I arrived in Mongolia at the end of August and had just completed almost six full months of nomadic travel. Obviously there would be no better place for me than to visit with the real nomads of the Mongolian steppe. I arrived in the capital, Ulaan Baatar and met up with some strangers who were looking to take a long trip out to the countryside. We got ourselves a solid Russian van, a driver we called D.C. (who spoke no English except for "lunch" and "sleep"), some camping equipment, plenty of food and water and embarked on our three-week adventure.
We began by heading south towards the Gobi desert. Usually when you think of the desert you think of sand and more sand. While there was plenty of sand there was also a constantly changing landscape. Each moment that I looked out the window it looked completely different from the last. Rocky hills turned into grassy plains and then instantly into miles of dry brush for as far as the eye could see.
One of my favorite parts about camping in the middle of nowhere was that I could experience absolute silence. It was kind of eerie at times and I can now understand people when they say "the silence was deafening". Being out in the middle of nowhere is an amazing experience. I recommend the Gobi to anyone who wants to get away from civilization for a while and feel like they're walking on the moon. Well, without the whole zero gravity and no atmosphere thing. While we were in this region the sky got so completely dark at night and without clouds so that we could see an absolutely amazing star display. It wasn't hard to spot a shooting star every few minutes.
The highlight of my time in the Gobi was when we visited Khongor Els. This is where there are gigantic sand dunes rising right up out of a riverbed area and in front of some very majestic mountains. The scenery was just unreal before and after an approaching storm that left a rainbow in its wake. We had lots of fun sliding on the dunes and not so much fun getting completely sandblasted when the wind picked up. I am also proud to say that I got to ride my very first camel.
Another highlight was getting to see 5,000 year old rock carvings that would obviously be a huge tourist attraction with hundreds of souvenir stalls if they existed in a western country. It is a much different experience getting to discover something for yourself instead of signs telling you what you're supposed to see and where to see it. I found the feeling similar to waking up after our first night of camping and getting to see huge wild rams butting heads with each other (the kind that stand up and run at each other on two legs). Or seeing little birds follow our van like dolphins playing in a ship's wake. And seeing gigantic eagles spread their wings and fly away as we approached.
From there we headed northwest towards an area that the guidebook said was not frequented much by tourists. We ended up being invited to stay with many different families and sometimes got to sleep in the gers (easily transportable Mongolian houses made of wood and felt). Even though we couldn't speak the same language we were able to communicate through phrase books and photographs. There were of course rounds of vodka and even airag which is fermented mare's milk. If you think that sounds gross you should see what they go through to get the milk. Those Mongolian horses are definitely half wild. And we thought the goats they taught us to milk were hard!
Mongolians move their homes a few times a year so they can't grow crops and rely almost entirely on their animals. In fact, after travelling over miles and miles of terrain we saw only one lonely potato patch. They eat a lot of dairy products and drink "tea" that's almost entirely made of milk. This is where I would love to say we had some fantastic goat, yak and cow cheese but am sad to report that Mongolia has a truly pathetic cheese scene. The Europeans in our group barely managed to suffer through the drought. However, no matter where we went we were always offered to try the beloved airul which is rock hard dried cheese curds. Sounds delicious, right? OK it wasn't all bad. I have to say the fresh yak cream with sugar and fried bready things were great.
Life on the road is not so glamorous. Water is scarce in Mongolia so that means people don't bathe much. Since we were camping every night and living the Mongolian lifestyle I had only one shower during our three week trip. Occasionally we would stop the van if we saw a creek or would wash ourselves if we camped near a lake but for the most part we were "roughing it". We were proud of the dirt under our fingernails!
Roads in Mongolia don't really exist as we know them. Most roads are just dirt tracks that wander around, merge with others, become eight lanes across and then disappear. Sometimes we would even have to make our own. The ride was so rough we even came up with a bump level system to warn each other about the likelihood of our heads hitting the ceiling. Most times we couldn't figure out how D.C. knew where he was going. There are absolutely no signs to tell you where you are and each rocky outcrop looks exactly like the other. We found it hilarious when D.C. would pull over off the "road" when we hadn't seen another vehicle all day. Or how some of the tourists sites were out in the middle of vast stretches of land but still had parking lots.
We eventually made our way up north to a lake region. We visited an inactive volcano and got to ride horses. A strange thing about the lakes that we saw is that there are no boats. They don't seem to fit into the nomadic lifestyle. And fish doesn't fit into their diets. So if anyone has been looking for a perfect fishing spot I can give you some pretty good tips.
By this time we decided we were a bit tired of Mongolian food and let me explain why. All Mongolian dishes can be created from these ingredients: noodles or rice, onions, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, and meat of various animals. It's understandable that these types of foods fit in with their lifestyle but we were craving something that wasn't chopped up to little bits or boiled to death. We got D.C. to take us to town and after about a half hour search we found someone willing to sell us a cut of meat. We were expecting maybe some goat meat if we were lucky but we somehow managed to get ourselves a fantastic piece of yak meat. Since we didn't have a grill we improvised with what we had. We cooked that yak meat George Foreman style between two rocks we heated in the campfire. It was the best steak I have ever eaten.
And finally, I cannot write about Mongolia and not mention the man who created the largest land empire the world has ever seen. Mongolians view Genghis Khan not as a murderous violent ruler as he's perceived in the west, but a legendary revered conqueror. (Interesting fact: scientists have figured out eight percent of males living in the former Mongol empire are his direct descendants. That's .5% of the world's male population or 16 million people) He is honored today with a big statue in the capital and his name on Mongolia's top brand of vodka.
Next up: Korea!
