Naadam
Trip Start
Jul 05, 2005
1
5
9
Trip End
Jul 27, 2005
Ulan Bataar, Mongolia
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
The border crossing took all day. We had to take down all our bags, so that Russian customs could look through every nook and cranny of the compartment for contraband. I think we sat there about 6 hours. And guess what - it was really hot, 35 degrees, yet again. Mongolian customs agents smiled at us and spoke English, unlike the Russians who just barked out something in Russian and pointed.
The Russians didn't ask anything about currency or anything else for that matter. They just searched the train and then we moved on to Mongolian customs, which was much more pleasant, but it took so long... Once we crossed the border into Mongolia, we also re-entered regular time keeping.
Our train matron, who was unusually pleasant, awakened us at the ungodly hour of 5:30. The train pulled into Ulan Bataar and a representative of what appears to be Mongolia's premier tour agency met us (we saw no indication that any other travel agency actually existed). He drove us to a series of Soviet-style cement panel buildings one of which housed our home stay apartment. A quite charming Mongolian woman who had a light breakfast ready greeted us. We took a quick shower and headed to the fairgrounds to witness Mongolia's biggest festival Naadam.
July 11 is the Mongolian Independence day and a huge festival lasting three days takes place in the capital. It involves the "three manly sports" - wrestling (Turkish style), archery (in which women are now allowed to compete), and horse races (in which small children, both boys and girls, are the jockeys).
Watching the wrestling was fascinating. The guys wore frontless shirts (apparently a woman once won this competition and since then, chests are bared just to make sure - kind of like the chair candidates for Popedom are made to sit in just to make sure they have the required goods after the Pope "Joan" fiasco), tight shorts which resemble Speedo bathing suits and leather boots up to the knees. The wrestlers approach a tall post of great significance, do some kind of bird dance around it and then head for their scheduled wrestling partner. There are a whole bunch of wrestlers on the field at once and the matches happen fairly quickly - somebody gets thrown and pinned in no time. I couldn't get a good photo because we were pretty far from the action. Sitting in the shade seemed to be more important at the time because all the seats in the sun were empty. It was hot, yet again.
Unfortunately, we missed the archery finals because we got so caught up in watching the semi-finals of wrestling and another game called Anka that it was over by the time we figured out what was going on. We discovered that the final horse race would be taking place 35 kilometers outside of town on the steppe.
After a few false starts, we finally got someone to show us which public bus we needed to get on to get out of town. A few other tourists got on so we figured it must be the right bus. We got half way there and suddenly stopped. A military truck was blocking the road out of town at a major intersection and the locals weren't happy. We didn't understand what was going on but the laughter of the locals gave us the indication, that they saw some humour in all this. After having a short snooze of about 45 minutes, we decided to get off the bus and find our way back to the centre of the city. Just as we got off, the military truck moved, and the locals with wild gesticulation and shouts called us back to the bus.
We finally made it to the race ground two hours after getting on the bus. The sky was incredibly dark and it looked like it was going to pour rain. I was ready to get back on the bus and return to the city, but the bus driver also got out - nobody was going anywhere unless it was in a private car, or on a horse.
We experienced the Mongolian's love affair with horses here. They're not huge horses - the horses' heads were about on par with ours, and everybody was riding one. We should have brought scarves to wear over our noses and mouths, because the dust and sand permeated every nook and cranny. We quickly learned to walk upwind from the riders, but it wasn't long before we were completely covered in dust.
We staked out a spot by the finish line to watch the last, most important race. Before long, we had even more spectators behind us, but they were all on horseback. Thank goodness the horses are very docile, because the kids and I have not had that much exposure to horses to make us really comfortable with these beasts right next to us. Kalvis got sneezed on a few times.
We cheered along with everyone else as we saw the dust rise over a ridge indicating that they were nearing the finish line. I can't quite remember exactly how long the race was but it must have been quite grueling for the riders. The horses looked ok, but some of the kids were barely hanging onto the saddle and some of the horses were without riders - the kids apparently fall off on the way when they get too tired. And it's all about the horse, not the rider. The winning horse brings prestige, not the rider.
We made a quick get-away after the race to head to the outhouses before climbing back into the bus with the masses. Mongolian outhouses don't stink, by the way. Shannon lost her sandal in the outhouse - quite simply stumbled and shoe fell off and tumbled down into that hole. There was nothing much we could do for her, but join her in laughing when the locals pointed at her feet.
We spent the 500 togrogs ($.50) to take a cab back to our flat from the endpoint of the bus route where we were greeted by a lack of water. The guidebook talked about how the nomadic Mongolians were brought into the 20th century by the Soviet Union - I think it was kicking and screaming the whole way, because nothing works properly, just like Russia. We couldn't shower after this dust bath, so we headed to a local tourist spot figuring that the washroom facilities there would allow us at least to wash hands, face, back of neck, and possibly our incredibly dirty feet. But, there were no paper towels in the toilets - go figure.
After a minimal wash up, we decided to splurge and stay at this obvious tourist spot. We had had a long, event-filled day, the restaurant was close to home, and we decided that we could afford a whopping $35 for dinner (and drinks) for four people since we hadn't eaten since having the Mongolian equivalent of a Pogo for breakfast (meat on a stick covered in batter and deep-fried). Food in Mongolia is all about meat - vegetables have only recently been introduced into their diet (many think veggies aren't healthy) and fish also doesn't fit in the Mongolians idea of healthy eating. Kalvis was in heaven. We asked for the famous fermented mare's milk every place we went, but either the waiters didn't understand or thought that these foreigners don't know what they're doing. We never got to try any. Anyway, the restaurant had a big screen TV on which we watched the wrestling finals. Some local and obviously well-to-do Mongolians also appeared and were amused by our enthusiasm of this final match. We decided to pick one guy and just cheer anything that looked positive (not hard in wrestling). Our guy won!
The wrestling final was followed by the horse race ceremony. The little kid who rode the horse got photographed and received a gift, but the emphasis was placed on the horse. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance to the whole affair - quite fascinating.
We left the restaurant quite pleased with ourselves - we had witnessed some truly interesting things. We started to regret that we had only planned a two-day stay here. A horse trip into the steppe and staying in gers would have been interesting too, but we were pressed for time.
The next day the stores were open after this holiday and we did some shopping. Mongolians don't barter, so shopping was non-eventful. The cashmere goods were beautiful, but I wouldn't say they were cheap. I limited my purchases to souvenirs and a nice leather purse that was comparatively cheap. We also experienced an hour-long reflexology and shoulder massage session that cost an astronomical $15 per person. I fell asleep but the others were too ticklish to relax. The Mongolians, unlike the Russians, try to help tourists because there are signs in English all over the place. That's how we found this reflexology/massage place. And some of them can even speak English, also unlike the Russians.
We spent one more night with our nice Mongolian lady who by now had realized her 10 words of Russian were lost on us and the other tourists from England staying with her. It was strictly sign language. A cab whisked us off to the train station in the morning where we started the last leg of our Trans-Mongolian Express trip - off to Beijing.
