The Land of Blue Sky, Part 2: Into the Mountains

The next part of our Mongolian journey took us to the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, about two hours' drive northeast of Ulaanbaatar. We were met at our hotel by Ariuntsetseg and two men in a Russian four-wheel-drive minibus called a UAZ. We loaded our backpacks into the bus and took off for the mountains.

As we left the heart of Ulaanbaatar and got into the outskirts of the city, we could see Mongolia's past and future, side by side. New apartment complexes were being built next to "suburbs" consisting of dozens of gers, the felt-walled tents that Mongols have used since before the days of Chinggis Khaan.

Our drive took us into the mountains and across several rivers, including the Tuul, the main river into Ulaanbaatar.


Our first stop, about 90 minutes into our drive, was at Turtle Rock. In the lower right of this picture you can barely see Ariuntsetseg and a young boy with a horse, who moments earlier rode up to Patrick and said, "Murindoo!" [Let's ride!] Closer to the center of the picture is an ovoo, a ritual mound of stones used in shamanistic worship, much like a Buddhist stupa. We added our own stones to the mound and walked around it clockwise three times to ask the spirits' blessing for our journey.


Turtle Rock was also our last opportunity to use a flush toilet for the next five days, so we enjoyed that last bit of luxury and proceeded on.

Soon our UAZ left the paved roads and moved onto dirt roads, which became goat tracks shortly thereafter. We lurched along for a while, then drove across multiple creeks and a significant stretch of river that was swollen with rain from the previous week. The water was easily knee-deep and the banks steep and muddy, but our driver expertly navigated the UAZ across every obstacle. This was the first -- but certainly not the last! -- time in our trip that saw us look at each other and wonder whether we'd stepped into an Indiana Jones movie.



We drove into the small village of Terelj, which was enjoying a small festival, and met the rest of our crew -- our horse guide, our ox cart driver, our ox and our horses.


Here we learned that the second man in the UAZ was to be our cook for the week. This meant that the two of us would have no less than four people looking after us. Nomads Tours accepts up to twelve people on trips like this, but we were the only two to sign up.

Part of the festival in Terelj included horse races in preparation for the big races at the Naadam festival the following weekend. The horses were all young -- between two and five years old -- as were the jockeys, most of whom were under ten years of age. Mongolian horse races are long, sometimes up to 20 or 30 kilometers (12-18 miles), and always cross-country. The girl in the first picture was easily ten minutes behind the winning horse, but she was screaming her lungs out for the last two kilometers of the race, urging her horse to finish with spirit.




We later found out that our horse guide had trained several horses for the race. One of his horses placed fifth, another ninth, in a field of sixty.

By the time the races were over, the ox cart was loaded. The horse guide, a wiry, weathered man with an incredibly strong grip, asked about our experience with horses. Based on what we told him through Ariuntsetseg, who interpreted for us, he gave a calm, gentle horse to Jennifer and a "very strong, very fast" one to Patrick. We were duly introduced, mounted up and headed off:



Mongolian horses are much smaller than the horses we see in the U.S., but they are tough. Extremely tough. For example: Mongols leave their horses outside all winter. In January and February the average temperature is around -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit), with lows often reaching -40C (-40F). They scrape away ice and snow with their hooves to find grass to eat. So we were definitely respectful of our scrawny little mounts.

We asked whether Mongols named their horses -- they don't, really, but they do identify them by color. John Man, in Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection, claims that Mongols have 169 different color designations for horses, from light bay to grey (for example, "elegant-while-running-from-a-far-place light bay"). So to follow suit, Jennifer named her horse "Caramel" and Patrick called his "Rusty."


Rusty liked to be in the lead, so Patrick often ended up riding at the head of the group with the horse guide. The horse guide wanted to Patrick to know that he'd given him a fast horse. After about half-an-hour's riding, the horse guide spurred his horse into a canter. Patrick followed suit and kept up … until the horse guide went to a full gallop. Again Patrick followed him, until they were both charging along, side by side. Patrick had never ridden a horse that fast before, especially across open ground pocked with stones and marmot holes. The horse guide looked over at Patrick with a keen, appraising eye as they rode. Finally, as they slowed back to a trot, he said:

"Tomorrow … we race. You and me."


After a couple of hours' ride we were already at our first campsite. It was the most beautiful campsite either of us had ever seen -- a lovely flat riverbank, screened from the wind by trees, with a low range of hills rising from the other side of the river. Astonishing.






We had a dip in the cold, fast-moving river and wandered around to take in the landscape. Ducks and kites flew overhead while grasshoppers buzzed around our feet. A nearby ger had a pen full of curious calves.


When we returned to camp, we sat down for tea with our whole crew and got to know each other a bit. One of the first things we discovered was that everyone understood more English than we realized. The ox cart driver, Dolgoon (which means "gentle"), was a 20-year-old on summer break from school, where he is studying to be a computer programmer. He was eager to practice his English in preparation for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), the world standard for English proficiency. His favorite basketball player is LaBron James. He was a bit bashful about being the ox cart driver, but he had a sense of humor about it, too. We agreed to name the ox "BMW."

Our cook, Batsaihan ("strong and kind"), was a very quiet guy. Happy to be with the crew, but also happy to stay in the background. He blushed every time we told him how much we liked the food. We would soon learn that he was indefatigable -- the hardest working person in the entire group.

Ariuntsetseg ("pure flower") has been working with Nomads for many years, but this was also a summer job for her -- she's a secondary school teacher of English, married and a mother of one child. She had worked with our horse guide once before, several years earlier. Her English was excellent and she patiently and cheerfully answered every single question we asked.

Our horse guide was named Altanhoyeg. We soon learned he was a man of great humor and strong opinions. He was constantly cracking wise in Mongolian, which got the other three Mongols in the group laughing, often uproariously. As we talked about our travels in Southeast Asia, he said (in a mixture of English and Mongolian), "Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Cambodian … they are not proud. Always bowing and smiling [here he simpered and cringed mockingly]. I am Mongol -- I do not bow!"

We tried to explain that people from these countries are proud, but that smiling and bowing is a form of politeness in their culture. He scoffed.

"What meat do they eat?"

"Mostly chicken and pork," we said. "And fish and shrimp."

He threw his head back. "Ha! Then I can beat them!"


He was a Mongol straight out of the storybooks -- rugged, proud, solitary, and a brilliant horseman. And get this: Altanhoyeg means "golden armor." As Tim Wu wrote in his excellent series on Mongolia at Slate.com, Mongolia "is like a country of Daniel Craig impersonators … it's probably the most macho place I've ever been."

All of the depictions of Chinggis Khaan and his horde in the media (including every other commercial on Mongolian TV) show big, beefy guys, and there are certainly plenty of those in Mongolia. But Patrick thinks that many of the Great Khaan's warriors were more like Altanhoyeg: lean, rangy types that could truly be described -- to quote a Persian chronicle -- as "ravenous wolves."

There was one thing that truly impressed Altanhoyeg: Patrick's beard. While Jennifer was off bathing in the river, he pointed at Patrick's face. "How do you do this? I try long time! Five days -- nothing!"

It was true -- he had a little stubble on his upper lip, but that was it.

Altanhoyeg stroked his bare chin and smiled. "Oh, yes -- I like this. You show me how."

"Well," Patrick said, "you teach me to ride like a Mongol, and maybe I can teach you to grow a beard."

(One impossible wish deserves another, after all.)


Our first meal was a lovely surprise, as we realized just how well we would eat during our trip. Every meal had three courses -- a soup course, a main course, and a dessert course. The cook had brought along a cured side of beef and a big bag of potatoes, carrots and onions, so pretty much every meal featured those ingredients in one form or another. He also had canned fruit, UHT milk, cookies, juice, tea and instant coffee … definitely a step up from the freeze-dried meals-in-a-bag we usually eat on camping trips!

As we finished our meal, a beautiful full moon rose over the river.


The first night in a tent is always a little difficult, so we didn't sleep so well our first night out. The horses and ox were tethered right outside our tents, so we were treated to a chorus of snorts, nickers, grumbles and whinnys all night long.

The next morning, we packed up in the rain and mounted our horses for one of our longest rides of the tour. Jennifer was already comfortable with Caramel -- Patrick was very impressed with her confidence and patience.


We rode north along the valley for three hours. The day was hot and the air was still, so it was a long, slow morning. We passed a number of gers and herds of sheep, goats and horses. Summer is the time for flocks to fatten up, so they were all busily grazing on the grass of the open valley. The whole morning featured vista after vista, with the valley opening up to gentle, grassy hills on our right and rocky slopes to our left, with the river meandering through trees and bushes on its banks.





As promised, Altanhoyeg and Patrick had their first race -- which started when Altanhoyeg cantered past Patrick and whispered, "Go." Patrick and Rusty caught up to Altanhoyeg, and ran neck and neck with him for a bit, but Altanhoyeg took his horse to a wild, flying gallop that Patrick just couldn't match. Altanhoyeg won by three lengths. At the end, he just looked back at Patrick. No smile, no comment -- just a look. His people have been riding for centuries.

For lunch we stopped at a ger. Altanhoyeg rode ahead and asked permission, which was granted with typical nomadic hospitality. While the cook cooked lunch and Altanhoyeg and Dolgoon worked on tightening a loose hub on the ox cart, we sat in the ger with Ariuntsetseg, where we were served warm, salty milk tea, dried curds and fresh cream. We'd heard terrible things about the food in Mongolia, including the salty milk tea. To our relief, we found that we really liked it. The cream was out of this world -- like egg custard or buttery whipped cream. The salty, chalky curds weren't our favorite, but since they were the delivery system for the fresh cream, we were happy to eat them.





Hanging in the ger was the lead rope, which is sacred. This family also had a khadag, a blue silk prayer scarf, tied to the roof of their ger.


After lunch, we were invited to have a nap in the ger while the crew repacked the ox cart.


We bid farewell to the nomad family, leaving gifts we'd brought from Thailand: a big bag of dried mangoes and some stuffed elephant toys for the girls.


Our course turned to the northwest, and with the change in the direction came a cool headwind, which blew the flies away. The horses quickened their pace and everyone was in a great mood. As we crossed stream after stream, Altanhoyeg sang a tune that sounded like "Wayfaring Stranger" in Mongolian.

We made it to our next campsite a little over two hours later. Dolgoon and BMW arrived about an hour after we did, with Dolgoon leading BMW on foot. "You walk slower than that ox!" yelled Altanhoyeg in Mongolian.


We were on a low ridge above a wooded creek, with hills behind us and a tourist ger camp a little distance away.





After we set up our tent, we went wandering in the hills, where we found purple coneflower (Echinacea), hibiscus, and wild rhubarb.


We also found flies. Altanhoyeg and Ariuntsetseg had warned us that the flies would be bad at this campsite, which was to be our home for the next two nights. The crew lit a few horse and ox patties on fire -- dung smoke does a great job of driving the flies away, and it doesn't smell too bad.

Ariuntsetseg busied herself by telling fortunes with the aid of a ring and a length of string. She claimed 100% accuracy with her method. Meanwhile, Batsaihan was busy with dinner.



Having worked on a horse farm for three years in college, Patrick was impressed by Altanhoyeg's care of the horses. He simply unsaddled them, watered them at the creek, and then just turned them out to graze. No elaborate brushing down or fancy horse feed -- just a roll in the dirt and fresh, green grass.


Ariuntsetseg made sure that they were tethered a good distance away from the tents, in the hopes that we all would sleep a little better. BMW the ox stayed close to our tent, but we didn't mind. His grunts reverberating through our tent reminded us of our adventure as we fell into a hard, welcome sleep.