I finally arrived in Ulan Bator on April 7 around 1:00AM. My host Altai and her brother were patiently waiting for me at the airport. We proceeded to her parents apartment where we spent what was left of the night. As a spoiled Californian I have to say the weather was SUPER cold (35 F, or 2 C approximately).
During the Cold War (the 1980’s when I was a kid), we were overwhelmed with negative images of the Soviet Union as being a kind of gloomy and unhappy place. Mind you we were not in the former Soviet Union, yet it’s former influence was clearly present. The buildings seemed to be built strictly for functionality with very little aesthetics. Perhaps this is only true for the portion of the city where I had visited.
The missions for the next morning were to purchase:
- Work/riding boots.
- Warm traditional Mongol herder hat.
- SIM Card
- Mongolian currency (the Turgik)
We headed over to the Narantul market:
I was expecting to get the handmade boots and hat on the spot but settled for the pre-made ones due to time and convenience.
I was lucky to find the traditional nomad cap. The winter had passed and the warm fur hats were scarce. Apologies to all animal rights activists:
The hat is made of fox. Mongolian people are very close to the land and nature in a way the Native Americans are. They see nothing wrong with using animal products to keep warm (which is a really good idea when it’s sub-zero F!)
The hat was so nice I didn’t want to use it and had a baseball cap with keffiyah that you’ll see in most of the other videos.
After changing currency and buying a sim card (with Altai’s help) we headed out to the nomad camp. I was curious to see if plastics were in abundance in the Mongolian countryside. I didn’t need to wait to get to the camp to find out though as the trash and plastics were visible from the roadside even two hours out of Ulan Bator.
I finally made it to the camp and met my hosts Durukh (sp?) and Biyamba (sp?) The day was more than half over but we still managed to test my horsemanship and did what would come to be the routine goat sorting (matching mothers with their offspring) at night. This might sum it up:
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<—– on the left !!
How do they treat their animals there? What were the condition of the horses/goats?
Think about anyone managing several hundred head of livestock. They can’t treat them like pets.
The animals aren’t being abused, but aren’t exactly treated the best either. Anywhere in the world, farming is a business.
Wait for my post on goat shearing (wool harvesting).