacular, but there's clearly rain that's about to be on top of us, and so Mandaa pretty much says "Enjoy the view from the back of your horse." And so we take a couple of quick pictures and then head down the mountain.



And Mandaa and Dava select a campsite that is in the trees since there will most likely be lightening. Now, little known fact to many people, but in an area where there are a lot of bugs, there will be even MORE bugs where the trees are. So we pull up to the campsite, and per usual the rain is about to come down. So we're rushing to get the tents up, and because we are rushing, we don't entirely check the ground below us as well as we should, so mine and Pookie's tent ends up on a HUGE TREE ROOT. Then, I run off to pee without thinking that perhaps I should put my rain gear on because the grass is knee length and wet. Firstly, I get my ass bitten up while I"m peeing, which I should have expected. Then I get back to the ten and realize that I'm really wet from having walked into the forest. And the bugs are so thick. They are just so thick that I want to cry. I cannot handle having 20 bugs around my face AND being wet AND having a bitten up butt at this point. And so Pook and I discuss it and decide that we will skip dinner and just stay in the tent and eat our food cache because the minute we open up the tent and go out we're going to get the inside of the tent wet (it rained while we were inside) and let bugs in. So, to review, on this evening:

1. I am wet
2. Though my bladder is empty, I have bug bites on my ass
3. I can't go outside because it's wet and swarming with bugs
4. I have Cliff bars and beef jerky for dinner
5. I sleep with a HUGE ROOT digging into my back

It's not good people. For me, it's like that day in Peru where everybody fought over lunch, or that day in China where I just couldn't take the weather any more, or that day in Uganda where I just couldn't take the roads any more. It's bad. But the night is always darkest before the dawn, and it ends up all good because the next day is my second favorite day on the whole trip because ...

 

Mongolia Chapter 5: Obligatory Travel Puke Story

After a lovely morning breakfast, we hop in the vans to rush off to one more Naadam horse race. What's special about this race is that Dava gets to come to this race. Dava is a horse wrangler, remember? But because it's his job, instead of going to all the Naadam races, he's been hauling our asses around. So this is really the only race that he gets to see, and his happiness is infectious. He's so excited by the racers and the results and all of it. And after the race, he finds trainers and the winning jockeys for us to ask questions too. It was great. Here are some pictures of the morning. (The point of the second picture is to show you how much horse sweat was on that boy's pants since he had ridden bareback).




Nope! No puking yet!

Then we have a lovely morning ride. I mean a really lovely morning ride, across a flat meadow, through a herd of yak, through a herd of cows. There's this precious moment where we're all trotting down a road into Tsetserleg and we look over and see that Dava is watching us ride with this huge smile of pride on his face for his horses and his wranglers and us. It's very sweet.

We're headed to Tsetserleg for the last day of Naadam festivals. So we have this lovely, lovely ride into town, and then we meet up with one of the vans for lunch. Now, one thing that is obvious about the Boojum staff is that they pay attention to what we like, and they adjust to it (refer to story about beer). And they had noticed that we loved the "fast food" meat pies at the Naadam festival the day before, so that was what was prepared for us for lunch, and we were in heaven.

Nope! No puking yet!

We spent the afternoon at this larger Naadam festival, which featured some interesting wrestling, complete with controversy. There was a very buff wrestler who was very new to the scene. The day before, he had fought a more established wrestler and I think the match was a draw, but there was some question about it. So the judges had ordered a rematch. Except that the more established fighter didn't want to fight the younger fighter, so we sat around for a long time waiting for him to take the field. And when he did, we saw why he didn't want a rematch. He got his booty kicked in less than thirty seconds.

We spent the rest of the afternoon taking in Naadam. It's crazy, because one thing I'd never think to do is to wear heals and good clothes to a dirty field, but then again, I'm American. These girls were DRESSED to the NINES. I wonder how many people find their eventual mate at a Naadam festival? Here are some pictures from the day.





Nope. No puking here yet!

So, we are walking out of Naadam. And Tina and Siri start asking if anybody's stomach is upset. And the rest of us are all like, "Um, no." But Tina & Siris' stomachs are upset. So Mandaa decides that they will have to ride in the van instead of take horses back, and we feel so badly for them. The rest of us jump on our horses and head over to the local Buddhist monastery. We tour the old monastery remnants and historical museum, complete with a picture of Mongolia's prize cosmonaut, whom they pretty much worship. It's cute. There are also these great plaques with sayings from Genghis that I wish I could remember, but one of them definitely had to do with women knowing their place. The monastery was fun and lovely, and here are some pictures.






And then, with Tina & Siri almost passed out in the van, we hop back on the horses to ride back to camp. We've noticed the rain clouds coming close...

Judging what rain clouds were going to do was a constantly fun game on this trip. The Mongolian landscape is really expansive. So you'd see some very dark rain clouds quite far off in the distance, and it would appear that the wind was blowing them in the opposite direction. But then without warning the wind would shift and suddenly the rain would be right on top of you. Or, alternatively, it would appear that the rain was about to hit you full on, so you'd all get off the horses, put on your hot and uncomfortable rain gear, get back on the horses, sweat in your rain gear, and then see that the wind had blown the rain away from you and have to stop again to get the rain gear back off, usually only to repeat that again later. It was a fun game. Sometimes.

But on this day, on this day the rain hits us full force. And it's probably one of the worse rain storms we get caught in. Worse yet, it's windy, and things are blowing all over the place since we're still in town, and the horses are getting spooky. So Mandaa makes the call that it's not safe for us to ride and makes us all get down and get in the vans while she and the wranglers get the horses back to camp. We're honestly all a little bummed about not getting to ride through the rain storm, but one of the Boojum guides had actually been killed by being struck by lightening not that long ago, and we were going to be riding through an open field, so we can't really argue with her logic. I mean, honestly, it was hard to ever argue with Mandaa's logic.

Here it comes! Puking story comes here!

So, I'm sitting next to Siri in the van. I should note that on the way to camp in this van, we never made any effort to actually use roads. It was off-roading through the fields the whole way, so needless to say it was bumpy. Bumpy is putting it nicely. And Siri (and I presume Tina's) stomach was a mess by this point. Anyway, she makes it through the ride okay. And as we're literally pulling within 10 feet of camp - like we could stop the van and get out and walk at any point - she looks at me with this adorable little sad look on her face and holds out her hat and says, "I have my hat ready just in case I need to puke in it."

And I smile at her and think to myself, "Oh, little Siri. We're home. You're not going to puke."

And at that EXACT moment, Nia hits a bump unlike any bump we experience at any point in the trip before or after this moment. It is HUGE. Everybody in the van is pitched forward and saddle bags and jackets and water bottles go flying. And Siri looks back over at me again with a small and sad look on her face ...

And then ...

She immediately leans over her hat and starts puking in it.

The poor girl was so embarrassed. We managed to get the hat thrown out of the window, and it's quite sad but we don't get a picture of the poor discarded hat on the ground. Later, Siri would prove that she was a trooper by just washing the hat out and continuing to wear it. But at this moment, all she wanted to do was to go lay in her tent, which was understandable.

The rest of the evening is lovely. By most accounts it's one of our best meals (some chicken wrapped around vegetables). I get to wash my hair, which was ecstasy. And I know I did not conceal the ecstasy because Lizzie told me she could hear my cry of ecstasy all the way in her tent the first moment I poured water over my hair. Though that is a fun story. I was down by the river using a cup to dump river water over my hair. River water is cold, ya'll, so I'm not sure what she heard was ecstasy or shock, but either way. And as I'm doing this, my trip secret crush H'asha comes down to me with a bucket of warm water he's heated up for me. And so I take a cup of that and dump it over my head, except that what H'asha meant when he said "warmed up" was "boiled" and I'm pretty sure I actually lost hair in the singing process from that. But clean hair is a luxury, and it felt good.

And it's a good thing that this day was so luxurious, because the next day ...

 

Mongolia Chapter 4: And Then We Rode ...

And then, on Friday, we rode. The plan is to get up. Ride. Have lunch. Ride to a Naadam festival to see some horse races and then set up camp in a campsite we'll stay in for two nights (the only campsite we're in for more than one night). Also, this is the only day I rode Jerome, and it was pretty miserable. He wanted to be the lead horse, badly. I didn't like my saddle. He and I were at odds the whole time. I started calling him little miss sunshine because he was acting like a bitchy San Francisco queen. But even without my sweet, sweet horse I got the next day and the constant ache in my arm from having to pull on him, the day is pretty damn close to perfect.

We break camp in the morning and head out over the field. It's hot, but not miserable. The flies aren't out yet. There's no sign of any kind of rain. The excitement of the first day of riding and the beautiful scenery is everywhere. And here is where I will talk about scenery. Skip ahead if that's going to make you bored.

I'll reference how beautiful things are a lot from here on in, I'm sure, since we were out in the outback. I'll post pictures, but thee truth is that nothing I say or post will give you the right idea because so much of what was so beautiful about the Mongolian landscape was it's expansiveness. I've seen fields of lush green and wildflowers before, but never fields that roll on and on and on like this seemingly forever. And everything was in bloom. And you would ride through these mountain passes or on a road for a while and then suddenly you were in the middle of these crazy fields that went on forever.



And so that's what we did all morning, rode through this amazing landscape. And then we saw the lunch vans.



The lunch vans were usually one of our favorite parts of the day (unless the ride was short and then they were kind of an interruption). Firstly, we had an amazing cook on the trip. Worth every penny of her tip. Secondly, every meal was an amazing three course spectacular, usually with a salad, a soup and a main course (and some kind of snacky dessert). And beer, though many of us learned the hard way after the first day that the move was not to drink beer in the heat of the afternoon and then get back on the horse for an afternoon ride. By the time we met up with the lunch vans, which always found beautiful spots for us, the table was set up and the coolers were out. And after lunch we would lay around in the grass in whatever beautiful spot they had picked just enjoying everything until it was time to ride again. Lunches were not rushed. They were about enjoying the beautiful countryside.



Though, you know, lest you think this is too picturesque, lunches did come accompanies by hoards of flies. Here are some pictures of mine and Pookie's hats during our first lunch break so you can kind of get an idea. By the end of the trip, you still noticed that you were covered in flies, just not as much. Anyway, our first lunch is evidence of how good lunch is going to be, and honestly, now that I'm back in my real life, one of the things I miss most of all is two hours in the middle of the day laying around in a field with a salad and some water.



After the first of a series of the world's most delightful lunch breaks, we head back out. We pass through a local Naadam festival where there's an archery competition going on. Archery is the least popular of the three Naadam games, so we're actually kind of lucky to catch one. The best part of this is that the competitors shoot at a tiny target that is very, very far away. And the judges stand around the target. Like, as in, the judges stand right there while arrows fly at them. Perhaps you remember the story about how I accidentally shot my high school gym teacher (the one with the glass eye) during archery class. I would not stand a long distance away from some archery shooters while they aim for a tiny target. I'm just saying.



Mandaa wants us to get going though, because we want to catch some afternoon horse racing, and the races are very far away. So we head off at a trot.

Let's talk about trotting. Trotting is what Mongolian horses do most of the time. They can trot FOREVER. Trotting may just possibly be the most uncomfortable horse gait around. It's like jackhammering up and down in the saddle, or alternatively you can stand and absorb the trot in your knees. Either way you will feel it later. We trotted a lot. Most of most rides involved trotting.

Anyway, we go on this stunning ride that I'm completely enjoying even with Jerome. And finally, Mandaa says, "We're going to have to get off the horses and have Dava take them to camp because otherwise we won't make the races. They are finishing faster than we expected." So, actually really sadly, we get off the horses and meet up with the van. But in the end it's worth it because we have a splendid afternoon at the races.

Also, it's a good thing, because whoever did the distance estimation for how far it was from where we were to the race site was distance-challenged. We would have been riding through the night to get there! In the back of the van, we were all like, "Who thought we were going to make this distance on horses?" And Manda and Nia are talking in the front seat, when suddenly she says, "It looks like the distance estimation was wrong." And we're all like, "You know it, mama!" (Okay, maybe that was just me).

We get there before the last race participants hit the finish line, so we have some time to wander around the festivities. We find all kinds of gems.

We find Mongolian fast food! Mongolian fast food in the countryside are these delicious meat pies. I almost wished that lunch had not been so good so that I would not be so full so that I could eat a whole one instead of just a bite of Siri's. And here is what you will find in a mobile, festival, Mongolian meat pie stand. You will find a sheep tied up behind the tent. Then you will find a meat grinder mounted on a motorcycle. Then you will find a pot of meat frying. Discern for yourself the process there. But the meat pies were scrumptious.



We find a bar fight, or the equivalent thereof! I'm told, but can't confirm, that the fight between these two young (drunk) men breaks out because one of them says that the other is too Russian. What I know is that these two (drunk) young men proceed to first fight from the backs of their horses and then proceed to get down and take it to the ground. While this happens your typical crowd of bystanders gather to watch, though in this case it is made crazy by the fact that the bystanders are on horseback. And then some girl comes to break up the fight. First, she literally kicks one of the boys in the ass. Then she grabs the other one and puts his drunken self back up on his horse and leads him off. It's really amazing.



We find a Mongolian ice cream stand! At a Mongolian ice cream stand, you ride your horse up to the ice cream stand and they hand your ice cream to you. It's like a drive through!



We find Cool George! Cool George is a local who notices that we're white and have beer, so he comes over to introduce himself (and because he wants beer), and LZ YP breaks out her phrasebook. His name, by the way, wasn't really Cool George, but it sounded like "Cool George" so that's what we called him. We have fun hanging out with him.



And then there are races, and the races are just as exciting as the first time. And I learn a fun fact, which is that if a rider falls off of a horse during the race but the horse finishes, the horse just gets moved back one place, not disqualified. So if a horse finished third, but his rider fell off during the race, he'd actually get fourth place. This seems like a reasonable rule, except that the next morning at the last race, the first place horse finished with no rider and they let him keep first place. But the best rules are flexible rules.

We have a great day at the race. Here are some pictures.




Then we hop back into the van to meet up at camp with the horses and support vehicles. And I'm not even making this up - on our way out of Naadam, we see these two beautiful Mongolian girls galloping bareback. Yep. We're in Mongolia.

And may I just say, our campsite is amazing. There's a lovely little river running through it, and it's right next to some trees where the horses can be tied, and there are almost no flies! It's, for lack of a better word, idyllic. And dinner is as good as lunch was.




Did I mention that the day was pretty much perfect? As was much of the next day, when we went to ...

 

Mongolia Chapter 3: Seriously? All That for a Rock Shaped Like a Penis?

Days in Mongolia start around 9:30am, and that's if we have our act together. On this day, we are back in the van. We're stopping at Erdene zuu, the largest Buddhist monastery in Mongolia and then on to the horse ranch where we'll meet our horses and get familiar with them before setting off the next day.

And did I mention that it's dumping down rain again? DUMPING. Like as in nobody even dare get into the van without their rain gear. But the day starts out auspiciously. I find bracelets to take home to my girls. Pook finds a singing bowl.



We head out and the downpour begins instantly. And then we stop. At a rock. A special religious rock that's shaped like a penis. I swear to God that you would think that nobody in our group had ever seen a phallus before by the excitement with which everybody puts on FULL RAIN GEAR to get out of the van and rush ten feet to take a picture of this stone. And that includes Pookie. But Pookie does get the picture, and now you can experience the penis stone without having to get drenched to do it!



And then on to Erdene zuu, which is stunning, and maybe even slightly more stunning in the slightly darkened skies of rain. Erdene zuu is surrounded by a massive wall of 108 stupas. Siri has heard a rumor that the 108 stupas represent the 108 fallacies of man (to which Tina and I replied "Only 108?"). I just read, though, that there may only be 102 stupas in that wall. I did not personally count. I'm not sure if you're up on your Buddhism or not, but 108 is also the number of beads in a Buddhist prayer bead necklace. I looked it up as I was writing this. 108 in Buddhism is the number of defilements to overcome to reach enlightenment, so there you go. Either way - if there were 102 or 108 - the wall of stupas is amazing and massive.



Needless to say, most of the temples in Mongolia were destroyed during Communism (cause you know how the Communist felt about pesky religion). This was was allowed to remain largely as a museum since it was pretty far from the Ulaan Bataar (and probably because they realized destroying it completely would cause riots). Since Democracy came to Mongolia, it's re-opened as an active monastery.

We tour the temples and the monastery. I don't want to sound jaded, but if there's one thing I've seen a ton of in my life, it's Buddhist temples (remember the sadistic hike of 100 temples?), but they're beautiful and peaceful every time. We go to the monastery, and Mandaa has our trip blessed. And you know what? I just wrote two entries about rain, but everybody agreed (and you will too after you're done reading about the trip) that it was a remarkably blessed trip.




After touring the temple, we head out to see the turtle statue. What? You're not familiar with the turtle statues? There were three of them. They marked the borders of Karakorum, which was the capital city of Mongolia during the reign of Ghengis Khan and which ... wait for it ... once stood on the same spot where Erdene zuu now stands. And one of the turtles is left, so we hike out to see it. It's a statue. Of a turtle. But it is kind of crazy to think that one of the most powerful warriors of all time marked the boundaries of his city with statues of funny little animals. It's also massively amazing to think about how long that turtle has been there and what it's probably seen.



There's supposedly some movement in Mongolia to make Karakorum the capital again, but I hope that they don't do that. The fear of course is that it would start to become more citified, and the site of one of the world's oldest and largest monasteries shouldn't be down the street from a fast food joint, you know?

So then we head back to the temple to get a little lunch, and Joel and I decide to divert to one of the side temples where we can buy some prayer scarves. And we get lucky. We walk in just as the daily offerings are being put out, and they make us eat AND we get to be the first people to try Ayrag. Yes, if you just followed that link you know that Ayrag is an alcoholic beverage made of fermented mare's milk. And here is the sad thing - I really loved it. And the sad thing about that is that I was being so super careful about what I ate and drank on this trip because I did not want to get sick and have to miss a day of riding. I drank very little alcohol, and I really limited the taking in of unfamiliar local foods. I totally missed my usual adventurousness with food. It's one of my favorite parts of traveling, but on the other hand, I had a healthy trip, so I'll take it. Anyway, ayrag is surprisingly good, and you know I hate milk products normally. And I was so happy to get to share that moment with Pookie.

Erdene zuu was a great stop. Even with the rain. In fact, in some ways the rain made it better.

On our way out of town, we notice that the local Naadam festival is going on, so we stop there for a while and watch some wrestling and the end of a horse race. This one has more of the feel of a festival because it's a larger town and a bigger crowd. There are stands to sit in, but most people just pull their horses up to the fence and watch the action while sitting on the horse. I can't really do justice to the craziness of seeing this. There are a lot of things in this trip where I could tell you about them or show you pictures, but it wouldn't do things justice. But I'll show you pictures any way.





And then, for the rest of the day, there is driving. Oh, wait, we stop in Tsetserleg to buy beer. I did not just make that up. I mean, we get some dinner, too. But Mandaa has noticed that we like beer, so she's insistent that we stop and stock up for the rest of the trip, and who are we to argue? This is a woman who would literally walk around camp and put beer in your hand. She was amazing.



From there, we ride on to Dava's horse ranch.

And now, you need to meet Dava. Dava was our horse wrangler for the trip. I think he honestly may end up being one of the most remarkable individuals I will ever meet in my life, and I say that not having been able to understand a word that he said. Dava is, quite simply, a lover: a lover of flowers, a lover of horses, a lover of stories, a lover of people, a lover of singing, a lover of his children, a lover of life. And he is infectious. He carries his whole spirit around beside him and while he's talking to you, it's hugging you. He's amazing. And when I tell you what he did on our last night with him, you will cry just like Lizzie and I pretty much did.



Anyway, we get to the ranch and start to pitch our tents, at which point ... it starts to hail. I mean, literally, as we're putting up the tents the hail starts coming down. And it actually ends up being one of the more fun moments of the trip as we all try to band together to get the tents up before the insides get wet. And the hail is worth it, because after the hail the most beautiful rainbow spreads out over the sky.

We meet our horses. I name mine Jerome (after the greatest Steelers running back of recent history), but don't get too attached to him because I dump him after one day. We had a "personality conflict." Pook names his horse "Petey" after Peter Pan. Mandaa doesn't get emotionally attached. Her horse is "brown horse with white legs." And we go for a ride out across a field. And it turns out that there is a nomadic family camped at the other side of the field so we stop and visit and sample some more Ayrag and other dairy treats. Ask cultural questions, and then enjoy a ride back as the sun is setting. We do rally to try to take a group picture on the horses to mark our first day on them, though ...



And then we spend a peaceful evening in Dava's ranch bar with beer and vodka, because the next day, we ride ...

 

Mongolia Chapter 2: There May Be Mutiny

Day two! Heading out!

We meet up with Nick after breakfast, check the packs and then head down to the lobby where we meet Officer Donna and Siri the Norwegian Goofball and T&A, who are blissfully married and on the dream trip they wanted to take for their honeymoon three years ago. Mandaa shows up and we're off.

Firstly, you need to meet Mandaa. Mandaa is awesome. She has a Masters in Humanities. She is a grandmother. She has lived through all three governments in Mongolia (Russian Communism, Chinese Socialism and now Democracy - though we did not ask her which she likes best because we weren't sure she' really be comfortable answering). She has a zillion jobs - translator, tour guide, administrator. She rides the most uncontrollable horse in the pack and rides lead every day we're out there. She treats tour guiding like being a mother. Sitting at the table debating whether you want to wash your hair or not because the river is cold? Mandaa solves that problem for you by heating a pot of water and ladling it over your head. She wears these sassy riding boots and cute little Bonnie Bluebell riding bonnet. When you tell her your stomach is upset, she gives you vodka. She makes this trip into something truly special.



So, what we are off in is something resembling a VW bus, but not quite. It has some strange emblem on it that resembles a Mercedes logo but it not a Mercedes logo. It also has all of our gear in it because we're not meeting up with the second support vehicle for a day or so. Uh huh. That means it has not all the seats in it. So your options are to cram in with the four person set up in the very back, in which case you have a one in four chance of sitting on a crack between the main seat and the jump seat. Or, you can sit in the three person middle section, but then you have a one in three chance of sitting in front of the cooler so your legs MUST be propped up at all times - which sounds fun until I tell you that we are off-roading in the strange little van-bus. Or, finally, you can take the front seat, but then you can see the "road" and its obstacles and you're very aware of how fast our driver, Nia, is hitting these huge potholes. I personally end up in the "legs on the cooler" spot, and let me assure you that that is no way to off-road.

This picture was actually taken at the end of the trip, but it's our whole crew with Mandaa and Nia.

Oh, and we're off-roading. I mean, we'd be off-roading it anyway because the roads once you're outside of the city are dirt, but to make it more interesting it's dumping rain. DUMPING. There's some speculation as to why it's dumping rain and I don't have an answer because I heard both things. One school of thought says that it's dumping rain because the Mongolians seeded the clouds to have a plush growing season, and one school of thought says that the Chinese seeded the clouds so that the rain would fall over Mongolia instead of over Beijing during the Olympics. I was prone to the second school of thought, but, after visiting the Beijing airport, I'm not convinced that the Chinese could have it together enough to get that pesky rain thing taken care of.

These roads are bad. BAD. And you wanna know what makes bad roads worse? It's when you're crammed into a van-bus that's over capacity and everybody is damp from the rain and then Mandaa says, "It is normally a six hour drive, but with the rain, it will be eight to ten."

It's at this point that I worry about mutiny from Nick and Pook. I kind of "sweet talked" them into taking this trip, and here I have them in a somewhat third world country, stuck in a van, wet, in POURING rain that is supposed to hold up for a large portion of the trip since it's human-induced, and we're going to be driving for about ten hours. This isn't really the scenic vision of Mongolia on horseback that I promised them, so I keep my head down.

The day progresses. There are high points. Like when we switch seats and I can get off the cooler. There's also peeing, which is an issue because we're in flatland and there's nowhere to conceal. So Tina and Siri and I develop the umbrella technique, in which we carry an umbrella to the field, two people hold it, and one person "uses the ditch" behind it. Then we move two feet to the right and repeat. Incidentally, "ditch" became the verb form of "go to the bathroom" on that trip, and I'm keeping it in my vocab.



We make a game of looking at how many cars have gotten stuck in the mud and cheering on our awesome driver, who did not get us stuck even once. We even help push a van once. By we, I don't mean me. We say the scenery is awesome, but I now know that we knew nothing because the scenery was about to get spectacular.



And by the way, what's awesome about the fact that we have to drive on these crazy, rutted, flooded dirt roads is that, fifty yards to our left, THERE IS A PERFECTLY FINE PAVED ROAD that for whatever reason just isn't open to the public.

I may or may not have asked Joel and Nick if they hated me yet a couple of times. They are good sports and optimistic.

And then ... the day, it changes.

We're there during Naadam, which you would already know about if you read the New York Times. Naadam is the festival of three manly sports: archery, horse racing and wrestling. It happens over a couple of days on the local, county and province level. We saw some amazing things and I'll be talking more about Naadam as we go along, but on this miserable day, here's what literally happens.

Around 3pm, the sun breaks out. And not that long after that, Nia points out that a local Naadam festival horse race is about to start in the field next to us. So we stop and get out into the beautiful sunshine in the beautiful countryside, and we see what we're in for.

Naadam horse races are 26 kilometers long (about 16 miles and change). The horses race the ENTIRE thing at a full gallop. The riders are 8 to 10 year olds, and they ride bareback (they also ride without shoes and largely without reins since they use their hands to whip at the horse). And these horses are BEAUTIFUL. Because they are smaller than American horses, they move faster and are less bulky. And by the end of the race they are glistening, and the little jockeys are yelping, and the excitement is everywhere. These horse races are seriously like the NFL playoffs to the Mongolians.

Anyway, in the middle of this day that I'm sure is going to go horribly wrong, the sun comes out and children race stunning horses at full speed in front of us and everything is colorful, and suddenly I know the trip will end up a fast, crazy adventure. That moment is still one of my favorite trip memories.




And then we drive, but we're about to hit paved road.

And when we hit paved road, Nia hits 90 miles per hour. It's like he waited all day for this.

Where we were driving to was a ger camp. We camped in tents all nights but two, when we stayed in ger camps. The ger is the traditional nomadic "mobile home" of the Mongolian herders, and they are lived in in towns and nomadically alike still. It's like a round tent with a solid wood frame that disassembles and a thick felt covering, just about tall enough to stand comfortably in. And very, very warm. Shockingly warm. I loved them. Think living in a studio apartment, but round, and your bathroom is outside. And you generally share it with most of your family, but it's fine because you spend most of the day outside so it's mostly for sleeping.

We also enjoy the luxury of flush toilets and showers for the last time.

And because it rained all day, the sun sets spectacularly.



And then, we get lucky, though the day was pretty lucky all in all. There's a traveling music group there to perform. Two horse head fiddle players, some kind of marimba-type thing, a harp, a folk singer, and a throat singer. And they are wonderful. They are wonderful despite the fact that right before they start there's some obnoxious American complaining to her guide that the air conditioner didn't work in their vehicle. SHUT UP CHARLOTTE, YOU'RE IN MONGOLIA. But despite Charlotte, the music is wonderful and a wonderful way to end the night. And so, so, lovely. And afterwards, Pookie tries to play the horse head fiddle.




And then we sleep, on an interpretation of "bed" that is more like "slat," but still warm and comfy. And the next day, there are temples and wrestlers ...

 

Mongolia Chapter 1: I explain to you why China will never actually be a world power.

Ah, yes. Travel blog entries. You love them. I love them. I probably love them more than you love them because, well, I did the traveling.

Mongolia was amazing, but I'll save my cooing for the end.

I arrive in Pittsburgh a day before our flight so that Pook and I can check our packs, and what we discover is that, essentially, we are missing nothing. This is a rare and wonderful thing. It means that aside from one last run to target for some last minute bungee cords and an extra camera battery, we get to enjoy the day in the company of HoneyDunce and relax at meals and get our internet fixes before we go. All is good.

Leah is nice enough to drive us to the airport at the crack of dawn. After we check our baggage, Pook looks at me and says, "So, those backpacks are check ALL THE WAY to Ulaan Bataar?"

"Uh, yes." I say.

"That doesn't worry you?" he says.

It didn't, mind you, until that moment. That moment when I was faced with a look ahead at the possibility that if our luggage didn't make it into this vaguely third world city we were flying into, we would be horseback riding and camping with ... no gear. And so, then, for the rest of the day, a minor ulcer grew in my stomach at the prospect of not having luggage.

The flight to JFK is fine. The flight to Beijing is looooong. Ironically, the in-flight film that United Airlines has chosen to show is "Stop-Loss." Perhaps you are familiar. It's a film starring playboy Ryan Phillippe as Staff Sergeant Brandon King, and it basically portrays the U.S. military establishment as the left hand of Satan. Now, think what you will about the U.S. military establishment, but one has to wonder if the best possible in-flight entertainment for a plan for of foreigners is necessarily a movie crucifying the U.S. military. I'm just saying.

And then we get to the Beijing airport.

Ah, the Beijing airport.

May I remind you that, as I write this, we are but weeks away from that airport being overwhelmed with tourists and such for the summer Olympics?

We begin by going to the International Transfers desk, which is where you go if you have an international transfer. At which point we are informed that (now mind you, China hasn't necessarily admitted yet that Mongolia is not China) we need to just go through customs and then head to "Terminal 2."

So we head to the customs line marked "International Transfers." Because we are logical siblings.

This is not correct either.

What IS correct, and I have no idea how one would figure this out, is that you need to go through the DIPLOMATS line if you are currently and international transfer in the Beijing airport and you need to change terminals. There are no signs to this effect, and the ability to communicate this information if you don't speak Cantonese (or is it Mandarin?) is limited.

After that, you're on your own to find terminal two - WHICH IS A TWENTY MINUTE SHUTTLE BUS RIDE AWAY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET. I'm serious. I hope you have serious layover time if you need to make that change. Fortunately, we have serious layover time because WE HAVE A FOUR HOUR LAYOVER.

If you have ever wondered what discomfort is, it's having to spend four hours in the crappy, crappy lame terminal of an airport, with one bathroom with an attendant who hovers over you at all times, for four hours after a 15 hour flight. This is how you kill that time:

- You go to a tea house and have some tea and dumplings. Blissfully ignorant as to the current yen to dollar conversion, you spend about $100 on this activity.



- You sleep in the main lobby, where it smells and the chairs feel sweaty.

- You then switch to the international check in area and sleep there. On the floor. With a hoodie pulled over your face. You are thankful that your little brother is too tired to take a picture of that moment. Nick the British Lawyer is not thankful that Pook overlooked that photo opportunity.

Finally, people start to arrive to check in for the flight. MIAT is not known for its timeliness. In fact, the locals refer to it as "Maybe It Arrives Today". Ha! I didn't know that when we booked the flight. The check in area for our flight to Ulaan Bataar includes of the "regulars" you would expect to see in international travel, by which I mean:

1. The obligatory white French guy WITH DREADLOCKS SO YOU KNOW HE'S LIBERAL
2. The obligatory white woman IN A SARI SO YOU KNOW SHE'S INTERNATIONAL
3. The obligatory unmanaged children running all over with their soccer ball

We finally make it through check in, through customs and into security. The security line is taking FOREVER, and so finally I peek around.

"Joel," I say, "Look up there. There's no x-ray, right? They're MANUALLY checking bags, aren't they?"

Joel cranes his neck ...

"Yes, yes they are."

At which point, before I can think to stop it, the followings comes out of my mouth.

"Oh my GOD. This is why China will never actually be a real world power."

Insert the view of all heads turning in and Pook looking at the floor.

And this doesn't even touch the story about the same airport on the way back! But we'll save that.

All things end well. We land. Our guide, Mandaa, whom you will learn to love as we did, meets us and takes us to the airport. Our baggage is there and I rule supreme for deciding we wouldn't lug them on as carry-ons. We get a good look at the communist monument known as Ulaan Bataar before we head off to bed.

And then, in the morning ...

Adventure begins! Hope you're ready to read!