Western Mongolia is awesome! I met with my new tour group in UB the night before we caught a plane west to Ölgii. Our driver from the tour company picked us up at the airport and brought us to town to pick up our guide/translator, cook, and supplies. We went to the museum in town to learn about traditional clothing and the fauna of the area, and then went 100 km to our first Kazakh family home.

90% of the population in this province are Kazakhs, descended from migrants here. They speak the Kazakh language, have different facial features and slightly different customs than the “Mongolians.” Their gers are a little higher ceilinged and their tea a little less milky. They share the tradition of enormous hospitality, to our stomach’s detriment.

All of the families that we stayed with had already moved from their autumn gers to their winter homes, which are low wood and adobe buildings designed with the chimney built into a central heating wall to radiate heat to the two or three rooms. The house we stayed in the first night seemed to be newly built and the chimney wasn’t quite right; we were almost smoked out and kept having to open the windows.

We arrived in the evening and had a nice meal cooked for us by our cook. Then we sat around and talked to our host family for awhile (through our translator) and I ate way too much fried bread, cheese curd, yak butter and cream. The spread on the table was fresh and plentiful and we could tell this family doesn’t get a lot of tourists so I wanted to make a good show of it.

And then around 9pm it was announced that a sheep would be slaughtered in our honor. We could not dissuade the man of the house, who asked to borrow my headlamp so he could go outside and pick one from the pen. Amongst our group we have two vegetarians and we had a discussion about how they would kill the sheep, and who was interested in watching.

They brought a big ram into the house for us to see and share in the prayer. Imagine our shock when they flipped him on his side and brought in a big blood basin and started sharpening the knife right here in front of us! It was too dark outside and the lights would stress the ram so the most stress-free death would be right there. They cut his throat in the Muslim fashion. I had to turn away but even so we could hear the blood rushing into the bowl and his ragged gurgling breaths for what seemed far too long. Then they proceeded to skin and gut him right there. It was a wild experience, and of course an honor, but not one I would have chosen.

Although all of our bellies were totally full, I was determined to stay up and partake in the mutton feast. The vegetarians set up in their sleeping bags on the rugs that had been spread on the floor, and after I waited around until midnight I was told to go to sleep too. I expected to be woken up when the mutton boil was finished (which takes at least an hour), but woke up next in the morning. Again our cook supplied our breakfast before the family put more in front of us, and then around 11 am a huge platter of the mutton was brought out. I was not hungry at all but was determined to be respectful and make the sheep’s death a useful one, so I tucked into the plate with the men of the house and the two meat eaters in our group. The meat was incredibly tender, some of the best I have ever had. Unfortunately I was so determined to be respectful (probably because of Turkish adab) that I literally ate until I was sick. While my body never physically rejected the food, I would not feel hungry again until three days later and the smell of mutton, which unfortunately hangs like incense in every nomad home, makes my stomach turn.

While we were gorging we all had a lot of laughs. Our host asked about our ages, our professions, and then turned his questioning to how old people marry in our countries and whether we three women were single. His wife was sitting behind him dutifully serving milk tea and chuckling as he offered to trade her for any one of us to Stano, the tall Slovakian man in our group. We all laughed, except for our host who appeared extremely serious, staring at Stano and waiting for his answer. Max, an American, jokingly asked how many horses we were worth, and was told five. I pointed out that his wife was much more valuable; I could not kill or cook a sheep! He was not concerned and said he would teach us. What a wild time!

From there we drove another 100 km to the Tavan Bogd national park. On the way we stopped for lunch in an area of ancient petroglyphs. These carvings in the rocks are possibly thousands of years old and depict animals, hunters, and people. It was amazing! We just wandered the foothills and found them scattered around.

On our way out of the valley it finally happened. The Mongolian highway failed us and our van got hopelessly stuck in a river crossing. After spinning our wheels for awhile our guide took off towards a ger in the distance. Thirty minutes later a man showed up on a horse and yes, confirmed we were stuck. He returned another fifteen minutes later with an old russian jeep and the entire family. A tow cable was connected and more tires were spun but the van didn’t budge. At some point another man showed up on a motorcycle, possibly in response to the black exhaust floating down the river. Suddenly everyone gave up and left and we sat in the bitter wind waiting for reinforcements. They came in the form of a HUGE truck from somewhere, which after messing around for a bit pulled our van out effortlessly. I have no idea where these people came from and although we had to wait outside in the cold or almost two hours, it was fun to see the “bush radio” and Mongolian community at work.

We were supposed to stay in a family ger that night but as I said earlier it was so cold that the family had already moved to their winter home. This host also said he wished to slaughter a sheep for us, but blessedly his youngest son was still shepherding them over. The view from their home was breathtaking snow sprinkled mountains and a rushing brook. We would spend two nights there and since we arrived around sunset, by the time we were served dinner and played a few rounds of cards we were ready for sleep. Again, the situation entailed unrolling carpets on the floor and copious amounts of sleeping bags.

In the morning we headed to the Tavan Bogd national park for a hike. This park includes the highest peak in Mongolia (Khuiten Uul 4,374 m), as well as the other “Five Saints,” some of which straddle the borders of China and Russia. The wind was wicked and after a few hours of being blow backwards and sideways, my queasy stomach couldn’t take any more. The guide had already revised our plan of going to the base camp to summiting a smaller mountain from where we could see the glacier, but for the last few hundred meters I curled up in an impression in the grass and watched my companions struggle the rest of the way up. Supposedly the view was better from my side of the mountain, but they may have just said that to make me feel better. Either way, I walked until I was no longer having fun and then it was time to stop. I don’t think I could have cared for myself that same way a year ago; I probably would have continued on and been miserable. Recognizing the value of my own experience and appreciating the view exactly where I was was the right thing to do.

On the way back down I had much more fun, slip and sliding down the snow reminiscent of snowshoeing in Vermont. Max and I had a good long conversation about travel and personal growth, which helped keep my mind off my nausea. It was a good day although all I would eat was a snickers and some coffee.

Back at the family home, after dinner we were presented by the entire family with a bottle of Mongolian sea buckthorn wine which we drank as shots, toasting the beauty of Mongolia and each other. After a quick trip to the son’s house next door for more mutton and noodles, we returned to the warm communal table and Stano brought out some Slovakian plum vodka for more toasts. Then the cards came out. They taught us a game similar to “spoons,” or “touch your nose,” (the same game my last Mongolian driver taught us in the Gobi) which is basically passing cards along the circle until someone has four of a kind, at which point they put their hand on the table and everyone scrambles not to be the last hand on top of the pile. The last person was “punished” with dares ranging from singing traditional songs, to push ups, pretending to be a mouse, to kissing your husband on the cheek. It was raucous fun. When we were too tired to continue they insisted on a game of couples musical chairs, then we started a round of limbo. Finally at midnight we called it a night, spent from laughing together. I think we will all remember that night for awhile.

The last stop on our five day tour was an eagle hunter’s home. Erlich is apparently a famous hunter and his home has many metals and certificates on display. He is 50 years and has had seven eagles in his life. We asked questions until exhaustion. Golden eagles usually live 20 years. They catch them either from the nest or in a baited net when they are young, and they always release them when they’re 10 years old to finish their days in freedom. The love between the hunter and his eagle is palpable.

I came here to attend the Golden Eagle Festival this weekend which I will cover in another post so I won’t go into much detail about Erlich here. I can honestly say that while I was in some ways underwhelmed by my broad but superficial experience the first two weeks, the last week here in the west has been more beautiful and impactful that I had hoped. Mongolia is a breathtaking, difficult, and fascinating place.