Nation of Horses
Mongolia
page one
 

Mongolia - First one notices the horses, then the people and gers - a round hut made of canvas.  It's a strange feeling to be in a land where the horse reigns almighty.  Man seems a mere stablehand, and the ger the stablehand's quarters.  There are sheep, goats and yak as well, but all are dominated in sheer numbers by the horse. 

Forty percent of the Mongolian population are nomadic herders.  2.4 million people are scattered across an area twice the size of France. Although decades of Soviet domination left the country in economic shambles, the Soviet education system did give Mongolia one of the world's highest literacy rates:  97%, which makes Mongolia more literate than the United States!

The non-stop flight from Osaka, Japan, to Ulaanbaatar (formerly spelled Ulan Bator), capital city of Mongolia, took four hours.  I was literally transported from one of the world's most densely populated nations to one of the world's most sparsely populated.   In Mongolia the population density is 1.4 persons per square kilometer.  The airport sports jetways and is thoroughly modern, although the baggage claim can be a bit of a challenge when two flights arrive simultaneously.  Customs inspection was simple - a warm welcome to Mongolia, and I was on my way.

Officially, my guide was merely an interpreter, as all licensed guides were working with tourist groups attending the Naadam festival.  She introduced me to our  the driver, and we climbed into a new Pajaro for the short drive to the newly opened Chinggis Khaan Hotel (former spelling was Genghis Khan).  The driver handled the check-in procedure and announced we would depart shortly for dinner at a well-known Japanese restaurant!  Eh?  Japanese food?  Apparently, since I was from Japan, they assumed I would feel more at home if I ate familiar dishes.  Little did they know that even though I've lived in Japan for 37 years, I'm not a fan of Japanese food!

Since it was apparently too late to change dinner plans, I dutifully did as I was instructed. Nothing is more than a few minutes away in Ulaanbaatar, and when we pulled up to the restaurant, I laughed out loud.  The restaurant was named Hanamasa, the same as the wholesale market where I shop in Tokyo every Saturday morning!  In fact, the restaurant was owned by Hanamasa in Tokyo, and the meal was actually a buffet-style operation.  One chose the raw meat and vegetables and then returned to the table, where the meal was cooked barbecue-style on a hot plate in the center of the table.  The restaurant would best be described as "Japanese owned," rather than as a "Japanese restaurant."  To my surprise, I enjoyed the dinner and had a great time.

I returned to the hotel, switched on the TV for a bit of relaxation, and discovered over 25 different satellite channels, some of which I don't even have in Tokyo!  There was a selection from Russia, Spain, Italy, and Australia, as well as the National Geographic Channel and the usual BBC, CNN, and CNBC broadcasts.

The hotel was not without its quirks.  At the front desk, I heard a guest complaining that the room was too hot and the air conditioner wasn't working.  He wanted to change rooms, but the hotel was fully booked for the festival due to take place in a couple of days.  The clerk patiently explained that despite the word "cool" printed on the control box, there is no air conditioning.  Heat, yes, but cooling, no!  The control box was standard for the system purchased, but the hotel had not requested air-conditioning as part of the system.

Though the hotel had windows that could be opened, I kept mine closed.  A wise move, as it turned out the next morning, when I heard people complaining about mosquitoes keeping them up all night! My guidebook had warned of swarms of mosquitoes in both the city and countryside, so I had come prepared with plenty of repellant.  Although I used it, I didn't find the mosquitoes very bothersome.  Another handy item for the visitor would be mosquito coils.  You light one end of the circular coil and it burns through the night, emitting an incense-type smell that chases away mosquitoes.  You could also use a regular room spray, but be careful, as the airlines are now very strict and allow only one aerosol container per bag.

Before leaving for Mongolia, the most up-to-date guidebook I could find was a 1997 edition, and when the guidebook advised that outside Ulaanbaatar one should be prepared for a "gastronomical purgatory," I loaded up on dried fruit and snacks.  As it turned out, I never touched them.  When I relocated to our ger camp, about a 1 1/2  hour drive from Ulaanbaatar, the dining room served a lunch of  onion soup, hamburger steak topped with a fried egg, finely-sliced cooked carrots and cabbage, mashed potatoes and a tomato-and- cucumber salad.  Dessert was baked meringue, which we had the interpreter wrap up and put in her bag as a treat for the horses, since I had forgotten to pack sugar cubes.  Dinner was roast beef with the now-familiar cabbage/carrot dish, rice, and salad.  Breakfast each day was served buffet style. 

This incident taught me a good lesson about guidebooks.  It takes nearly one year from the time a completed manuscript is submitted until it's published and appears on the shelf of a bookstore.  Research and preparation of that manuscript will have taken nearly another year before that, so any material you use from a guide book should be understood to be at least two years old.  In a dynamic region like Asia, great changes can occur within a matter of months. 
 
 

Accommodation varies from the five-star Chinggis Khaan Hotel in Ulaanbaatar to the ger type accommodations at the UB2 camp at Terelj.

Be sure to take along something to entertain yourself with in the evenings while staying in a ger.  Some have electric light, but not enough to make reading practical, and a large flashlight will come in handy when making your way to the toilet area after dark.
 
 

A typical sight of gers, horses, and mountains, with the family car parked alongside.

The ger camp where we stayed was at Terelj, a part of the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park.  The scenery reminded me of parts of Switzerland, with green meadows full of wild flowers half-way up the mountains and the deep green of alpine trees reaching to the very top.  The sky was cobalt blue with huge puffy white clouds.  The views to be had while hiking or horseback riding were truly spectacular.  The guides at ger camps are young - - some even younger than the 12-year-old boy who took care of me!  He didn't speak or understand English, but entertained me by singing Mongolian songs while we trotted along.  With absolutely no air pollution, the sunshine in Mongolia is extremely strong.  I found the top of my head and forehead sunburned, even with sun-block and a cap!

The traditional Mongolian saddle is wooden, but for tourists they cover the wood with a leather-padded cushion and a curved metal handhold.  This makes it very easy to hold on, even for beginners.

Initially I worried about how to say "Whoa" in Mongolian to stop my horse, but the main problem was actually how to get her going.  My young guide showed me:  Just shout "Chu" and smack the rear with the reins. 

Unfortunately, my horse was a cantankerous mare that seemed to be trying to force me to give up and go home, so she could have the day off!  For 30 minutes she insisted on bearing left at all times away from the other horses, turning a hard left every time I reined her to the right.  I finally decided to let her keep turning left until she came all the way around and ended up where I'd wanted to go in the first place....  It worked!

The first day we rode through mountain meadows, but the following day we entered a deep forest and crisscrossed a river and some streams.  At one point, I heard a thunderous sound coming up behind us.  The boy turned his horse back, grabbed the bridle of my horse and held on.  Just then, a group of wild horses burst from the forest and crashed through the shallow river just in front of us, followed by a couple of Mongolian cowboys galloping furiously after them.  It was like a scene from an old wild-west movie.