Mongolia – gers, snow, wild horses and beautiful people.

UB (Ulaan Bataar) Nothing quite prepares an Australian for UB! The city and outskirts sprawl over a large area. There are no trees, the roads are wide and not marked, huge potholes and bits of road are missing. The buildings are a mixture of standard Soviet era unit blocks 8 levels high. Ugly as sin! Timber dwellings are mixed with newer blocks of units. The timber dwellings are not painted and appear black. In amongst all this are the traditional felt Mongolian gers.
The majority of Mongolians follow the Buddhist faith. We found the people of UB to be happy, helpful and generally pleased with themselves.
Our stay was for a short time before we took a 350klm trip west of UB to Karakoram, the old Mongolian capital, the Erdeen Zuu monastry (birthplace of Mongolian Buddhism)
We experienced with our guide Tseegii and our driver Ihavga
1. Severe cold – down to -10
2. toilets – 2 boards over a deep pit in the middle of a field
3. Ate the traditional Mongolian roadhouse food
4. snow and sleet (usual for this time of the year) They tell us it drops to -30
5. we camped in a tourist ger
6. shared an evening with a nomad family in their winter ger
When we arrived, Sukhgerel (the head of the family) killed a goat. Oyunchimeg (his wife) made us welcome with Mongolian butter tea and naan bread and we were entertained by 3 year old Nandia. Toward the end of the afternoon I was invited to take a horse ride with Sukhgerel. The horses are short, stout, very strong ponies. The saddle is wood and is very tight fitting on the body. The stirrups are very short and forces the rider to be in crouched position. The reason – the terrain is very steep and it is difficult to stay on the horse at full gallop down hill. The trick is to stand up and put your weight either behind or over the front legs. Sukhgerel took me to the top of the ridge ( the temperature was -10, the wind was icy at 50kph). It was so stinging it hurt my lungs. The view from the ridge was absolutely amazing. Miles and miles of snow covered rolling hills. Sukhgerel could not speak English. I could not speak Mongolian. That was of no concern as I realised he was showing me his country. The moment was magic. He took me and showed me his flock of 50 goats and sheep and 30 horses (10 of which were blood stock. His horses hold 2 gold medals, 2 silver and 1 bronze from the annual Nadaam Festival in July, Mongolia’s Melbourne Cup). We finished the afternoon with a mad gallop back to the ger. It was amazing. Then dinner was fresh cooked goat and steamed handmade noodles. We played ‘knuckles’, sketched, before the 7 of us bunked down around the pot belly stove fuelled with dung.
Next morning wwe woke to a winter wonderland (it had snowed quite heavy during the night) and we set off to the Khasti National Park to look for the Prezwalski wild horses, a rare breed reintroduced to Mongolia by the French and Dutch. Actress Julia Roberts is one of the patrons. We were lucky to find a herd of 8 only 3 or 4 klms into the park. It was so cold we had almost abandoned the search. I got some great shots. After this we returned to UB, to catch the Trans Mongolian to Irkutsk in Russia at 11.30pm that night.
Image 1 the road out of UB minus 5c
Image 2 our hosts the Nomads
Image 3 Sukhgerel and I on the mongol horses
Image 4 Karakoram walls
Image 5 wild Prezwalski horse