Going to a Ger

It turns out that there aren’t any roads in Mongolia. The driver could choose from about 5 dirt very rough pathways and let’s just say, I did not fare well stomach-wise. The one lane paths don’t have any direction, it seemed, but we saw no other vehicles anyway. Our weekend tour involved just the two of us in a WB vehicle with a driver and guide, another vehicle from the tour company and a third vehicle with a driver and cook and a traveling kitchen. After the bumpy road and for the next day I really didn’t need the cook and tasted none of his cooking. We stayed in a traditional ger (yurt, the Russian word is frowned upon). The one we had was adapted for the Prince of Holland so it had a square metal addition with a toilet and shower. Guests in the other gers had to use the facilities in a small dining building -we ate there, too (well, I didn’t), but our food was prepared separately in the traveling kitchen. Sanitary conditions here leave something to be desired. The ger was cute and cozy and had a stove in the middle; although it was cool we did not need it lit. It was nicely decorated with bright red and blue fabric walls, a double bed and a single bed and oompah-loompah doors to enter and to go the loo.

The Hustai National Park where this ger settlement was located is home to the Przewalski Horses (Talki in Mongolian). We were lucky enough to see herds of them and then watched for 2 hours while they rounded up 3 who were tranquilized and put in crates to be sent to another park in Mongolia. The talki are more compact than a regular horse with a short-haired erect mane and a thicker neck. We also saw many, many marmots -the groundhog-like rodent which the nomads love to eat. They take the head off, clean out the innards (which they eat separately) and then roast them in their skin. Yum.

On the second day, we visited a nomadic family. The mother and her 3 year old daughter we met invited us in to their ger and offered us the traditional milk (this time the fermented mare’s milk), some kind of homemade vodka and plates full of fly-covered biscuits. I think J. took a sip. They had a TV (tuned to some kind of geometry program) and electricity thanks to a solar panel on the roof. Everything including the house is portable; they move each season to a different location. The mother took us to the herd of horses where she milked several of the mares. She does this every two hours during the day; at night the herd is let loose till morning. Evidently more intrepid (and younger) travelers than we are often are invited to stay with these nomadic families; they are very hospitable and seemed very nice to us. The tour guide left them with a bag of food goodies as a thank you.