Most of us were starting to feel ok after a few days, at least our butts were hurting less and less each morning (note: we were using western saddles, not the wooden ones that Dimbe and Aghougar were using). I had the most trouble with my knees and ankles - though it made me feel better to see Aghougar massaging his knees at one point too. the next few days were just more of the same, we learnt a few mongolian tongue twisters, and a some mongolian folk songs.
tongue twister = mogolian tongue twister 1.mp3
folk songs = aynii shuwud 2.mp3 random folk song.mp3
Mongolians love to sing, and they were always whistling or singing while riding during the day.
some local kids helped put up the toilet
ive never had better scenery on the dunny, than in mongolia
doing some washing
The dells (big coats that the mongols wear) are really cool, and are worn over the top of everything. To put them on they wrap the sash tightly around themselves between their hips and their knees, and then hoic the sash and dell up to their waist. This gives them a kind of pouch that they can carry stuff in, e.g. bread, baby goats, anything. also the sleeves are really long so they cover and shelter their hands when they ride.
The man in this picture (his niece is the girl in front, she was very cute, though scared of me) made a kind of dried kurd, or Aruul. He spoke some russian, and through his and kelly's russian and a whole lotta handsignals we deduced that he was either 46 or 41, and that one on the many tatoos he had was of his wife's name.
His name was Bayara, and his aruul was really really good, the best i had in the whole trip. It had only a subtle fermented flavour, was also a tiny bit sweet, and had the texture of a really really smooth shortbread. Dawa told us it Bayaraa and hi family were famous for making the best aruul in mongolia.
some types of aruul are dried on the gher roof for a few days
Bayaraa's wife, and the aruul is the block looking thing on the table
He invited us to his gher that night, and offered us some yoghurt vodka, mongolia beer and tea (the yoghurt vodka, or Shimiin Airag, is distilled from yoghurt, completely clear and about 12-13% alcohol, though it does takes stongly of yoghurt. mongolians = masters of dairy). Bayaraa's family had moved from the city (where he used to work in construction) to the countryside after the revolution in the 1990s. Apparently before the 1990s it was common to have 5-10 kids, but since then living has become more expensive, and the current norm is 2-4.
Hes sponsered by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (http://www.sdc.admin.ch/) and inside the gher where hundreds of blocks of aruul, all piled like jenga blocks, slowly drying. He had an amazing smile and bright eyes, and was exceedingly generous. we were asked to sit at the head of the ger (opposite the door), which is a place of honor, and we were offered food and drink multiple times. He was genuinely interested in who we were, and what we did, and excited and grateful that we had come to mongolia to see his country.
it wasnt uncommon during the day to come across a mongolian grazing his herd of goats. The goats were fun - when they graze, they just seem to slowly move forward as a group, heads to the ground munching on grass. Occassionally the "goat front" would run into out lunch site and they would look up at us bewlidered.
Dimbe making fun of our helmets - the very concept of them seemed to escape the mongolians
some randoms saying hello. its great, i guess the population is still so small (kelly's fact of the day - horse to person ratio in mongolia is 13:1) that its still works to stop and say hello to everyone you come across - and it is everyone. Mongolians also find it weird to say hello to someone more than the one time that you first meet them, if you do, it seems to them as though youre introducing yourself for a second time.
Aghougar demonstrating his Marmott Mating Dance
So marmotts are a kind of big squirrel (more photos later), and in summer half of Aghougars income comes from marmott skins (about AUD$10 a pop, and hell take 200 marmots in a season). To do this he has to "disguise" himself as a marmot and daze the males (it only works for the males) long enough to get within shooting range.
From what we could gather, he puts some kind of fake ears on his head, holds a cows tail in his hand and spins it like a helicopter blade (but infront of him facing the marmotts in the distance) and scuttles left to right and gradually forward, all the while immitating a marmott mating call. To this the males stand up out of the grassland to check out the eye candy, and thereby into eye sight, at which point he pulls the trigger.
The next day saw some drizzle, though it was great to be riding along watching a rain front slowly creep up the valley and finally catch you. On one day we raced a storm front, thunder and all, to the campsite - the storm front won.
gotta love the thongs - at times nicely coordinated with his hat
A local teenager met us one evening after dinner. He had this dodgy old bike that we all had a ride on. no brakes, no pedals (only the spindals), and the seat rocked freely up and down. still, a lot of laughs - mongolians are better on horses.
tree with a hundred branches - a famous Awaa that is adorned with heaps of blue ribbons and money. I havnt coutned the branches, if youve got the time......
this boy was riding a young foal bareback - he had lost some of his family's horses and asked if we had seen them. we saw him later in the day gallop past us with the now found herd
