Loco

A rickety bus with broken suspension dragged itself out of the capital of Mongolia and began to limp westwards into the Gobi desert. Hundreds of miles of barren scrubland stretched out ahead of us. We glimpsed the occasional camel but this was not the desert as we had expected. Herds of goats, yaks, cows and horses roamed the plains in their thousands, and as we trundled along we saw less and less evidence of human habitation.

The bustling shopping malls of China quickly seemed a world away, and it soon became clear that this was going to be a trip like no other. Milk derivatives and offal jokes aside, our fortnight in Mongolia was one of the most memorable parts of our jaunt across Asia.

With dehydrated camping meals, fake North Face jackets and woefully inadequate sleeping bags we ventured 360 miles South West from Ulan Bator to Tsetserleg, the capital of the Arkhangai province, to begin a two week venture into the interior. We had booked ourselves onto the most genuine nomadic life experience we could find. This sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? But we had done our research. In the past twenty years numerous nomadic experiences have popped up all over Mongolia, bringing daft tourists into the heart of a fragile community and lining the pockets of foreign tour operators. We were determined to do this properly, and had picked a sustainable geo-tourism, socially responsible type organisation. We were ready for a real Mongolian experience, or so we thought…

We put up our tent, indulged in a little airag (vodka made from the milk of a female horse) and pulled out the trusty phrase book. As with most countries outside of Europe the conversation revolved around Vicki and I being in our twenties, not being married, and not having any children. Curiously, in Mongolia they were also astounded to hear that we didn’t have any animals. Horses? Goats? Yaks? Really…where are your children? Cue puzzled facial expression. We would have this conversation many times. And as the days wore on Vicki miraculously conjured up a couple of kids, a husband and a smattering of livestock, while I remained a lonely spinster with Vicki for a sister and about 7 other siblings. The disappointment in their faces was just too much to bear.

Back in our tent we congratulated ourselves on our authenticity. A little white lie never hurt anyone, besides it gave us something to talk about. Let’s get back to being authentic; where’s the toilet? This question was answered with a smile and a large sweeping arm gesture. When in Mongolia, do as the yaks do… No complaints from me, some of my most memorable toilet visits have been open air – under a starry sky in Egypt, atop a volcano in Nicaragua. So off I wandered into the treeless landscape in search of something to hide behind. Nope. No rocks for you Kate. Not even a shrub. I was forced to hide my derriere behind a yak. This would become a regular occurrence, though be warned that unlike a rock a yak will sometimes wander off.

That night I awoke at 4am to the sound of wolves howling somewhere in the distance. I was shivering, and despite donning every item of clothing I owned I couldn’t get warm. I consoled myself with the fact that this was a very authentic Mongolian experience, and managed to drift off to sleep. The next night I was awoken by a goat tripping over our tent and falling face first into my feet; the night after that a yak had a coughing fit a few metres away; the night after that, wolves scared the herd and four hundred goats ran directly though our campsite. -4˚C at 4am and these things don’t seem quite so funny, and we were not much consoled by the authenticity of the experience. By day fourteen our enthusiasm was severely eroded. The wooden saddles and insane horses had given us mighty bruises, I could barely look at yak milk let alone drink it, and I’d eaten enough offal to put me off meat for life.

On the other hand we had ridden horses through extraordinary landscape, scrambled up rock faces, rolled down hills and fallen off a motorbike. We had a bash at archery, got pretty good at anklebone shooting, made some cheese and used a shotgun. Vicki tried to milk a yak. I tried to ride one. We were both unsuccessful. We had a dance off with a local family, and watched with some extremely homoerotic wrestling. I helped to gut my mate marmot – the obese cousin of the guinea pig, not even remotely similar to marmite – and made sausages out of the intestine and semi-congealed blood of a goat, (delicious?) But most importantly we’d met some real Mongolian characters, good and bad.  Beautiful and sweet children, hospitable and hard working women, hard drinking  old men and everything in between, including my pick for best beard 2009 (see inset).

On the final day of our trip I must admit that we were pretty eager to get back to civilisation. Our faces were wind-burnt, we hadn’t washed since leaving Ulan Bator and Vicki was starting to get a scurvy look about her, but frankly, we were very, very authentic.

We came back to civilisation a few days ago – to beds, running water, toilets and pickpockets. Beer and vegetables were our diet for the next few days as we waited for our train across Russia. We played expats in Ulan Bator, a favourite game of ours that was well honed in Tonga. We hosted a pub quiz and rescued a kitten from the side of a busy road. We did things like cook risotto and make friends with the street vendor who sells boiled eggs. We went to an impromptu party and got our names on the wall of fame for successfully sliding under a chair in under 10 seconds. So you see it’s all very worthwhile stuff, and excellent preparation for a five-day train journey. Roll on Russia.

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