Travels with Kathryn

Last night. something rather exciting happened, I was actually cold. It has been a long time and rather enjoyable. Actually, this was only on my 1am dash to use the toilet, and on my return I was toasty in the ger under my duvet.

It was an early start this morning (Wednesday) surrounded in mist and a rather interesting breakfast including bone broth, alongside a plate of cucumber, tomato, a fried egg, a slice of bread, and a slice of meat terrine. The terrine defeated me – not a fan of aspic in the morning

Back the way we came and the sun has come out again so we are seeing the wide blue skies Mongolia is famous for:

We have a 3 hour drive ahead of us towards the archery camp. However, prior to our arrival, we continued our tour of Mongolia’s Carre Fours to buy some gifts for the family we will be staying with this evening plus our breakfast tomorrow. I will admit to taking the easy option of giving the equivalent of £5 to our guide and leaving her to it. From helping to pack the shopping away, I did take note of a bottle of Chinggis Gold Vodka that I hope will be appreciated. I also stocked up on water, fruit and these:

On route to the archery camp we did our first stint of off-roading and I am not sure our minibus enjoyed it. I would not be able to drive in Mongolia, putting the quality of the roads to one side, to reach many of these camps you turn off what we would consider to be road and just head into the middle of nowhere for like an hour taking various more turnings…

Right. Archery. This is the second of the three “manly” sports competed in during Nadaam, although women are allowed to compete just from a ever so slightly shorter distance (65m as opposed to 75m) to the target which is really far, without my contacts in, I couldn’t actually see the target! This camp is for a team of 11 professional archers from a single province. The coach actually won the Nadaam in 2018. He was very good.

The archers line up as a group of four and take it in turns to try and hit a row of cylinders which are stacked in twos. Each archer has 20 arrows and if they hit any cylinder they score a point. The winner is the archer with the most points. If there is an equal score, they have a further 16 arrows and then it is the first person to miss.

The men and women took it in turns to shoot, and when not shooting they actually support their team members scoring, collecting arrows, putting targets back and signalling whether they need to shoot higher or lower.

The bow is made from ibex horn, birch and animal sinew and require a draw strength of 75 kilos. It was then our turn, with kiddie training bows and 20m from the target. In summary, I was useless (as expected). The man had to hold the arrow onto the bow for me and I didn’t even reach the target… However, I did try and look like I knew what I was doing.

We were also doing this is the blazing sun (my neck is burnt) so it was inside a ger for a lunch of fried dumplings. As we’ve had them a couple of times, and they’re nice, it’s probably time to learn their name – Khuushuur. These are made from minced mutton seasoned with onion and garlic arranged on one half of a circle of wheat pastry which is folded over and fried. They’re effectively a flat Mongolian burger and I do like a burger.

It was than back on the bus, on route to which I fell over turning my ankle. I am not doing very well on this trip am I? Hopefully that’s the end of my bad things come in threes…

We continued driving through nothingness, an occasional bit of dirt track, the odd ger or building before arriving at our stay for the night with a nomadic family of horse trainers. We had been warned that this stay was going to basic, but even our leader was surprised to learn they did not have a toilet/hole in the ground – a general vicinity was pointed out about 50m away “past the rubbish pile”.

However, this is home to a horse trainer, his wife, 2 sons (1 a trainer, 1 a jockey) and 2 daughters. I had expected to see many horses, although there were 4 tied up ready (as the family are competing in a local Nadaam tomorrow) and a few in a pen, there was not another animal in sight. Turns out he has a few hundred horses, 700 sheep/goats, 40 cows and 4 dogs, the vast majority of which were roaming about in a 20km or so distance.

Horse racing in Nadaam is a serious business. Jockeys are usually children between 7 and 12 who race 15km-28km. It’s a straight race to the line and every year at the finish, jockeys fall and horses simply collapse with exhaustion. As the younger son was competing in a Nadaam race tomorrow, he and his brother each took out 4 horses that night to work them hard into a sweat (almost as sweaty as me by this stage).

So, in a home without running water, we did wonder how a traditional evening meal of Mongolian BBQ would be prepared. Turns out what we think of as Mongolian BBQ bears no relation to real Mongolian BBQ which is a pressure cooked stew with hot rocks. Let me explain:

• Light your fire.
• Wash stones and put them into the fire.
• Butcher your mutton into chunks.
• Place a small amount of water in a bit pot, add a layer of meat. Cover in salt and random dried herbs.
• Layer up more meat (obviously) with the odd rock plus whole potatoes, carrots and quartered onions. Top with chunks of cabbage.
• Put on lid and cook on stove for 45 minutes. Then serve.

Staying tonight there would be 22 people (the family plus us and our driver) in 2 gers. Sleeping mats were provided but that is about it. Therefore, body jenga ensued. Also the sons were going to stay up with the horses so that was another 2 gone.

As it was a warm night and the obligatory round of vodka had been drunk, I decided to take my sleeping mat outside (as did several others) and actually slept rather well considering that Kathryns Do Not Camp. At least it was only for 1 night, as I am far grubbier (both in terms of sweat and dust) than I feel able to cope with. However, we have now done the two “basic” nights of the trip and from tomorrow its “tourist gers” which means two to a ger and showers plus (joy of joys) toilets. I am starting to fantasise about sinks (with soap!).