Tag Backpacking in Mongolia

The next morning we awoke to the sounds of horses. Billig had brought in a rather large brown horse for the evening, and he had strolled around the yard all night eating every blade of grass and then leaving large piles of evidence strewn about, which the two dogs were rolling in when I stepped out of the yurt. I walked near the horse to say hello, sleep still in my eyes. The horse pivoted with such grace and speed that I hardly had time to react before it shifted all its weight to its front legs and kicked ferociously back with both hind legs. Mike was just stepping out of the yurt and yelled a too-late warning. The back leg kicked millimeters past my fragile skull and landed harmlessly back on the grassless ground. Startled, I realized that this was the second near-miss by a horse in as many days.

Trans-Siberian railway

Nevertheless, we asked Billig for horses for the day and walked into town while we waited for our mystery meal and for Billig to collect the horses from a friend. In town (which was a good mile hike) we bough the necessary provisions for a long ride, namely, a giant bottle of vodka and some orange juice to mix it with. On the mile walk back, we split the two bottles half and half and set about emptying them into our bellies. We were starving, our stomachs were raw from devouring mysterious substances for the past several days, and in town we could not find anything other than a large round loaf of bread to purchase for sustenance.

Back at camp we had carrots and noodles spiced with a tar-like substance I can only imagine was reheated dog. We chewed on wild onion shoots and looked across the kiddy table at each other. Mike looked ragged, tired and diseased; dark circles nearly eclipsed his blood-shot eyes. Still, he was an attractive man and I could not help but smile at what he had gone through the previous night for me. Wife had served a bowel of raw yogurt to the both of us, being lactose intolerant Mike slyly ate both his and mine, and as a result had spent the evening frequenting the outhouse via flashlight. Romance at its finest– or at least, romance on the steppe.

Billig returned with two horses, a small brown one which I presumed was mine and a large glorious grey one which could only, in this male chauvinist culture, be meant for Mike. Billig was not alone; he had a rather cheery Asian accomplice with him who he introduced as his Japanese friend. The two had met while Billig was looking for gold with the American. I wanted to learn more about the gold hunting, but would wait until later to ask.

Billig and the Japanese man (who was in a purple track suit) pulled out several bottles of beer and poured glasses for the men. Mike interjected and calmly and politely explained that white women also drank. Everyone in the yurt thought this was amazingly funny, and the Japanese man laughed as he poured me a full bowel of beer. We clinked and clanked bowels and all downed our drinks. Wife sat in the corner laughing and batting her eyes at Billig. He asked her to drink, but she said it was bad for her skin, and declined.

We drank several beers before another strange man arrived. This man was clad in traditional Mongolian gear, with a large cloth jacket tied on with a sash belt that also held a giant dagger. He wore a cowboy hat and had a long blade of grass between his teeth. He was fairly handsome, and Wife blushed as he walked in. Billig introduced him as the horse man, the until now supplier of our previous day’s brutes. Billig also explained that his wife had a massive crush on the cowboy, and he poured the man a bowel of beer and joked that his wife would someday ‘change to the other one,’ meaning the handsome cowboy. I thought that if Marlboro could have signed this lad, they would have won as many hearts as smokers. The man had brought the horses for us while we were off gathering booze, and had returned with saddles. It had started to rain and he and Wife went out and collected the saddles and set them in the yurt.

We drank a bit more, chewed our dog meat, and then the Japanese man in the track suit asked if white women also gambled. Mike assured him that they did and I found myself playing a very confusing local Mongolian variety of poker. Somehow I managed to beat Billig, though with the Japanese man’s help and constant cheering to assist me.

Tipsy and a bit lethargic, Mike and I mounted our horses and decided to go as far into the valley as we could before sunset. Already it was 11am and we were on the verge of being useless thanks to the endless bowel clanking. Wife set off across the fields with a bucket and the cowboy, Japanese man and Billig all got in a small white car (when had that arrived?) and took off spinning in circles, across the fields for town.

-Posted by Lauren.

Lady on wheel

Tipsy and aboard a very stubborn and slow horse, I became angry at the brute for not obeying my drunken commands to go faster. Mike laughed at me and my silly little horse while he strode confidently atop a giant beautiful stallion. We carried on in this manner for about an hour before the beautiful scenery sobered us up and we sat in awe of the majestic mountains and streams that surrounded us. Taking it slowly to absorb the view, we headed deep into the rugged valley, the horses stepping over corpses of horses along the way.

We passed several other yurt camps, some with as many as twenty small felt yurts in a circle around an open fire, some as small as a single yurt and a lean-to shed for the goats. We trekked up several rather large hills before finally spotting our turn around point—the largest hill in the distance, its top covered in fog and invisible.

Mike took the hill at a jog, my stubborn ass-like horse ambled up slowly behind and I arrived atop the hill a full ten minutes behind Mike. When I got off my inbred horse, I tied the brute to a tree and looked around for Mike. In the distance I saw something out of the ordinary and walked in that direction. Mike was lying on his belly looking over the edge of the hill. Upon hearing me approach he rolled over and pulled me on top of him, all smiles. “Would you look at that!” he quipped, pointing down the opposite hillside. A large herd of wild horses were grazing slowly up the valley, herding their young fawns in the middle. Mike’s tears were moist, though he tried to hide that fact from me, and I was amazed that such wild things still existed.

After stalling on the hillside long enough, we set off back towards camp at a slow jog. Mike switched horses with me after a bit and I took off at a full sprint atop the beautiful stallion, I turned him quickly, had him chase goats, ran him towards yurt camps and then away, raced up hillsides and generally had the wind blowing back every strand of my hair. I made a wide circle and raced back towards Mike, who was sitting grumpy atop my stupid half-donkey horse. He cheered up as I approached; apparently I had a splattered bug on my forehead. I didn’t care. I steered the giant horse and ran in circles around Mike. After a while the horse and I tired of the charade and Mike tired of the ass. We switched again and I felt trapped atop the slow pack animal. Finally we reached the camp, exhausted and sore in the hind regions from bouncing in the saddle. Neither of us knew how to ride properly, and we had bounced around for the past two days pulverizing our rear ends.

When we reached the camp we had to pack. Today was our last day in the national park. It was a sad packing session, and we hurriedly threw everything into bags so we could spend the last few moments saying goodbye to the dogs and horses before heading to town to find Billig and Wife. We set off across the field and saw the couple flirting in the distance as they headed in our direction. They were tickling each other and laughing as they approached, unashamed to be so affectionate in front of us. Billig asked Mike to step into the white car with him, it was 100 or so yards back in the field. Mike and Billig set off while I waited on a bench in town. Wife had gone back after a cheery goodbye, to make more yogurt because her mother was visiting the camp that afternoon.

Mike and Billig sat in the back of the car while the cowboy and the Japanese man sat up front. I was extremely worried that something scary was happening inside the car, and I was terrified for Mike. After about ten minutes Billig jumped out, yelled something into the car and jogged away. Mike came over and sat on the bench with me. The cowboy sat guarding us while the Japanese man idled in the driver sat of the car. Mike was contemplative and looked tired. I asked what had happened, but just then Billig appeared holding three beers. He smiled and downed a beer, sharing it generously with an elderly man sitting on the bench near us. We all drank our beers, exchanged addresses and the Billig set off across the field waving goodbye. Mike explained that he had paid a bit more than he was comfortable with for the use of the horses to the cowboy, but that Billig was reasonable and fair, and the whole trip had cost a fraction of what we had budgeted.

We boarded a bus and prayed it would hold together. It jumped and creaked the whole way back to Ulan Bator, where we said goodbye to the driver and jumped on a plane back to Shanghai. It was another tumultuous flight that left me gasping into a barf-bag and ecstatic when we finally landed back on the ground—where humans are meant to be.

-Posted by Lauren.

The next morning we awoke early and asked Billig about borrowing a few horses. He pulled out his cell phone and made a few calls as he paced the yard, the dogs close behind. ‘Wife’ was gone when we awoke, but she appeared after a call from her husband, from across the field, carrying a bucket of sloshing milk, again dressed in high heels and a skirt, and a low-cut shirt. She made the milk into yogurt and made Mike and I a nice breakfast of noodles, meat and bits of carrot. It was strikingly similar to the previous nights dinner. She pulled out two reeds of wild onion and showed us how to nibble on the end of it between bites for added flavor.

Teeth brushing

Billig said it would be a few hours before horses would arrive, as he needed to secure his horses from a friend who was using them for work that day. We decided to climb the nearby hills while we waited, and set off towards the tallest hill. Walking vertically among pine trees we marveled at the amount of skeletons we crossed, some horse but mostly cattle. Had they perhaps slipped on the slopes and broken a leg? Was the meat devoured by Mongolia’s infamous wolf packs? We side-stepped piles of dung and bones to reach the peak of a rather massive hill overlooking the valley. Small yurt camps were visible in the distance as well as Billig’s three-yurt camp at the base of the hill. Smoke was already pouring out of the tops of several yurts in the distance and it was a truly calming and beautiful sight.

We descended when we saw Billig return to the yurt with several horses in tow. Once back at the camp, Billig showed us how to get on a horse form the left side only, and to pull back to stop. He said the word ‘chir’ meant ‘go’ and that we should cry that word authoritatively and kick with our heels to make the beast run. I did as instructed and my Mongolian mustang took off at a gallop, nearly leaving my pelvis in ruin. Mike’s horse was not far behind. Billig slapped his hand against his forehead, shook his head, and went into his yurt with his dogs. I’m sure we looked ridiculous, having only ridden a horse on a few occasions in the past.

We walked our horses down a green fertile valley. It was, perhaps, too fertile, and the river overtook the valley leaving no room to ride. We backtracked up the hill and went the other way, past the yurt camp. Up a soft, rolling set of hills we saw a herd of goats, and decided to round them up, cowboy style. We yelped and rushed, but the goats were not frightened, and after a bit we gave up the silly task and decided to scale the hill on horseback. From atop the hill we could see an entire new section of the national park. It was all forests and lakes, with the aforementioned river parting the valley. Birch trees spotted the green with dots of white, and a clear blue sky was spotted with hawks.

After resting atop the hill for some time, we headed back down. Now, at this point its fair to mention that I have been thrown off of every horse I have ever been on, and have always felt that horses were evil. My sister, an avid equestrian, mocks me as not dedicated to the horse’s needs, however, I think they are just unamused at being harnessed and forced to carry other mammals. As we descended the hill I was thinking that my sister would love this horse-filled adventure. Just was I was thinking about this, my horse lurched forward and I was tossed haphazardly off the horse, head-first, saddle and all.

Mike laughed and rushed over to help me up. We looked at the saddle. Unsure about how to reattach it to the beast’s belly. I remembered seeing my sister lift a flap and pull a strap, so with this motto in mind, i tried to refit the contraption. It was lose, but doable. A reign had split in the fall, so I tied off some rope and made a makeshift device to steer the brute back towards camp. When we hit level ground I switched horses with Mike and took his rather large, yellow-hided horse at a full gallop across the fields, screaming ‘chir’ as I gently tapped his belly with my heels. It was exhilarating. Mike caught up on the makeshift horse and we trotted home. Bum-bruised and happy.

Mike on a horse

Dinner was ready when we arrived and we cleaned up the horses and sat down at the kiddi table. The meat was a rather strange, chewy tasteless thing that was mixed (not surprisingly) with bits of carrot and noodles. After a long day of activity we were famished and devoured the meal. After we were finished Mike noticed that Wife’s plate was devoid of noodle and carrot, but all the meat pieces were pushed to the side and uneaten. He then noticed that the freezer that the meat was stored in was unplugged. Wife said it was always unplugged during the day, so as to save on electricity. Our jaws dropped open. Mike’s stomach began to turn and I gulped down my tea hoping it would counteract the bad meat.

Standing outside in the yard playing with the dogs after the meal, I asked Wife if Mongolians ate dog. She said, “of course!” and motioned towards the freezer. “Last year mother of Kazak die. Very strange. Good dog. Good mother. Die sudden. Much eating.” My jaw dropped for the second time that evening. We had just eaten Kazak’s mother, who had died of mysterious causes suddenly and been resting in her final tomb- an unplugged freezer– since early that year. Mike ran to the outhouse and returned with a grimace a half hour later. “Well, at least we can say we tried dog.”

-Posted by Lauren.

Our home

Once we had arrived in the capital of the national park, which was just called Terelij, a very Russian sounding name for a town full of Russian influence, we found a kind man with a boyish face named Billig who took us to his yurt camp and installed us in his spare yurt. No prices were mentioned as he called his wife on his razor cell phone and a beautiful Mongolian woman set off across a vast empty field in high heels and a denim skirt and introduced her self as ‘wife.’ The couple spoke little English, but what they could speak they had learned from a children’s English manual Billig had gleaned while working with a gold exploration company that also employed an American.

Billig’s camp was composed of three large yurts. A yurt is a round tent made of sheep’s wool with a tiny wooden door and a hole in the top for a small pot-belly stove. The floors inside were bare cement atop dirt, and the walls were pieces of wood holding up the felt. Our yurt had several wooden beds with blankets folded atop them as beds. A small stove in the center and a table that was no higher than a foot off the ground with mini chairs to match. Billig showed us the yurt with great pride, pointing out the great construction and bright colors and especially showing us a blanket from Kazakhstan, his home country.

Inside our yurt

His wife cooked the small group a nice meal of noodles and mystery meat with tiny pieces of carrot and giant bowels of goat yogurt. She talked slowly but with pride. She had gone to university in the country’s capital and studied finance. She listed the words she knew in English, “Book, eat, much, woman, husband, money, bank and food.” She was a wonderful wife, and the two were like teenagers with their constant side-long glances, giggling, kissing and occasional prodding. Billig pretended to taunt the woman by demanding she cook us a delicious meal. She responded with mock hurt before throwing a wad of noodles at her husband.

The couple had two rather massive dogs, which Billig claimed were his sole hobby and passion. A German shepherd named Bruno and a rather scary bull named Kazak. The giant dogs rested their chins on the door frame while we ate dinner, and after the meal attacked their owner with friendly play and he wrestled them in his small, fenced in yard. The yurt camp looked out over rolling hills, a large empty field lay before that and several horses grazed in the area. An outhouse lay 200 yards out in the filed, and the wife took off in that direction, throwing clumps of sod back at the dogs as she went.

That evening, exhausted form the march from the broken-down bus to the town, we fell asleep soundly in the hard wooden beds, near a warm natural fire in the cleanest and most beautiful air we had breathed in years. It was as if we were in heaven. Billig and his wife knew how lucky they were to have such a place, in such a perfect location, and the couple stood in their yard starring at the stars and smooching as we slept.

-posted by Lauren.

Broken bus

The station no longer existed but we heard a rumor that one bus a day went out to the national park. We had missed the bus for that day so a friendly lady near the bus stop walked us to her apartment, which was also a hostel, and we stayed with her that evening, watching a film in Russian and drinking vinegar vodka. She arranged for us to take the bus the next morning, and swore that a friend of her family’s would meet us at the end of the bus route and take us to her family’s yurt (ger) up in the mountains for a few days. We eagerly agreed.

We awoke early, visited Ulan Bator’s famous Buddhist temple, walked more around the depressing city, starred at the nuclear power plants and saw the Trans-Siberian tracks. After a tasty but plain meal we finally boarded the one-a-day bus to Terelj, Mongolia’s national park. We were to meet up with our contact when the bus stopped. Speaking not a word of Mongolian, we boarded the bus and sat staring out the windows as we rolled out of Ulan Bator. The bus became so crowded the the entire isle was filled with people, chickens, babies and boxes. We rode for what felt like hours until finally, after two stops in the middle of nowhere where several people had disembarked, the bus sputted, coughed and came to a complete stop amid beautiful pine trees and rolling green hills. After twenty minutes the bus driver admitted the engine was kaput, and we all grabbed our bags and began walking. Nobody knew how far until the next town, we set off at a determined march that slowly degenerated into an idle stroll, and, after a fairly decent climb, we arrived at a township in the middle of the park where we decided to grab a beer and make a new plan. Meeting up with our contact was now impossible, as the bus had broken down and we did not know where we were, let alone where the contact was.

-Posted by Lauren.

In typical fashion, Mike and I had an impulse one afternoon and decided to see if we could go up to Mongolia to renew our visas. In China on our tourist visas we could only stay in the country for 90 days at a time, and had to vacate the country every 90 days in order to stay legal. Our legal time was running out on our current stay and we needed to exit the country fast. Usually our companies sent us to Hong Kong, which is a cheap trip with a quick turn around so we can be back in the office, exhausted or not, in less than two days.

Air China flight

Our impulse was to see if we could convince our companies to send us to Mongolia instead. It was a bit of a reach, but somehow– it worked! It would be slightly cheaper to go to Mongolia than Hong Kong, so we sold them on that idea. Once I had the okay from my boss, I had my company secretary book our flights and called Mike. He agreed, told his boss he would be in a yurt in the north, and would try to be back Monday morning. We rushed home, threw a few shirts in a bag and headed outside. After a quick stop to buy hiking boots we were at the airport, maneuvering through security. We knew virtually nothing about Mongolia, nor did we have a guide of any sort.

The flight to Ulan Bator, the capital, was tumultuous and terrifying and I felt exhausted when the plane finally touched down on a sand-covered runway. The Genghis Khan airport had one entrance for planes and one exit for passengers, we exchanged a bit of Chinese currency for Tughriks and grabbed a cab to the city center to hunt for a hostel. Our cab driver had gold teeth and tried to swindle us for almost triple what the fare should have been. We paid a reasonable amount amid loud, crow-drawing complaints and entered a hostel.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Ulan Bator, sucking in the worst pollution imaginable and starring at broken down factories and dejected, sad looking locals. It was truly the most depressing city we have ever encountered. Vowing to get out as soon as possible we returned to the hostel, packed out bags and headed to the bus station.

-posted by Lauren.