The last frontier

 

OK, Mongolia might not really be the last frontier on this planet, but it's certainly up there alongside Papua New Guinea, Greenland, and Bavaria (Austria). The vastness of the landscapes, the harshness of the climate, the very traditional way of life of the rural population, the “food”, and the interesting transport system even surprised relatively experienced travellers like Judith & me. Thankfully, mostly in a positive way.This is our longest post yet - sorry - but at least we've again included many pics, and two shockingly revealing videos. 

We got to Ulaanbaatar, capital of the most sparsely populated country in the world, by train from Beijing, capital of the most populous country in the world. The Transmongolian Railway is part of the famous Transsiberian Railway route, and it's definitely worth the 32-hour ride. Leaving from Beijing, you get a very good impression of the Northern Chinese countryside, the Gobi Desert, and Chinese and Mongolian immigration procedures (based on what happened to the guy in the compartment next to us, I'd recommend not to get into an argument with the Chinese border police). 

Judith & I spent the first few days in UB (as the cool guys like to call it) sorting out our next tours, and buying the last items for our camping plans. UB holds the title for being the world's coldest capital (temperatures allegedly can drop below -45° C in winter), but while we were there, the Continental summer climate treated us to some nice +30° C. The city is a strange mix of Soviet architecture, traditional Mongolian Ger tents, and increasingly Western influences.

Having concluded our preparation efforts in UB, we headed to the Bulgan & Arkhangai Provinces some 400 km West of the capital. As part of a semi-organised tour, we had arranged to stay with different nomad families, which allowed us to gain some brilliant insights into their lives. Except for the odd motorcycle and maybe a fancy black & white TV linked to a solar panel with an old car battery, the daily life of the nomads is still pretty similar to what it was centuries ago. A typical nomad family would consist of three generations sharing one or two Ger tents. As a result, privacy is very limited, which made us wonder how they manage to, well, perform the necessary tasks to ensure that there are enough descendants to take over the family business.

Being herders, the nomad families typically own several hundred sheep, goats, horses, cows, yaks (Rastafari-cows), and maybe some oxen and camels. In order to protect the Gers and the livestock (against e.g. wolves), most families have pretty aggressive dogs. Before getting off your horse or motorcycle when arriving at a Ger, it is therefore highly recommended to save the small talk for later and shout “Hold your dog” instead. Since Mongolians are nice people, they will actually do it and hit the dog for you - yes, it's all a bit rougher out there. But seriously, the people we met were very nice, down-to-earth, and welcoming. 

 

Most of the nomad men we encountered didn't show a lot of facial expressions at first, but after some days (or glasses of vodka), they opened up, too. As far as the kids are concerned: it must be pretty tough for the children to grow up in the middle of nowhere without any neighbouring kids to play with. To make things worse, sometimes complete strangers show up and take away their favourite toys - click on the shocking video below. 

Talking to the families turned out to be quite challenging, but we managed somehow. Thankfully, the Soviets had introduced Cyrillic in Mongolia, which made reading easy-peasy compared to Japan and China. What is more difficult is the pronunciation of Mongolian. An unnamed neutral observer has likened it to “the sound of two cats fighting until one of them throws up”. We have to concur. Compared to Mongolian, even Czech, (Swiss) German, and Dutch sound like lovely melodies sung by long-haired virgins.

In summer, the nomad families eat & drink tons of dairy products... milk, fermented milk, cheese, dried cheese, curds, dried curds, yoghurt, salty milk tea. If you're lucky, you'll get a bit of mutton. Proteins and fat for a lifetime. We will provide more details about our culinary experiences in our next separate blog post on food. 

Besides eating, Judith & I spent a lot of time riding horses & camels. In that context, we found out that wooden saddles (why would anyone ever even consider making a saddle out of wood?) are not exactly ideal for ridiculously bad riders like us. Luckily, we had gringo-friendly leather saddles that one day when we had to gallop down a mountain in the middle of a surprise hailstorm.

Another interesting aspect of Mongolian culture we got a chance to witness was Naadam, the annual sports festival held in summer in every town throughout Mongolia. It consists of three official disciplines. Wrestling (ideal for fat men), archery (for those men not big enough for wrestling), and horse racing (for little boys). For us, seeing those little boys of maybe 5-8 years race their horses like madmen for two hours was very impressive. Some of them didn't even use a saddle. Kids of that age in the Western world still build castles in their sandboxes.

After some two weeks, we headed North to Khövsgöl Province, which is famous mostly for the huge 136km long, 267m deep lake bearing the same name. Lake Khövsgöl probably is the most beautiful lake I have ever seen, featuring crystal clear water and pristine coastlines. 

 

Judith & I rented a kayak for 5 days, packed our tent, some food, my vodka pocket flask, and a fishing rod and off we went. Judith actually managed to catch dinner for us, while I, feeling slightly emasculated, at least got to kill and barbecue the fish. 

 

The Eastern shore we visited is not very to not at all accessible by car, which is why we felt truly detached from the rest of the world. Beautiful. The only people there were the Mongolian president and the leadership of his Democratic Party, who did a joint camping trip together. Now that's something you wouldn't see in many other countries. Can you picture Sarko and Carla Bruni going camping with the UMP elite?

Speaking of accessibility: transport in Mongolia is definitely worth a separate mention. The roads and the means of transport in Mongolia are by far the worst Judith & I have ever encountered.  Outside UB, roads are virtually non-existent. The people in their 4x4s just speed across the grasslands and rivers. Unfortunately, being on a tight budget, we did not want to pay for a more comfortable Japanese 4x4, and opted for a Soviet/Russian Jeep (based on a design from the 1930s!) instead. They are truly horrible. The hopelessly overloaded Russian minibuses are even worse. By comparison, Latin American chicken buses seem like first class flights with Virgin Atlantic. As promised, here's our second video of the day...

The lack of roads certainly adds to the Mongolian last frontier-charm. Maybe this is why we met many people from all over the world who had been on the road for a long time. Compared to their massive undertakings, the extent of our small trip is put into perspective:  

Check out this French-American who has been on his motorcycle with a sidecar for more than six years: http://www.thetimelessride.com/

Or this German guy who travels the world by 4x4 & paraglider: http://www.human-multivisions.com/

Or this nice Swiss couple who managed to drive to Mongolia in a cute minivan:
http://www.oschtwerts.blogspot.com/

So, to summarise: Mongolia has been a definite highlight of our trip. If you're the outdoorsy type, you have not seen this planet if you haven't been to Mongolia. Our last two stops since – Beijing & Hong Kong – have been very different. But great nevertheless. We will upload the respective post over the coming days...So once again, thanks for taking your time to read through this, and I promise the next posts will be shorter again.