David Grajal

Music to put you in Mongolian mood
This is the favorite song of Gotov, our travel guide in Mongolia. Every time I listen to this song a picture comes to my mind: Gotov riding a horse next to Genghis Kahn in the battlefield.

In Mongolia I found a beautiful grassland and landscapes full of smiling people. It is a place where the pace of time seems to be slower than in the rest of the world.

I got to know a man, Genghis Khan. He managed to keep a huge empire of grasslands half together. Mongols luckily had the best horses when horses was the transportation medium. I walked on the remains of the Mongolian empire, visited the old capital Karakorum and I imagined how that place was when there were thousands of Mongol warriors waiting for the Kahn to announce what country to invade next.

Jumping in Mongolia

I did a jeep tour in the north and center of the country with Serena, Julio, Johanna, our driver Himan and our guide Gotov. We drove through remote valleys and the Goby desert. I rode horses and a camel, I swam in a river and a lake. We visited the few Buddhist temples that still remain after the destructive communist period. This country was part of the USRR and you can see statues of Lenin next to statues of Ghengis Kahn.

When we were in the tour we were as far from civilization as you can get. There were not power lines, no pavement, no bridges. Sometimes there was cell phone coverage. This is how nomadic way of life can still exist in 2010. They use cellphones for communication and solar panels feeding lights,television and small electrical appliances.

Ulan Bataar
The capital is the worst part of the country. It is ugly and the most polluted city I have ever been. I was told it gets even worse in winter when the city is at freezing temperatures and everybody is using coal for heating.

I stayed in the Golden Gobi hostal, which I recommend because it has a good location, it is clean and because the owners (Bob and his sisters) are a lot of fun and willing to help you on everything you want. We were so happy in this place that one evening we cooked pasta for owners and guests.

Our Russian van

The tour
Serena, Julio and I decided to look for somebody that wanted to join our tour. The larger the group, the cheaper the price so we needed more people to join. We went to other guesthouses and sold ourselves and our tour as the best thing ever. We finally recruited Joanna, an American girl interested in doing a journey through the countryside on the same days as we planned.

The tour was a 6 days tour in North and central Mongolia. 280USD per person. The tour included the driver, the guide, the food, the entrances to monasteries, stays in the gers, gas and the vehicle. The vehicle is the same undestructible Russian van we used in Olkhom island. The only thing the tour didn’t include is alcohol, which in this region means the tours doesn’t include massive amounts of Genghis Khan vodka.

In Mongolia there are horses everywhere. Horse population is larger than human population.

During the tour we shared with Gotov and Himan many bottles of Genghis Khan Gold and we tried the dried Mongolian cheese and the mongolian tea. The taste of the cheese and the tea is weird and strong. Both are local specialities with an acquired taste. The best moment of the day was at night when we sang traditional Mongolian songs together.

Amarbayasgalan monastery
Our driver was Himan. He didn’t speak a word of English. Our cook and guide was Gotov. They were amazing people and we got along very well. After leaving the guesthouse we stopped next to the road to buy some audio tapes for the trip. Yes, audio tapes. They still exist. We bought the weirdest mongolian music we could find. Those tapes and Himan´s personal collection of Mongolian hits were our soundtrack for the 6 days tour. Other items we bought for the trip were mountains of snacks, some presents for the nomad families we visited (candy), a kite, a couple of soccer balls and a badminton set to have some fun.

Already on our first day we drove off road for a couple of hours. It was a good introduction to 6 days or serious driving on the plains. At the end of the day we arrived at Amarbayasgalan monastery. This buddist monastery belongs to the geluba order, the yellow tibetan order. The history of Mongolia and Tibet is very interrelated and the main nexus of union are the common Buddist beliefs.

The ger
The Ger is the Mongolian tent, a house designed to be packed and ready for transport in less than one hour. Nomad families move twice per year with the solstices. In rural Mongolia there is no private land so the nomads camp wherever they want. A ger has one room made with a circular wooden structure covered by a cloth made of yak. This cloth makes the ger water, snow and wind resistant. There is a coal stove in the center which serves as a heating as well. The door is always looking south and the furniture is circularly deployed around the ger. The top part is a window open to the sky and it can be covered with a cloth attached to a string named ‘navel cord’. It has a religious meaning. I was surprised by the smart design of the house and by how stable and versatile it seemed to be.

Ger camp

Posing with a Mongolian family in a Ger

Riding the mongolia horse, Genghis Khan alike.
The mongolian horses are robust but much smaller than European horses. We rode horses through an awesome grassland scenary. This was my first time riding for a long time a horse. It was fun to compare our skills with the little Mongolian children. They are trained since they are 3 year old to ride horses so the little kids rode the horses like an extension of their bodies.

Our favorite song.
This is the second track of this column. In our Mongolian tour we were listening mythical western stars from the 80 that are very popular here and some Mongolian authors. This song was our personal favorite and we had a lot of fun trying to sing it with Gotov and Himan. Listening to this song bring back many memories, driving off road in the beautiful grasslands with the only company of the ocassional ger, horses and yaks.

Kharakhorum and Erdene Zuu museum.
Kharakhorum is the old capital of the Ghenghis Kahn empire. You can imagine this place as a huge tent camp with thousands of warriors always ready to follow their leader on his quest to conquest the entire world. As it was a tent capital, there are no remains that give hints of how Kharakhorum looked like. Here you can find the country´s most important buddist monastery, most of which was destroyed by the Russian communists between 1936 and 1937. It was under reconstruction when we visited it.

Riding the mongolian camel.
We drove to the semi-gobi, the starting point of the desert from where you can see an unlimited amount of sand and dunes. In this place I rode a camel for the first time in my life. It was an even weirder experience than the horses, because they smell worse, they are much higher and they are much more stubborn.

Riding the camel

Wild horses in the Khustain Nuruu natural park.
In the Khustain Nuruu national park the stars are the formerly extinted race of wild horses named Przewaslki or Takhi. These animals have recently been recovered in collaboration with some European zoos. Now there are more than 250 horses in this park and around 2000 throughout the world.

A ger packed and ready to go

Once the tour was finished I needed to leave Mongolia and get to Shanghai ASAP because I was running out of time before the first day of classes. I hung out for just one day in Ulan Bataar visiting a buddist monastery and the national museum and then I said goodbye to Mongolia and the transiberian train.

I flew from Ulan Bataar to Shanghai on the first of July, 2010.

Related posts:

1. From Russia to Mongolia
2. The giant Lenin head and Idealstika Datsan in Ulan Ude
3. From Moscow to Shanghai. Notes on a transiberian journey
4. Irkustk, the Paris of Siberia
5. Dance the Chiqui Chiqui