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Sarah says:

One of the most beautiful aspects of traveling is that moment where you find yourself having arrived upon spot of the world so awe-inspiring and breathtaking, so truly different from anything you have seen before and anything you have at home and it’s all the more special because you know you may never see it again. It’s a feeling of being lucky to be included in the company of people who have had this moment.

I had one of these moments looking out upon the spectacular open countryside of Mongolia. Outside the capitol city is a pristine nothingness like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The landscape is so gentle and fresh and virtually untouched or changed by interfering humans that I’m certain it remains exactly how it was 25,000 years ago. The air is crisp and silent except for the neighing of wild horses. Out there the sun is free to lay a blanket of the most vibrant oranges and purples across the sky in sunsets that stop time. Absolutely nothing in the world could take your eyes off the sky.

Dotting this vast landscape here and there are collapsible, movable ger houses of the nomadic Mongolian people who have called these stunning but rustic, harsh and bitterly cold lands home since pre-historic times. They are shepherds; they move house in the summer to grazing land for their goats and then head to the protection of the mountains in the winter. Three of these nomadic families were our hosts over four nights.

As David and I were researching the various adventure organizations out of Ulaanbaatar that offer trips to the Gobi Desert or out to the many Mongolian lakes, we stumbled across an organization called Ger To Ger. GTG’s mission is to set up sustainable tourism whereby participating native Mongolian families are taught how to balance hosting a few tourists at a time without it impinging on their traditional lifestyle or normal daily responsibilities. They are given a small supplemental income but neither it nor the time and energy they are asked to give the tourists is so great as to ruin the traditional way of life that tourists are there to see and learn about. And as guests in these families’ homes, we have a responsibility as well - to learn a few words of their language, learn a few of their customs and to understand that the homes and beds may not meet western comfort standards but that is all part of the experience.

Though in a traditional Mongolian house, called a Ger, several generations will all sleep in the same room together, Ger To Ger does not expect or permit tourists to join in the crowd. Tourists either camp outside in tents or, as was the case on our trip, the participating families have an extra ger to house us. Aside from feeding us and providing an afternoon activity like horse-back riding to a vista point or a local temple, the families’ normal routines and responsibilities still go on and we are there to simply observe and learn and experience.

From the outside the ger looks like a beige canvas tent, a bit shabby and surely not equipped to protect from the whipping and biting wind, even in June. Inside, however, the ger is a warm and cozy grown-up doll house, perfectly insulated. Each of the three gers we stayed in were decorated with wooden china cabinets all painted orange with flowers, metal framed twin beds and a child size wooden dining table.

The men and boys spend their days taming horses and herding goats, their reddish deep brown skin dried from the sun like tanned leather.

The pride of the Mongolian household, though, is the variety of dairy products that the women make, passing the skills down from generation to generation. They milk several hundred goats a day, all by hand, and from this milk comes their main source of nutrients. It is nothing short of amazing all the things one can make from fresh goats’ milk and our unsuspecting weak little western stomachs tried them all: milk tea (goats’ milk with salt (tourists are given plenty of sugar, thank god, as it turns it from truly undrinkable to actually not too bad)), fresh yogurt (delicious, we all had a second helping), curd (umm, fairly OK if spread on a shortbread cookie but otherwise kind of gross) and the surprise major disappointment: cheese. Not at all like the goat cheese at home. This stuff is rotten, like sweaty socks you stuffed in your trainers and forgot there for a week.

I cannot emphasize enough how proud the women are of their skill and contribution to the family. One of our ger families had Grandma living with them as well, bent over in a 90 degree angle with no teeth she was the Mongolian Yoda. You can imagine our conspiracy theories when she came to the wood burning stove in our ger that was perfectly warming an enormous wok full of milk and for seemingly no good reason, chucked a few more twigs on the fire, gave a little yoda laugh and promptly disappeared. Of course, the milk instantly began to completely boil over, sending us innocent tourists into a tail spin of panic blowing on the froth whilst calling after the mother. We are certain that Yoda Grandma is the Dad’s mother and she never liked the girl he married so has spent their entire marriage sabotaging this woman’s life work.

Of course the other mainstay in the Mongolian diet, what with all those goats, is mutton. Mongolia is not the place for vegetarians. It’s mutton with homemade noodles, mutton soup, mutton and rice, mutton with pickled vegetables, twice a day, everyday. It has quite a strong flavor but not too bad and it fills your tummy up just right for the manly weather and manly horseback riding.

I have a vague memory of riding a horse once before in my life but no memory of enjoying it and I may be dreaming the whole thing so for all intents and purposes I’m counting this as my first time on a horse. It certainly was my first time on a Mongolian cowboy’s horse. Mongolian horses are notoriously ornery and they spook easily. I wasn’t altogether excited about the horse, to be honest, I don’t really like them, I’ve never been interested in them and was especially not too keen on the wooden saddles the masochistic Mongolians insist on continuing to employ even in this advanced age of leather saddles. So suffice it to say I didn’t enter into the activities with the most positive of attitudes which was kind of pissing David off and raining on his parade since he was loving his horse riding so much he’s decided he wants to learn to be a cowboy when we get home. I knew that I wasn’t in my most resilient travel moment when I was unable to put the discomfort out of mind for the sheer stunning beauty of horseback riding through incredible Mongolia. Instead, I came to dread horse time. A special Mongolian gift came my way, however, on our last day when the family unveiled a supply of leather saddles and this combined with the father’s insistence that I take the reins of my own horse and be free provided me with a moment that I will never forget for all of my life. Trotting my own horse across the vastness of panoramic big sky, big mountains, big openness was one of those supremely special travel moments where I have to just stop and say, “Where in the world am I?? This is truly amazing!” We were so fortunate to get just a quick peak into the lives the Mongolians have been living for centuries and I’m certain we’ll be back again.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am and is filed under Global Travels, Mongolia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.