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[May. 25th, 2008|12:28 am]
Scott
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I am back from my tour, ready to divert myself to the surprisingly difficult problem of getting out of Mongolia.
The tour itself was great. I took the bus out to the village of Terelj. When I got off, two Mongols rode up on horseback, wearing traditional clothing that looked right out of the days of Genghis Khan. They had an extra horse, and they motioned me to get on. I told them I'd never really rode a horse before, and they responded with something like "Hraaagh," which I'm pretty sure is Mongolian for "I don't understand English".
So I managed to get up on the horse without falling off, the Mongol guys said something to the horse, and we rode off for a while. Eventually we came to a ger (like a yurt) and got off. I met the mother of the guys on the horses and practiced my Mongolian ("hraaaagh" means "nice to meet you"). She served me milk tea and Mongolian "cookies", which are actually pretty edible.
From there, I and a Mongol named Hoshko got on an ox-cart and travelled a bit further into the steppe. Ox-carts are neither comfortable nor fast, but you can store a lot of luggage on them. After a few minutes, we came to a pretty big river. The guy hit the ox with a stick a couple of times, and the ox attempted to ford the river. If you've ever played Oregon Trail, you know this part. I kept on trying not to think about that "I Tried To Ford The River And My Oxen Died" Facebook group, and eventually we made it across without losing the ox or any provisions.
We stopped for the night at Hoshko's ger, maybe fifteen kilometers from the bus stop. He had about ten horses, fifty cows, a couple of sheep here and there, and three young children (as well as a wife, who promptly served me milk tea.) He also had a calendar with pictures of Genghis Khan on it. Being my usual self, I played with the children for the rest of the night and mostly ignored the grown-ups, who were drinking Mongolian vodka and saying "hraaagh" a lot. They pressured me to drink a cup of the vodka, making it clear that I would be breaking some sort of sacred host-guest bond if I refused. Later the kids taught me a bit more Mongolian, as well as some of the local games (played with the ankle-bones of sheep). I slept in the ger for the night.
In the morning, the kids showed me how to herd cows, and later how to play tag with cows (the cows are not very cooperative in this venture). After a while they had to do chores, and some people from the ger a few kilometers south came to pick me up. I rode about 15 kilometers south to the next ger, occupied by a woman (who served me milk tea) and a toddler who knew three or four words (one of which was "Genghis Khan", and the others of which sounded like "hraaaagh".) She started throwing rocks at me. Throwing rocks at people seemed to be sort of a Mongolian sign of affection - she threw them at her father as well, who laughed them off - and the toddler eventually decided I was a cool person (possibly by judging the sound the rocks made when they hit my skull) and decided to follow me around everywhere for the day. This was fun right up until I had to go to the bathroom, since bathrooms on the Mongolian steppe are strictly of the "stand outside and use a tree" variety. I didn't really want to go with a little girl watching me, but she refused to leave me alone, and when I tried to explain this to the mother, she just answered "Hraaagh." I started yelling at the girl and trying to drive her off, and she started throwing rocks at me. Things generally deteriorated from there.
In the evening, I went a couple of kilometers south to the next ger, occupied by one Mr. Bold. He was out herding when I arrived, but his wife was there and served me some milk tea. Eventually he came back and was very overly friendly and back-slappy in the way people sometimes are. Mr. Bold was famous in the area for winning the Terenj area wrestling and horse racing championships several years in a row. He proudly showed me his medals (some with pictures of Genghis Khan on them). He had also won a few archrey competitions, and demonstrated for me with his bow and arrow (and then taught me a little about how to use them; by the end of the day, I was doing okay as long as I was really close to the target). Mr. Bold later became fascinated by my mp3 player, and made me play lots of songs for him. I stayed with him and his wife for the night, and they gave me lots of milk tea to help me sleep.
The next day Mr. Bold took me by ox-cart to Mrs. Uranchimeg's ger, a few kilometers north. She served me some milk tea and then returned to her sewing. She was making something that looked very much like a traditional wizard's robe - like the one Mickey Mouse wore during Sorceror's Apprentice - and explained (her English was actually pretty good) that it was a for the local shaman. She and her husband were shamanists (most Mongols in the region were either shamanists or Buddhists) and the shaman was going to help her figure out which day to move to the summer pastures. In exchange, she would give him the robes she was sewing. She showed me how to make traditional Mongol robes (it involved thread in some way, but other than that was beyond my understanding) served me some more milk tea, and then returned to her sewing. Her husband mostly spent the time herding animals and drawing (he gave me a really good picture of Genghis Khan). I spent the night at her ger and left the following morning.
General conclusions. Number one, I never want to drink milk tea again. There was some Mongol custom that you have to serve a lot of it to your visitors to prove your hospitality, and another Mongol custom that you have to accept it or you're being very rude and insulting your host. The end result is that, where normal humans are 60% water, I am currently 60% milk tea.
Aside from the tea, the food was generally good but bland. If there was ever a Mongol cooking show, it would be called Cooking With Flour and Meat And Nothing Else. For Your Entire Life. I had meat dumplings, meat noodle soup, meat noodles, noodle soup with meat, meat rolls, and a meat/noodle stew. None of it especially bad, but none of it especially good either.
Archery is fun. Mongol clothing is still really cool. The steppes are beautiful. I still want a ger. Mongolian vodka could probably compete with Ari's Koskenkorvaa in terms of alcohol content. I am tired and dirty but otherwise pretty happy right now. |
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