MONGOLIA: Land of Genghis Khan.
We flew 1 hour from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok and 5 hours to Seoul and then connected with a MITA Mongolian airlines 3.5 hour flight to Ulaanbaatar “UB”.
With all layovers this adventure took us 16 hours.
We did get some sleep on the overnight flight on the completely flat airline seats.
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| Barb looks like she could pass out without a flat seat! |
When we landed in UB our guide who is nicknamed “Baggy” met us. We were supposed to drive 1 hour to our hotel. BUT, there was a major unannounced road closure and we were stuck in traffic for 4 hours.
Some of these stark and plain buildings remind us of the architecture in Moscow.
It looks cold and uninviting.
Oh, it is cold… -1 C or about 29 degrees F.
UB is the coldest capital in the world.
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| Architecture similar to Moscow |
The Soviet Union has had a presence in Mongolia for many years. After World War II there were as many as one million Russians in Mongolia. The Russians quickly disappeared after 1990 when the Soviet economic system collapsed. Baggy told us that the Russians treated the Mongolians very poorly. During the Stalin era as many as 15,000 Mongolian Monks were killed along with thousands and thousands of other Mongolians who were believed to be a danger to the communist way of doing things. Today Mongolia has free elections and the communist party takes only about 5% of the vote.
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| Russian Influence. |
After 2 hours of inching forward in a terrible traffic jamb Barb and the guide spotted a store that specializes in cashmere so we spent 2 hours there while Barb went crazy buying things. There are cashmere socks, mittens, scarves, pajamas, sweaters, hats, dresses, and tracksuits. I bought 2 sweaters (US $120 each), a pair of socks ($16), and a pajama bottom ($60). I think that the socks, sweaters and pajama bottom will keep me warm while riding horses. Barb bought one of everything else. I paid for everything once and Barb sneaked away and started trying more clothes on and so I had to pay again. I haven’t seen Barb so excited to shop since the last Lululemon store she visited. The total cashmere bill was about US $1100 but Barb said similar quality in the US would have been 3 times the price. Where else can you get cashmere pajamas???
We drove 2 more hours in a traffic jam (probably 5 miles), ate a Mongolian dinner at a restaurant that doubled as a museum of Mongolian artifacts (it was cool) and finally got to our Kempinski Hotel at 9:30 pm.
We were exhausted so the fact that this 4 star hotel felt more like a 2 star hotel did not matter to us.
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| Barb’s first taste of Mongolian Tea. Salty, with bits of meat in it. Shall we say interesting? |
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| A musical instrument at the restaurant. We saw many like this. It has a horse head at the top. |
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| Our hotel room at the Kempinski Hotel. |
We left the hotel at 9 am, stopped to pick up some fruit and snacks at a nice grocery store and were in the wilderness outside of town and riding on our horses at 10:30 am.
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| These were the horses that were brought to meet us. Notice the saddle? |
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| A typical Mongolian Saddle. They also ride with pretty short stirrups. |
The Mongolian landscape is a lot more scenic than the UB cityscape.
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| Lots of blue sky when you get out of the city. |
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| Pretty colors. |
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| We did see some vultures along the way. |
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| Blue sky, white clouds. |
Cowboys use a stick with a loop on the end to lasso cattle goats and sheep.
Mongolian horses are short and stout.
Genghis Khan conquered parts of Europe, Middle East, Asia, and China on these horses in about 1200 AD.
The Mongolian Empire was the second largest in history and second only to the British Empire in size.
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| This cowboy has the stick with a lasso on the end to catch goats, sheep or horses. |
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| One of our horses. Very strong and stout, even though they are short. |
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| Barb meets our horses and our horse guide. He rode the typical Mongolian saddle and wore typical Mongolian clothing. |
Scott surprised the guide and the Mongolian horseman who brought the horses by jumping up on the back of his horse without using a stirrup. The horseman laughed out loud and told our guide that he had never seen anyone do that before.
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| Scott didn’t need stirrups to climb aboard. |
Our guide told us to put on all the clothes and coats that we had but when Barb pulled out her Gore-Tex shell jacket he told her she could not wear it on top because Mongolian horses are “very active” and will be afraid of the noise made by the fabric of the shell.
So, we put our turtlenecks on over our shells.
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| Barb is wearing her cashmere sweater and scarf under 4 other layers. |
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| Scott has his cashmere pajama bottoms underneath his ski pants. |
It was cold, probably -1 degree Celsius, but it was sunny and beautiful.
Scott was glad to have his new cashmere pajamas on underneath his pants and his cashmere socks and sweater.
We each had three layers of clothing on the bottom and 4 or 5 layers on top.
We had our lightweight storm gear but we would have been more comfortable with heavier gear.
We put our hands on our horses’ necks to keep our hands warm while we were riding.
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| Our guide is on the white horse. His nickname is Baggy. |
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| Barb was freezing. |
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| Herds of sheep and goats all along the way. Also lots of herds of horses. |
Our horses are reasonably calm with a smooth and swift gait. Scott’s horse will neck rein or two-hand rein and is very responsive. If he slows, just show him my heel and he picks up the pace. If I want him to trot I just nudge him in the ribs and he breaks into a smooth trot. Down the steppe (the Mongolian plateau) a couple of hours later Barb was in the lead with her horse and surprised the guide and horseman by kicking her horse into a lope. Our horses followed her lead and the guide and horseman were laughing about how brave Barb is with her horse. Barb said she just wanted to see her horse lope.
After awhile we came to some sand dunes and we road our horses through and up and down the dune ridges.
We decided to have lunch so the horseman tied the horses together and hobbled Barb’s horse and we ate our lunch sitting in the sand next to our horses.
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| The horses are sure footed going up and down the dunes. |
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| This is how he hobbled Barb’s horse. |
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| Horses tied up while we ate lunch. |
Our lunch consisted of chewy beef meatballs and rice with blue cabbage. Blue cabbage? Our guide said it was a natural cabbage color.
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| Lunch on the dunes. |
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| Yummy! |
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| Really? Blue Cabbage? |
We flushed out a red fox similar in appearance to the red fox we have in our backyard. We didn’t get a picture so we took a picture of this red fox on the wildlife board at the Hutsai National Park entrance.
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| Red fox. |
Hutsai National Park is famous for its wild horses.
We hope we are lucky enough to see these wild horses.
They are a beautiful buckskin color with tan bodies and black mane and tail and black socks.
Some of them have zebra markings on their hind legs.
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| These are the Wild horses (Takhi) that we found. Notice the zebra stipes on the legs. |
These wild horses are not like the horses that we call wild that run free in the four corners area of the United States. The Mongolian wild horses have never been domesticated. They molt their mane and tail once a year.
A couple hours of riding after lunch we came upon a Ger.
I guess the custom in Mongolia is that anyone can stop and come in for tea at anytime.
Our guide explains that it is a Mongolian custom to stop and visit and take tea and food or repairs or lodging and these things are never refused.
It is like a network of motels across the country and is a necessity since the country is 3 times larger than France and there are no services for thousands of kilometers.
There was no one home at this Ger so we continued on our way.
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| No one was home at the Ger. |
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| We passed someone with their herds and he asked our guide to take one of his horses to the next Ger. It’s just a neighborly thing to do. |
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| We passed a spot where a Shaman has strung prayer flags. |
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| Herds. |
When you arrive to the Ger you apparently don’t knock but you yell out “Nokhoi khor” which means literally “HOLD THE DOG!” Mongolians don’t have the same concept of privacy that we have. Our guide warned us that when we are in our Ger not to be surprised if someone just opens the door and looks inside.
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| We passed water holes where herds of animals come daily to drink. |
After travelling further through the open steppe we came upon another Ger.
Our horseman approached the Ger and said Nokhoi khor and went inside.
We followed our horseman inside.
There were three women and a couple of men.
They seemed camera shy so we did not take pictures except that we took some pictures of the food they were cooking.
They were very nice and shared tea with us.
Mongolian tea is milky and salty and thick and has pieces of meat and fat floating in it.
It is hard to drink but Baggy told us that all we need to do is try everything that they offer and we don’t have to finish anything.
They also offered a dried curd that we nibbled.
The inside walls of the Ger were covered with wall rugs.
The Ger superstructure is made with sticks and covered with sheep hair mixed with grass and dirt from the steppe.
Our guide said it is “sheep felt”.
It is about ¾ inch thick.
The sheep felt is tied onto the sticks with horsehair rope.
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| This is how a Ger is constructed. |
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| It is made with sheep wool that is made into a felt. |
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| This is the pot that was offered to us. Dried curd, pieces of bread, and a few stale cookies thrown in. |
When it was time to eat we noticed that the cooking lady took some of the food from the approximate 24-inch pot on the stove and put it in a 12-inch pot on the table.
Then the oldest man sat down and ate first using a sharp knife and then ate the food directly out of the pot off the knife by pushing it off the knife with his thumb and into his mouth.
There was very little lamb meat on the bone.
There was a homemade noodle that was rolled out like a pizza and cooked whole.
There were also potatoes.
When the oldest man had eaten then the next oldest male sat down at the same pot and ate in the same way.
Then the last male ate.
When he had finished the oldest female ate and then the other two females also ate.
They all ate in the same way by just using the sharp knife and their thumb.
Some of them would pick up a bone and strip all remaining meat off the bone with their teeth.
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| It doesn’t look like there is much meat on those bones, but they stripped them clean. The noodle was rolled out like a pizza and put in the pot. |
We asked our guide if there were any children. He said the children of the nomadic people go to the nearest town and go to school and live in dorms in the winter. They only return for holidays and summer vacation. We asked how many people live and sleep in one Ger. He said that four, five or six would sleep in one Ger. The children all sleep in a separate Ger and the adults all sleep together. We asked if they were related and he said that they were and that they stay either with the wife’s family or the husband’s family and there are no rules or customs about that.
We were excited to have the opportunity to peek inside the life of a nomadic family.
Our guide said that this family group was not very wealthy and only had a medium sized herd of goats and sheep of about 300.
They move to different locations at different seasons of the year.
Our guide said that this is their winter Ger.
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| Notice the satellite. |
After the Ger visit we rode another hour or so to our Ger for the night just inside the entrance to the Hutsai National Park. There are about 10 Gers set up for visitors.
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| Entrance to the Hustai National Park. |
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| This is a map of the Hustai National Park and the area where we are riding horses to and staying in Ger’s. |
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| The stove needs to keep going all night to stay warm. |
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| Scott in our Ger. |
We had a Mongolian dinner consisting of carrot salad and noodles with beef and carrots. It was a very simple dinner.
Our driver came to our Ger and made sure our stove was lit and burning.
After it was burning with wood he took the top off the stove and dropped in a big baggie full of clumps of coal.
Then he lay on our bed and was enthralled watching Ice Age on Barb’s IPhone.
Mongolians are very social.
Our guide and driver walk in and out of our Ger whenever they want.
I guess we should wear pajamas tonight.
Baggy explains to us that at 5 am in the morning the owner of the Ger camp is going to come into our Ger and put more coal into the stove. We are supposed to leave our Ger doors unlatched when we go to sleep. Dorothy, you are definitely not in Kansas anymore!
Wow, what a night.
We were cold so I had to keep throwing wood into the fire in our stove in the middle of our Ger.
The bathroom was out the door and out in the cold night air about 50 yards away.
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| At least it’s an actual bathroom! |
The next morning we had a simple breakfast of cheese, bread, tomatoes, cucumbers and tea.
Thank goodness it was normal tea.
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| Interesting breakfast. |
The horseman had let our horses wander free during the night and it took him until 9:30 am to round them up. By 10 am we were back on our horses and on our days journey to our next Ger camp. Our guide kept warning us that the next camp was more remote and not as nice.
The Mongolian countryside is beautiful!
The scenery is changing and we ride over hills and up draws and begin an ascent up to a mountain pass.
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| It’s a beautiful cold ride. |
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| We could hear deer (what we would call Elk) bugle up the hill. |
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| Vast Countryside. |
The horses are working harder but have no problem walking up the slopes. Their gait hardly slows as the terrain gets steep. It is said that these horses are one of the important reasons that Genghis Khan was able to travel and conquer so widely.
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| Taking a break. |
As we are traveling through the mountains we hear what sounds like the bugle of a bull elk.
Soon we spot a huge herd of what we would call elk.
There must be 100 or more cow elk.
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| Elk herds everywhere. |
After sitting and taking photographs of elk we have our lunch.
It looks like yesterday’s lunch except it is curry chicken and rice instead of beef balls and rice.
We do our best to eat lunch but we our loving the scenery and the horse riding.
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| Our lunch spot. |
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| Curry Chicken, rice, broccoli. An interesting combination. |
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| Looks good. |
There are strange rock formations on the ridges.
And the rocks have brightly colored lichen on them.
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| Beautiful rock formations. |
At the top of the ridges we go down steep grades.
My saddle is not the most comfortable going uphill so that you can imagine how uncomfortable it is on the downhill.
To relieve the pressure I put weight on my stirrups and sit up on the back edge of my saddle.
Sometimes I shift side to side just for occasional relief.
Even though we ride horses daily back home these four and five hour rides in strange saddles are a little tough.
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| Scott was getting a little saddle sore. |
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| Barb and Scott |
Just over the top of one of the ridges we come across a herd of bull elk.
There are a lot of elk and we hear a lot of bugling.
It is beautiful to be in remote nature in Mongolia and enjoy the beauty of this land.
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| Lots of herds of Elk |
When we come close to our Ger camp we hear a dog barking. We notice that there are a few dogs and one is staked up on the side of a hill and is barking incessantly.
We are invited into the Ger camp owner’s Ger and we have some normal tea.
They also offer bread with clotted cream.
We notice a bowl of raw cut meat under a table and wonder if that will be part of our dinner.
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| Barb ate a piece of bread with some clotted cream. She couldn’t bring herself to indulge in anything else. |
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| Bowl on the floor under a small table. Sanitary? |
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| Scott with our driver |
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| Barb with our horseman and guide, inside a family Ger. |
Here is a photo of a Russian minivan outside the Ger owner’s tent. Baggy said that they are great on the bad roads but that they overheat, breakdown and get poor gas mileage. So I guess when they are actually running then they might be OK.
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| Russian Minivan. |
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| The little girl at this Ger. Helping to find keys. |
We went to the Deer Stone burial area to look at the rock art.
There are 700 known Deer Stones and 500 are in Mongolia.
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| Deer Stone at a burial ground. |
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| Scott next to the deer stone. |
As it starts to get colder our driver fires up our Ger stove.
We have to heat this Ger stove by burning dried cow dung.
I wonder what fumes and smoke from dried cow shit will do to our lungs.
There are also a few dried tree limbs and a bag of coal.
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| Dried cow dung. |
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| We better document this event! |
There is a problem with this stove. It is made of thin metal and the metal does not do a very good job of absorbing and storing the heat. So when the fire is blazing we are sweating and when the fire dims we are freezing. We are not excited for this night.
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| This stove does not seem to heat our Ger properly. |
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| Our Ger came with our own personal dog. |
Dinner was a Mongolian empanada with the chunks of meat that we saw in the bowl in the owner’s Ger. It was served with chili sauce and pickles. Oh well. Pizza is starting to sound really good!!!! Chengdu Pizza Hut anyone????
Our night in this Ger was a survival experience. It was so cold that we wore our cashmere pajamas and sweaters to bed and a ski hat. I woke up about every hour to put more cow dung into the stove. Then it would overheat and I would throw off my covers. After about an hour it was too cold and I would have to get up again and put more dried cow shit on the fire. I went through two tubs of cow dung trying to keep our Ger warm enough so we could sleep.
The outhouse was about 100 yards away from our Ger.
The most fun I had that night was walking back and forth to the outhouse.
It was crystal clear and the stars were amazing.
We could also hear the bull elk bugling throughout the night.
When I would get back to the Ger I would practically lay down on the stove trying to get warm again.
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| Outhouse on the hill. |
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| A second herd of Takhi. |
After shopping we went to the history museum in UB.
They had a full model of a Mongolian warrior on horseback dating from the 1200 AD era.
He was fierce looking and was protected with light ox leather armor.
In his boots he had metal protection between layers of leather.
He looked ready to conquer the world.
Mongolia was an interesting place and to see it on horseback made it amazing.
Habitual Travelers 
