Mongolia

The Mongolian train from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar surpassed all expectations, with a brand new interior laid on for the anxiously anticipated Olympic hordes. Our 2 cabin-mates were Grace from New Orleans and Ted, a Spanish ex-pat - also originally from the US. The ice was quickly broken by Sterling from LA, and over the 30hr journey the five of us formed a fast bond. Once we realised we were all destined for UB Guesthouse, we planned a tour into the Mongolian countryside as a team (albeit without a name, as Grace pointed out).


Excited and loaded up with non-perishable food and vodka the unnamed team set out in a battered Soviet-style van over the bumpy roads (if you could call them that), into the great unknown.


Never have you experienced such nothingness until you have ventured into the vast, rolling Mongolian grasslands. This landscape is incredible, with flat wide green juxtaposed with the biggest expanse of the bluest sky you can imagine. Every now and then a lonesome white ger tent or a stream of wild horses or sheep, yak or goats would provide momentary relief from the agoraphobia-inducing emptiness, and the occasional horseman would suddenly gallop romantically across our path.


It’s crazy to comprehend that only 2.5 million people populate a country over twice the size of Texas (with 1 million of them jammed into the capital, Ulaanbaatar). I really felt like we were exploring new frontiers, and more than once imagined we were in an old Clint Eastwood movie - riding into ghost towns; and that beautiful rolling sky reminiscent of the empty road scene in My Own Private Idaho.


The first night was unanimously agreed to be the best, after our driver searched, at first comically, then slightly worryingly for a passage across an apparently impassable flowing river - in the dark. As if from nowhere, an impossibly cinematic vision of two horses, illuminated by our headlights, rode before us - their riders indicating to guide us.


Following our romantic heroes into the river, our driver completely fluffed it and rammed the wheels into the gravel riverbed and we were ground to a very grim and silent halt. Gunning the engine even more, with all of us piled into the front (Gill’s Italian Job inspired suggestion) didn’t help matters in the slightest. “Shit.” This is the disconcerting reaction from our, until that point, cheerful driver. We opened the door to find icy gushing water about two inches away. A dark moment of reflection passed until somebody decided we might as well crack open a bottle of Chinggis (vodka)! I mean, what else does one do in these situations? After this had been passed around, and Sterling lifted the mood further by serenading the night on his guitar with the “stuck in a river blues”, we resolved to roll up our jeans and wade to a nearby spit (mainly because everybody had to pee by this stage).


In high-spirited disbelief at our hilarious situation, and grateful (as the philosophical Ted pointed out) to be a like-minded group of pragmatists, unburdened by any hysterical types, we larked about in our cold, dark watery predicament, while awaiting the help promised by the two horsemen who rode off into the night.


We managed to gather from our bordering hysterical, but now a little bit tipsy, driver that plan A was not happening, as the driver of the only jeep within 10 miles was drunk. We later found this to be a common Mongolian problem. So instead a motorbike with two riders from our intended destination family ger set off to the nearest village, 20km away, while we gathered our belongings (which was one of those, “what to take/leave behind?” moments that makes you realise how precious, or not, your stuff actually is) and walked 2k in the dark through the woods.

Our arrival was greeted with much enthusiasm considering it was the middle of the night, and we toasted our saviours with another bottle of vodka – dipping the ring finger and flicking three drops to the heavens and touching it to our foreheads before downing each shot. I think indefatigable Bobby at UB Guesthouse had really hit the mark with this place, with regards to our “genuine, rustic” requirements, and the horsemen seemed truly bemused by our presence and simply gazed at us in astonishment.


We literally collapsed into bed, despite the excitement of being in a real ger in a real farm in Mongolia! The next morning a gradual opening of the tent roof flap woke us serenely. Gill and Grace wasted no time by “helping” the lady of the house to milk the cows.


Scrambling blearily out of the mini doorway I was unprepared to be so utterly gob-smacked by the beauty of our surroundings.


Reluctant to be wrenched so abruptly from such a friendly, real living farm (adopt me please!), we piled back into the – miraculously rescued – van and set off towards the White Lake.


Lunch was an unforgettable experience in a wild west saloon style bar, with a long table seating the 5 of us plus 2 amicable herdsmen – who Sterling compared to “Jedis” with their voluminous quilted coats, adorned with geometric Buddhist symbols, secured with brightly contrasting sashes and wide sleeves covering their hands.


These two men were incredibly friendly, the older one with a wrinkled kindly face and the younger a permanent, gentle smile, both willing to make a huge effort to communicate with us despite the massive language barrier.

Another two Jedi walked in, one wearing a classic French-style beret who strangely reminded me of Johnnie Depp. I should mention here how important hats are in the Mongolian herdsmen fashion world. Most wear a kind of felt Peruvian / 1940s gangster fedora, but it seems that anything goes out here, with even the odd baseball cap making a cameo.
The other a silent, nike hat sporting jedi, with a permanent cigarette dangling from his moustachioed lip simply sat and drank vodka with us, generally looking cool.



Vodka somehow appeared, as is customary, and our “host”, the elder Jedi, offered the first shot to Gill, who performed the necessary preliminary ritual to muted approval.
After the bottle had made two rounds everyone was feeling quite merry, and somehow we ended up outside taking turns to sit on their horses!



The Lake was stunning, and we had to cry out to our driver to pull over as we crested the hill just before sunset, and leapt out to photograph that first glimpse of its shimmering blue flanked by craggy purplish rock formations; and the inevitable, infinite and impossibly wide grassland and watercolour sky.


The next day I fulfilled one of my romantic fantasies as we rode wild horses around the lake, or rather were herded on semi-tame horses by a young ruddy-faced horseman named Mumba who let us believe we were in control of our steeds but in fact was the only one who could spur them on to their maximum speed of an infuriating trot.


The Mongolian traditional wooden saddle is not the most comfortable way to learn to ride a horse and I soon felt sore all down my inside-legs from trying to grip the beast in an approximation of the local half-standing style to avoid a painful backside.


It started to rain, and with frantic cries of “Cho Cho!” we bounded exhilaratingly along until we reached our herdsman’s homestead.


Our first glimpse of a real family ger was beautiful, with a colourfully painted wooden interior and yak cheese fermenting in a huge vat and hanging from every available space.


After the obligatory round of shots (yak vodka I think – everything seemed to be made from yak milk), our “guide” spoke the only English word he seemed to posses: “sheep” and pointed to Gill’s camera. OK, we thought, we’ll come photograph your sheep, and the men all set out of the ger. Grace and I made to follow to be met with a bemusing look of warning from the lady of the house...

At another ger a few metres away we discovered the reason for the shocked look: A sheep was lying trussed up awaiting slaughter, with a perhaps even more disturbing companion of a beautiful black dog tied to a pushcart with string, whimpering in sympathy nearby. Right, we resolved, if we’re gonna eat it we ought to be able to at least see how they kill it!

Exactly how was that he made a small incision into the struggling animal and reached his hand in up to the wrist, rummaged around for a painfully long time and finally pulled out what looked like the intestine. This seemed to spell the death knell for the unfortunate creature, which took its last breath and succumbed while its throat was slit. Then came the skinning, and it’s true what they say about a train-wreck – you think you cannot watch but simply can’t tear your eyes away. Ok, now who’s hungry for mutton?! We found out later that it was actually the windpipe he pulled out of its chest.

I probably should have mentioned the staple Mongolian diet of boiled mutton and flour, which was heartily welcomed as a cultural experience at first but gradually declined into taste-bud numbing boredom. In fact, by day 5 Grace and I flatly refused to eat any more meat altogether. I dread to imagine the state of these people’s colons! No vegetables seem to enter their diet whatsoever.


We were all having such fun on our little road trip through the wilderness we decided to extend it an extra day. We thought we had agreed upon a “family ger” (our preference to the “tourist town ger" – basically like camping in somebody’s back garden as we did on our last 2 nights) in between Kharkhorum and UB, but something either got lost in translation or our, by now fairly grumpy, driver was simply determined to get home and we ended up back in Ulaanbaatar on day 6 as originally planned. Just as well really as we had a lot of shit to sort out for our onward journey to Russia, and Gill was sick from some rather fresh arak (fermented, slightly carbonated alcoholic horse milk) we were obliged to drink at a friendly ger stop just before home.

Back in crazy, dodgy, wonderful Ulaanbaatar we sadly parted from our Mongol crew (eventually, organically named “Team Toktoi!” – “Team Cheers”), and boarded the train to Russia.