ger to ger #1, family #3

gramps rode horses with me to the third family...it was over an hour, around two hours i think...with the typical speed switches that gramps seems to like so much...fortunately, the horses weren't crashing into each other this time, so i was okay with it...mostly...
when i first walked into the ger, the first face i saw was that of another foreigner...another white person...definitely not a face i expected to see...dr bob...a retired general surgeon who now lives in florida...
the new family greeted me the same way each of the previous families had, with milk tea and biscuits...while gramps was chatting with my new hostess, i chatted with dr bob...he was on day six of his tour, while i was on day 4...meaning he was heading back to UB in a few hours, while i'd be staying with this family for a couple nights...dr bob and i had all sorts of stuff to talk about, we compared our experiences with this ger to ger tour...after returning to UB, he was planning to start making his way to tibet...i'm jealous, i haven't been there...yet...after a little while, our hostess made lunch...noodle shells with meat, potatoes and carrots...good...if you haven't figured it out already, mongolian food isn't known for it's variety, or flavour...nearly every meal is made with the same ingredients, in various forms...i am perfectly okay with eating bland food, but believe me, mongolia takes it to a new level...
just before dr bob left, i got to start a camel ride!!! a two humped camel!! (a bactrian camel)...the ride was only 45 minutes or so, but i was still thrilled...I GOT TO RIDE A CAMEL!! YAHOO!! that was definitely a check off the bucket list...i still need to ride a one hump camel of course:)
for the first time, at this ger i got to see a snuffbox...they're used in a traditional greeting, people smell each other's snuffbox...hmmm, that didn't come out right...i don't really understand it, but oh well, i got to see a snuffbox, which i'd only heard about previously...
this ger was different in that it had an "entrance hall"...so i had to go through two doors to get into the ger...i realized that made the ger really cosy, and pretty warm...especially with the sun coming through the ceiling quite strongly at that point...to let in the cooling air from outside, both doors had to be propped open...
after returning from the camel ride, my hostess showed me photos of her family...she has a big family, she's one of 8 children!! she has 3 sisters and 4 brothers...the pictures were nifty...especially the one with her father and all the kids...just like the other families, most of the family members were in fancy traditional dress...in some ways, it's too bad that the US doesn't have a traditional dress...
i don't remember what we had for dinner that night...probably something i'd had previously during this tour...there was more flavour in the cooking of this ger, she'd also obviously cooked for more than a few foreigners doing ger to ger tours...
the stove had been going all day, the ger was a bit more sheltered because of where it was situated, (the hills were to the south, so the wind didn't really go by the door, as in previous gers) and the extra door added heat...what i'm trying to say is that i was almost too hot to go to sleep that night!! once i did get to sleep, i slept like a rock...sharing the ger with us that night were two new baby goats (yes, i know we call them kids in english) and two new baby sheep (yes, i know we call them lambs in english)...so there was a lot of bleeting for a while...it was both really cute, and really heartbreaking...the little animals are soooo cute...i heard a few sneezes as well...SO CUTE!! i guess i never thought about animals sneezing:)
because the ger was a bit more protected by the hills, it also meant direct sunlight didn't hit the ger quite as early in the morning...there was still plenty of light, still just as early, but it didnt warm up aaaas quickly...
after breakfast, the first chore of the morning was to match the babies with their moms...the babies in the ger, along with all the other babies...springtime is baby time, there is a LOT of bleeting every morning and night when the moms and babies are calling to each other...it's surprisingly loud! i still haven't figured out how the people know which baby belongs to which mom...it's not as if there are only a few to remember...with several hundred goats and sheep, that takes a lot of memory! the babies and moms don't always recognize each other, sometimes people have to help out a little...after making sure the babies got plenty of milk from their mothers, they were separated again, the babies stay by the ger all day, and the moms and dads go out and graze all day...

after the animals were sent out to graze, my hostess took me on another camel ride...yay!! we went up the hills, to some rocks on top of one of the tallest hills...along the way we passed a camel shaped rock, much to my amusement...when we got to the top, i climbed up the rocks...it felt like i was on top of the world...it was amazing...i had an awesome view in any direction...sooo nice...the dogs had followed us the entire way, they climbed up the rocks too...the way back down on the camel wasn't nearly as comfortable...it's not so fun when i camel goes faster than a walk...and a camel usually goes faster than a walk when it's a steep-ish way down...anywho...
after lunch there was no activity in particular for me, so i walked back up the hills, and sat for a while...there wasn't too much wind, and it was soooo peaceful...at one point, the wind did pick up, i realized i could hear the phone conversation my hostess was having about 500m away...the acoustics in mongolia are amazing, the space is so empty...
before dinner, we matched up the animals again...cute, as always...a few more babies had been born that day...two of them were taken inside the ger almost immediately, they were so small and needed to be warmed up...sooo cute, and so small...one was so weak he didn't have the strength to lift up his head to move around...my hostess put him under the stove for a little while...after dinner, we tried to help him stand up...again, it was heartbreaking and cute...because he couldn't stand up on his own...we'd lift him onto all four legs, and his legs would slide out from under him over and over...after a while all the birth gunk had dried, but it was still there...that night, there were six animals in the ger with us...there were "conversations" going on the entire night:)

the next morning one of the babies still couldn't stand up very well, but he was a lot better...the night inside the ger was really good for him...the few times when he did manage to stay standing, you could almost see him thinking: "now what?"...awwww
after breakfast i went on a motorcycle ride with my host...he took me to a place of worship, somewhere sort of nearby...when we arrived, there was a family there, following the rituals...the area was great...all sorts of blue, everywhere...i ended up taking photos with the two daughters, they were friendly, and eager to talk...some of the objects left for worship were surprising to me...horse skulls, empty liquor bottles, crutches, car parts, etc...
a few hours after lunch, a jeep picked me up and took me back to the bus stop in the village where i first got off the bus...a 3 hour ride back to UB, sometimes going really slow...there was a movie showing on the tv screen, a mongolian movie...reeeeeaaaally bad acting, but funny even so...i could follow the storyline, even though i don't speak the language...
when i got back to the guesthouse, the first thing i did was to hand over my laundry...i felt bad, the clothes were dirty!!

ger to ger #1, family #2

one of the sons from the first family rode horses with me to the second family...i don't know how far it was, but the horses didn't go faster than a walk the entire way...it took over an hour...occasionally he would look over at me and ask if i was okay, which i was...i was simply stunned by the awesome scenery we were riding through...he gets to see that every day, i wonder if he feels the same way i did...probably not...he came into the second ger with me...
i was greeted the same way by the second family as i was by the first family...with a bowl of milk tea...it tasted the same, i guess the women put about the same amount of salt in the tea...then again, i don't know that i would ever notice a small change, my palate is only developed enough to notice big changes in taste...
as we got off the horses, i noticed that this ger had 3 solar panels...whoa!!
again, my stuff went over by the bed on the west side...inside the ger when i arrived were the wife, the woman i called granny (in my head of course) and gramps (again, only in my head)...women's names in mongolia seem to be so much more difficult for me to pronounce, the men's names always seem so easy...unfortunately, i'm not so good with remembering names at all, and since i never wrote these names down, you'll have to deal with my nicknames...
after serving me the milk tea, the mom started preparing lunch...it was essentially the same ingredients of anything i'd seen at the first ger, but she had carrots, and cabbage...i never saw anything like that at the first ger, so i was excited...she also added spaghetti noodles...not noodles she made herself, but real spaghetti noodles...clearly this woman had cooked for a few foreigners previously...anywho, the meal was beef (or was it another kind of meat? i'm really not good at figuring out meat) noodle soup...yum...not only did she have the extra ingrediants, but she also used more spices, which meant quite a bit of flavour in comparison to the meals i had eaten the day before...after lunch i took a nap...this seems to be the thing to do...not that i really slept, but it was nice to lay down and rest...
later in the afternoon, gramps indicated that i should go with him...so i did...we got onto horses, and he took me to a monastary...well, i'm not sure if it's a monastary or a temple...(again, the language barrier issue)...we rode up to a ger and a lady came out, she unlocked the temple/monastary for me...it was really really small, but i still liked it...she told me it had been built in 1994, and showed me the remains of the 17th century monastary nearby...i'm assuming the soviets destroyed it, because they seem to have destroyed just about everything else in the country...probably around 1937...while riding back to the ger we herded some of the sheep and goats...come to think of it, on the way to the monastary we did some herding as well...showing tourists around never gets in the way of what needs to be done every day...gramps likes to ride fast, which i like...what he also seems to like is switching speeds, regularly...we went from walk to something bouncy, to something faster and bouncy, to gallop, and back all within a 30 second stretch...over and over and over and over...i don't know if the horse decided to do this, or it was his decision and he cued the horse nonverbally...i like fast, and i can handle bouncy...but the constant switching speeds was rough on my knees...and my butt was only just beginning to understand BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE...
before starting to prepare dinner, the host wife showed me pictures of the family...very very cool to see...various members, usually in their traditional clothing, in formal-ish photos...just like the first family, there were several poses in front of gandhan khiid, the big temple in UB...
dinner that night was the same as the night before...steamed mutton dumplings...this time there was a little more flavour, but not a whole lot...meat that has been boiled/steamed doesn't have much flavour left...of course, it probably didn't help that we didn't eat dinner until after 2130...by that point i was ready for sleep, and not hungry anymore...while we were eating, the tv was set to a channel showing a heavy metal band, with absolutely NO stage presence...it's hard to get into the music when the musicians are hardly moving...
that night i slept in the extra ger the family had...the other person in "my"ger was the sister of my hostess...again, i slept like a rock...there was no electricity in this ger, only a candle for light...the stove was well fed with dung as i fell asleep, i was very cozy...of course, when i woke up in the morning the stove wasn't going anymore, and it was chilly as...not very motivating to get out of bed...but i did, eventually:)
breakfast the next morning was something i totally didn't expect...an omelette! there was nothing in the omelette, it was just eggs, maybe a little flour? given that these families don't raise chickens, i knew the eggs had been bought specially, probably in the village where i got off the bus? i wasn't the only one having eggs that morning, but i was still pretty sure they were cooked because i was there...i didn't mind, but it didn't feel as authentic as previous meals had...

sometime after breakfast, gramps came into the ger after completing his morning chores...(which had to do with the animals)...he indicated to me that we were going for another ride...and so we did...i was slightly sore from the day before, but figured it couldn't be too bad...i got to see a brand new baby goat, one so new the mother hadn't had enough time to lick it clean, so i could see the birth junk still all over...we herded goats and sheep on our way up to the top of a hill where we dismounted at a monument...gramps doesn't speak much english, and i speak the same amount of mongolian, so he wasn't able to tell me what the monument was for, but i still loved being up there, looking all around...from there we rode over to some rocks on the top of another hill, gramps took photos of me...so i have proof that i rode a horse in mongolia! we dismounted again after crossing a little creek...this time the dismount was at the edge of sand dunes...gramps indicated to me that he was taking one of the horses and going over a little ways, but i was to stay put...i had no idea what he was doing, but i understood well enough not to wander too far...which wasn't a problem, as the area was beautiful, and i kept taking photo after photo...again, my camera just doesn't do justice to the amazing scenery...gramps reappeared with a herd of horses, i don't know where they'd been hanging out...i got back on the horse, and started the ride back...by this point, i was really feeling pain...majour saddle soreness...and i was beginning to feel it on my left leg where it got smushed in between the two horses...with dry skin, gramps' saddle rubbed, and it hurt...i found myself wishing for proper boots...or at least something that went over my lower legs...
we herded the horses back in the direction of the family gers...along the way we herded the sheep and goats again...i don't know how gramps decides where to push them to, and how often each day he moves the different groups of animals...at one point we found a couple sheep who had separated from the group, and we headed them back in the direction of the gers...by that point, i was knackered, and i could feel every muscle in my body...i kept looking at my watch, wondering how much longer until i could get off the horse...my mind was going back and forth between "this is awesome" and "get me off this horse"...finally, we were home...

lunch was homemade noodles with meat, cabbage and carrots...tasty:)...i love watching how the noodles are made...
thankfully for my body, there was no more horseriding that day...phew...after lunch, i went outside to find the ladies brushing the goats...they brush the goats to get the wool that makes soft cashmere sweaters...it's hard work...they handed me one of the brushes, and i got to find out just how hard it is...REALLY REALLY hard...plus, the goat isn't exactly enjoying the experience...during this brushing i realized that while i was really enjoying this ger to ger experience, this is definitely not a life i ever want for myself...i'd love to have the experience again, but i don't want to live it...i brushed for a little while, and it didn't take long for my arm to start burning...it's a workout! and i wasn't very good at it at it...i didn't get nearly as much wool off the goat as the ladies did...they were probably happy when i handed the brush back, i was probably wasting time when they're so much more efficient...
after a couple goats had been brushed, we had snack...sheep's head...yup, sheep's head...i was handed the tongue first, which i think is an honour of sorts...i didn't know what it was, but that wasn't hard to communicate...lol...i tried it, it's a food i don't need to eat again...the consistency is wierd...it wasn't on my bucket list, but now i can check it off anywho...the family figured out that i don't like fat at all, but i like meat, so after that they handed me various pieces of meat from around the head...tasty, once i got used to the idea that i was eating from a sheep's head!
dinner...spaghetti with meat and potato sauce...good stuff...not that i was very hungry, since we'd just been eating sheep's head...everyone went to bed early that night...laying down was difficult for me, as was sitting down, sitting up, standing up, etc...pretty much every movement reminded me of how much time i'd spent on a horse in the past few days...

the next morning, after breakfast, (more eggs) gramps rode with me to the next ger...a two hour ride, with the speed changes i'd come to know and not love...at least this time my leg wasn't getting squashed in between the two horses, gramps understood that hurt me quite a bit...

ger to ger #1, family #1

i read about a program called ger to ger in lonely planet, and it seemed right along the lines of what i wanted to do with my time in mongolia...i found the office easily enough in ulan baatar, and went in to talk to them...since it's still considered winter, they have only two options available right now...both of them sounded good to me, so i chose one, and figured out all the details...the not so fun part was the very beginning of the tour, simply because i needed to be on a bus that left at 0800...that meant taking a taxi to the bus station at 0700, which meant getting up at 0600...as it was, i didn't sleep well, and was wide awake at 0530, so i was almost done with my shower by the time my alarm went off anywho...i was completely ready to go by about 0635, having packed everything easily enough...
the taxi took me to the bus station, where it was easy enough to find the bus i needed...the people at ger to ger had given me my bus ticket, so i was good to go...i chose to keep my bags with me on the bus instead of putting them underneath, having read about and been warned about thieves who target tourists in particular...not that my bags are big, but it did make for a very tight seat for the whole bus ride...i wasn't able to move my legs until i got off the bus...hee hee...the bus ride was only 3 hours, down a single highway...it was an easy drive, the road was completely straight for most of the way, and there was very little traffic...it's a majour highway, but still only 2 lanes for the majourity of the road...and those two lines aren't always wide enough to accomodate two large vehicles going in either direction...a few times the bus had to slow down and honk at herds of horses crossing the roads...a mongolian traffic jam, i suppose...the road was in good condition, which made the ride nice...mongolian winters aren't exactly pleasant, which tends to tear up the roads...at least, that's what i was thinking would be the case...i don't know if the road had been resealed recently, or what...the bus stopped a couple times for smoke/pee breaks, but i didn't need to do either one, so i stayed put...
at the first real stop the bus made, someone got on the bus and indicated that it was my turn to get off...she led me to the jeep (being being a word that desribes any vehicle that can go off road...it's not usually an actual jeep) being driven by the guy who would take me to the first ger...this lady had to work, so we dropped her off and he took me to the first ger...there was no road at this point, just tracks in a few places...and there weren't always tracks...this was when i first started realizing how out in the middle of nowhere people live as nomads...this definitely wasn't a smooth ride, thank goodness for padded seats!! surprisingly, i didn't get motion sick at all, which was a relief...but when i thought about it, it was just a bumpy, curvy ride...he wasn't speeding up and slowing down a lot, and that's what always gets me...
my host family greeted me, and almost immediately offered me a small bowl of mongolian milk tea...that's standard nomadic culture...greet the visitor with milk tea...mongolian milk tea is different from milk tea just about anywhere else in that it's made with salt, or butter, instead of sugar...when i drank this stuff i thought i detected a hint of chicken soup...obviously, that wasn't the case, but that's what it reminded me of...the thermos in which the milk tea is kept after it is made is huge...3.2L!!...awkward silence ensued, with everyone drinking (sometimes slurping) their milk tea...language barriers are so annoying...lots of smiling though...after a little while, the wife/mother started cooking lunch...cutting meat into small pieces, cutting onions too...she rolled out dough into a tortilla shape, and briefly cooked it on the stove...then she cut that into small strips as well...while i was watching her, i was also looking around the ger and trying to take everything in...so this is where i describe a typical ger...

the entrance always faces the south...mongolia is far enough north that the sun is always to the south...as you come into the ger, you notice the stove in the middle of the ger, with a stovepipe that goes through a hole in the middle of the ceiling...it works as a skylight, and plenty of light comes through, so the ger was well lighted...(its a round room, no shadows that come with corners)...on the west, north and east sides of the ger are beds...typically the west side is the male side, and the east side for women...but the west side also functions as the guest side, which meant that my stuff went on the west, and i thought that's where i would sleep...the insides of the ger walls are covered with felt carpets, and though you could hear the wind, you couldn't feel a thing...housing in korea is a whole lot more drafty than any ger...go figure...there was a cabinet that functioned as a pantry, from which the mom got all her supplies, and she had a cutting/rolling board that sat on her bed...(no flat space anywhere else)...the floor itself was covered with the fake wood stuff you see all the time in korea...if i hadn't known better, i wouldn't have known there is wood under there at all...there was an altar just to the left of the bed on the north side, and another cabinet with family photos just to the right of the bed on the north side...i saw this same set up in every ger in which i stayed...there was also a solar panel outside, and a small satellite...and inside, i saw a tv...a VERY OLD tv...black and white, which had the knobs to change channels, something i haven't seen since i was in primary school...who knew you can get cable out in the middle of nowhere?!?!
the family had two sons, and a daughter...the daughter is 15 years old, and throughout my stay she helped her mother with everything, cooking and cleaning...the two sons were out most of the day, i didn't even see them until evening...
lunch was cooked in a big (BIG) pot on top of the stove...every meal is cooked in that one pot...and every meal consists of meat plus something made from flour...lunch was meat and noodles...remember the tortilla things i talked about earlier? when the mother cut them into small slices, she then put those over the meat in the pot, and added a little water, and covered it...15 minutes later, everything was cooked, and they tasted just like any other noodles...dinner that night was steamed mutton dumplings...i liked them, but they didn't have a lot of flavour...it's easy to see why people say mongolian food is boring...there isn't a lot of variety, and the only real spice is salt...then again, when you're nomadic, you can't be expected to put vegetables into each meal...i could tell really quickly that i was going to miss veggies, but life goes on...
sometime after lunch the dad asked if i wanted to ride a horse...which of course i did...we never went faster than a walk, he took me to a place of worship, or an altar, i don't know exactly what it was...there were about 7 stelae (i don't know the word for the big white thingamajigs that kinda make me think of big grave markers) on a little hill...i say little, because it seemed little compared to the mountains i could see in the distance...windy as all get out...my hands were nearly freezing by the time i got off the horse...while i looked around and took photos, he got out his binoculars (which every nomad man carries in a pouch) and was looking at i don't know what...i didn't stay long, as the area was small, but i enjoyed it...on the way back, we herded some of his camels to another area...two humped camels, bactrian camels i think they're called...they look so goofy, and have such flat feet...
after we returned, the mom served me something she called aarts...it tasted a bit like warm sour yoghurt...i loved it...so she gave me more...the rest of the time i was with that family she kept serving me aarts, she figured out i liked it better than the milk tea...hee hee...
at some point that afternoon/evening, i tried to say that i'm american, but i live in korea...a few hours after that, they said "anyeong" to me...hee hee...for those of you who read this who haven't lived in korea, that's how you say hello to your friends in korean...i had learned from the ger to ger head office that this family had actually traveled to korea, which was why i told them i lived there...i was dying to ask all sorts of questions, like when they'd gone, how long the trip had been, who took care of the animals while they were gone, where they'd stayed, etc...but the language barrier didn't really allow for those sorts of questions...lol...

later that evening, i could hear all the animals outside...sheep and goats...(the horses and camels don't come in for the night, sheep and goats do)...they get pretty loud when the moms and kids are trying to find each other...after the animals were fed and otherwise taken care of, everyone was inside the ger...i ended up moving my stuff to the east side of the ger, and that was my bed for the night...i don't know why...the two boys slept on the floor, and i don't remember where the mom/dad/daughter slept...after dinner we watched tv for a while, then everyone went to bed...i was out like a light!
the next morning i woke up to a beautiful day...the previous day had been gray, but this day had a blue sky, and it was amazing...the wide angle option on my camera didn't come anywhere close to doing justice to what i could see...
breakfast was meat with noodles, in a thickened sort of soup...i'm sure there is a name for it, but i don't know what it is...anywho...it was good, but bland, and very filling...i was only able to eat about half of what she served me, i felt bad...i watched her cook the whole thing just like i had watched the meals the day before...i don't think i've ever seen complete meals produced with such little space...amazing...
a little while after breakfast they asked me if i wanted to go to the next ger by horse or by car...i chose the horse, which seemed to surprise the family...i figured it was more "authentic"...lol...the older boy took me...he took my bigger pack...i had to connect the straps, he didn't know where all the clips go...hee hee...i had my day pack and purse...my horse followed his, and an hour and a half later, we were at the next ger...i felt a little saddle sore at that point, which wasn't surprising that i hadn't ridden a horse since high school, but i had no idea what awaited me at the second ger...lol...