Sky, Camels and Fermented Mares Milk

Mongolia has a lot of sky. That's the first thing you notice really. Or the first thing I noticed. Amazing plains surrounded by mountains and hills, but sometimes the edges are so distant they disappear over the horizon. That means it's windy. And dusty. But open, and this openness seems to extend to the people. In Russia no-one ever waved back when you waved at them. They seemed to be shy, more insular, here everyone is curious. Often they instigate the waving and look disappointed if you don't respond!

The difference between towns and the countryside is that in towns the gers (yurts) have fences. Seriously. Some of the fences contain what look like sheds, some more permanent structures that may be business premises, some even contain houses, but they all contain gers. Just out of Ulaanbaatar you see people herding sheep on horseback. I mean literally where the permanent city buildings end. And within Ulaanbaatar there are many stretches of open ground that have gers on them. It seems that's the way people are comfortable living. And having spent the past 3 nights in a ger I can't say I blame them! Gers are warm and cosy, even in the wind and hail that prevailed last night (quite an event that - precipitation).

So shortly outside Ulaanbaatar the tarmac ends. 3 1/2 hours of bumps later you encounter more (unfortunately at right angles to the direction we were going). 30 minutes later we reach a "real" road. Smooth tarmac - luxury! after nearly 7 hours drive we made it to a ger camp. I don't know how, there are NO road signs, and the roads consist of several different tracks (obviously formed when one of the others gets too rutted) that overlap and then often split randomly to fade into the distance. The landscape doesn't seem to change either, but somehow the Mongolians find their way. Everywhere you look there are herds of sheep/goats/cattle/horses/camels, and every vista has a ger (every ger also has a huge satellite dish and motorbike). We visited a ger close to our "tourist camp". We were going to a different ger, but this couple were outside milking their horses and we asked if we could watch, and they then invited us in. They fed us what I can only describe as "bread" although that's a very loose description, cheese, fermented mares milk (tastes a bit like fizzy yoghurt) and Mongolian tea (mostly milk, a few tea leaves and lots of salt). It was very sweet as they obviously weren't expecting us! We ended up playing drinking games with the husband (the penalty being fermented mares milk, the game being something along the lines of a complex "rock, paper, scissors"). The camp smelt of wild thyme, and food was good!

The following day we moved camps and headed towards what was the capital city in Ghengis Khans time (they call him Chinngis). It later became a monastry, but very little remains of either thanks to the communists. We stopped at a statue of a turtle that everyone had seen on "Long Way Round", and is a symbol of long life. At this point it transpired that our driver was drunk (in retrospect the impromptu karaoke by him on the bus should have been a clue, but he was so buoyant so much of the time we thought it was just high jinks). Our driver drove off without us as we returned to the bus, and we walked back to the ger (a bit over an hours walk). When we approached the bus it seemed that the over-excited driver had decided to turn around and had placed the rear end of the bus in a ditch.

The next morning he was hungover and VERY apologetic. At least we weren't on the bus, and I found it all quite amusing at the time - watching them trying to get the driver out of the ditch whilst he's grinning and waving away really was a comical sight!

The rest of the trip went without hitch, except for a grumpy camel, and sudden freezing temperatures combined with hail/sleet. The cold seemed to fit in somehow though, considering Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital in the world, I've been very warm in a t-shirt during the day! Although it gets colder as the sun sets.

And for the record, clubbing in Mongolia is the same as everywhere else, they're just really slow at serving drinks.