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.

An important part of any backpackers journey to different cultures is the ubiquitous homestay. This is often the only ‘real’ contact to be had with the non-westernized and often purely indigenous population of those far flung places. However, the cultural homestay is not always the meeting of the two worlds the brochure promised. Firstly the expectations of the tourist are hard to meet. They want the authentic experience but the disappointment with the presence of a constantly blaring TV and the disgust of an overflowing outhouse offers reality, just not the reality they expected or paid for. It must be hard on the hosts too. Here come more backpackers want to experience living as they do but seemly unable to surrender either their iPods or their hand sanitizer.

Communication ranges from tricky to down right boring despite, but probably because of, the handbook of useful phrases provided by the tour company. Interesting gems such as: “My name is… “, “I live in…” and the utterly useless unless you are conversing with a small child: “How old are you?” That last question serving only to highlight the fact these people look a lot older than they are and that there may be some basis to Olay Facial Cream’s ability to visible reduce lines on western faces. I say boring because every tourist has the phrase book and the host family have answered the questions a million times before. Once that initial salvo of questions is over, everyone is left twiddling thumbs staring at the floor. Everyone, that is, apart from the family who have a hundred chores left to do before the sun sets, not the least being to prepare the tourists a meal that both enters and exits their bodies with pleasure and not fear.

Of all the information a tour company may supply their customers with, the most interesting is cultural do’s and don’t list. These are the actions that must be performed to please the family and those that must be avoided lest a large fire is built in the tourist’s honor upon which they will be gently roasted and fed to the entire village.

So, having completed yet another homestay without being served medium rare to the natives, I thought it would be of great service to the reader to document a few cultural rules for suitable for both rural Mongolian and rural North American interaction, should they find themselves homestaying in either locale:

Be you visiting Mongolia or the USA, you should now have enough information to avoid those tricky social faux-pas. Ritual burning and eating of rude tourists have all but stopped in modern Mongolia however, the rural yankees are still known to let off a round or two at unsuspecting but well meaning backpackers. If in doubt, just keep repeating your name, hometown and, most importantly, age. Sooner or later they will stop shooting and welcome you with open arms – they may even show you their front yard collection of cars on bricks (but please remember to walk around them in a clockwise direction).

Mongolia was just one of those words that I would use in hyperbolic statements such as: “Oh my God, the nearest decent bar might as well be in Mongolia” or “If you don’t live in Seattle you may as well live in Mongolia!” Now I have been to the object of my exaggeration I can tell you three things. Firstly, it doesn’t have any decent bars although the beer is quite yummy, secondly, it is indeed in the middle of absolutely nowhere and lastly and most importantly, it is everything that the middle of nowhere should be when it is the cultural and commercial bridge between Russia and China – two places that are definitely somewhere. I’m sure Sarah will tell you about its beauty, desolation, warmth and humanity so I will tell you about what it’s like to be on a timeless and perpetual frontier between east and west.

Firstly, they can’t drive for shit. Ok, I’m being a little unfair. Their off-road driving skills are awesome, amazing and well honed because they have practically no paved roads. Ten minutes outside the capital of Ulan Baatar and the tarmac dries up and is replaced by mainly mud. For one of the driest places on earth (23cm of rain per year) they sure see a lot of deep, sticky, bus sinking goop. Everyone is a great off-road motorist: the mini-bus driver, the coach driver, the 4WD bus driver and, for once in the history of mankind, the SUV driver. They take those ruts, marshes and mud lakes at about 60kmh, regardless of vehicle type, passenger density or safety margin. Even the 2WD Ford Taurus drivers give it a good go, their vehicles, not skill letting them down. One thing I never really thought about (because I come from a country with plenty of asphalt) is that once there is no road there’s no need to convoy anymore. You may as well just pick a general direction and hit the accelerator. So, driving across the landscape of Mongolia is like participating in the Wacky Races. On either side of your conveyance is an assorted mish-mash of anything that might make it across the flats, flat out, all trying to make the nearest town before you. First you’re in the lead, then you’re not, but then the guy who overtook you ten minutes ago is having his passengers push him out of the mud but just when you’re celebrating your own driver’s superior wheel skills, you find yourself behind your vehicle pushing ten tons of bus out of six inches of mud. On one trip, we did this three separate times before the driver gave up and called for help. Surprisingly a 50 seat coach is not that heavy when you all give it a good old shove.

So, I’ve already established what great off-road wheel-men the Mongolians are but put them on pavement and it all goes to crap. In my life I try not to be a conformist. I like to challenge the establishment, push some buttons, buck the system, however, the one thing I think is a pretty good idea is that we all agree on what side of the road we should simultaneously drive upon. The Mongolians still think it’s a mud flat race. It’s not that they don’t get that the right hand side is the right side, it’s just that they get confused when the nearest car is closer that a quarter of a mile away. U-turns, pull-overs, pull-offs and stops are made regardless of the proximity of anything including pedestrians. This isn’t, however, the rhythmic pulse of Hanoi where missed syncopation means certain death, this is frontier madness where just driving could mean certain death. Every man for himself in the race to the other side of the city and to more mud roads. Crossing the street in Ulan Baatar is a dangerous proposition – even the locals have a hard time with it. The obviousness of you, as a pedestrian, being there first and it making the utmost sense for you to continue makes no difference, the Mongolians are myopic city drivers, the Mongol Mr. Magoo.

Ulan Baator itself is a frontier town made good. The central feature, rather than being the city square where the federal government building sits, is in fact the State Department Store. This six story marvel of Soviet design with old school 1960’s Las Vegas flare was, for many years, the only place to buy anything that wasn’t either growing in the ground or grazing on it. Since the success of independence during the 1990’s the State Department Store has become the one-stop-shop for a city on the frontier of both the wild west of civilization and the wild west of capitalism. Gone is the blandness of Soviet made goods – here one can purchase a saddle and an iPod, North Face Gore-tex and traditional Mongolian boots, fat mud crunching tires and flat time-eating TVs. Everything one needs for an urban lifestyle where the roads last until the city limits and then the wilderness takes over.

For centuries Mongolia was part of the fabled Silk Road. Traders wishing to transport their goods from the west to the east came through UB, returning months later with furs, tea and goods bound for Europe. The Mongolians have picked up the mantle of those ancient traders and now transport whatever they can between China and Russia. Only now they do it via the railway and they do it illegally. Speaking no Russian, Chinese or Mongolian we’re not entirely sure how this actually works but our most recent leg of the trans-Mongolian gave us some insights. On first impression, it looked as if there was a mass migration to Irkutsk, Russia waiting to depart from UB station. Hundreds of Mongolians with big bundles of luggage were waiting to clamber aboard the train. As the soon as the doors were opened they ran aboard, not to secure their seat but to stash as much luggage as they could in places that were definitely not, nor anywhere near their seats. The theory holds that if you’re not sitting next to two dozen rice cookers, should a customs official ask, how could they possibly be yours? We heard from other westerners that their compartment was full of sausages hanging from the window. Once everyone was aboard and the train departed there was another flurry of activity. The ‘migrants’ would go from door to door opening compartments and offering to sell the occupants anything from jeans to handbags, rugs to towels and, of course, those rice cookers. We were not bothered at all. Probably because our ‘cell mate’ was a huge scary Russian guy with gold teeth. He had revealed himself to us to be a bit of a pussy cat as he wiped away the tears when waving goodbye to his girlfriend. But, to the traders, he was Ivan the Terrible and because we showed a little sympathy at the start and made him a cup of tea (everything is better after a cup of tea), he became our guardian angel and protector from the trading masses.

Once the border was in reach, the traders whipped themselves into another frenzy. Any space in any compartment, holes in the floor, service ducts in the ceiling, and, for a small consideration I’m sure, the conductor’s office were utilized for illicit goods storage. The traders then started to swap goods between themselves – shirts for bags, rugs for blankets, sausages for ??? It is apparently okay to take a combination of five rice cookers, eight pairs of jeans and three bundles of scotch tape across the Russian border without paying duty. Soon the train went quiet as we all awaited Russian customs. On they came complete with a huge guy in camouflage fatigues who proceeded, with bear in train carriage type efficiency, to unearth all the stashed goods. At this point I started to loose the plot a little. One woman had all her contraband dumped onto the floor, catalogued and confiscated. She made a huge scene, I’m sure protesting her innocence and justifying why she needed 100 Gucci bags for her own personal and private use. Her stuff was carted away but she was not. And that was it. I think she was the token sacrifice offered up to the Russian Customs God in return for safe passage for the rest. Either that or the Customs Officer needed 100 Gucci bags for his personal and private use. It is not for me to say because I was just very glad to get my passport back and have long since learned to keep my mouth shut and eyes (almost ) down. In hindsight though, I think our Russian companion was in on something too because as I was hanging my head out our door watching the proceedings he tried to engage me in conversation about his family. A nice thought but his English consisted of eight words and he had said nothing over the last eight hours. I think he would have preferred me in, not out, of the compartment at that point in time – oh – and now I think about it, what was he doing with a rice cooker and a red glittery Gucci bag.

Mongolia is the last place on earth where a frontier still exists and, as much as I wish civilization and wealth on these poorest of people, I also hope it remains the ‘wild east’ for just a little longer.