Mongolia Part 3 (final): The Nadaam Festival

We originally chose to go to Mongolia because their biggest festival of the year happened to coincide with the timeframe my tourist visa required me to get out of China, before I could come back in. So, off we went in search of another country to see, and it just so happened it was perfect timing to see their Nadaam Festival.

The Nadaam Festival is awesome - it celebrates Mongolia's Independence from China - and does so through the festival of the three manly sports. So, just what ARE the three manly sports, you might be wondering?

The three manly sports are.... drumroll please..... WRESTLING! ......ARCHERY!! .....and HORSE RACING!!!

Because we were staying in the capital city of Ulaabaatar, we were able to see the biggest festival in the country. Smaller villages hold their own smaller versions of the festival throughout the country - we stopped at one on our way out to the countryside one day. If you go to Mongolia for the Nadaam Festival, I actually highly recommend getting to a smaller village to watch theirs... MUCH less crowded and you get a much better view! It also gives you more of that small, traditional feel I expected, as opposed to the huge event that the festival was in the capital.




See the guy in the all tan outfit, with the hat on towards the middle? He is the President of Mongolia! We got a LOT closer to him than this - we actually walked (accidentally) next to him and his entire entourage as we made our way to the archery show.


My AMAZING view for much of the ceremony, compliments of the jerks in front of me who obviously didn't care that I had spent $600 on a plane ticket to come and see THISFREAKINGFESTIVAL! PFT. People and their umbrellas.







ARCHERY!

WRESTLING!


HORSE RACING!

AND..... last but not least... this is the face of a criminal!!! HAHA! She tried to pickpocket my husband not ONCE, but TWICE! He flung her arm away, then she ran and he followed her to get this awesome picture.... haha.

Thats it for our Mongolian adventure! We are going to Inner Mongolia soon, which is part of China, and it will be interesting to compare the differences and similarities between the two places. My husband is sweet and gives me an entire week off before we have to travel again... lol. Once we get back from Inner Mongolia I get another week off before going on a longer 2 week trip!

**If you are interested in the beauty aspect of this blog, be sure to check out the previous post which is a product review!**

Steph

Mongolia part 2 (the BEST part!)

Don't forget to check out my Mongolia: part 1! post. Click here.

Just driving in Mongolia is an adventure - the roads are not well paved and they are extremely bumpy. We also did quite a bit of off-roading! What a blast! On the way, on both our left and our right sides were rolling hills with the occasional ger (yurt - where Mongolian families traditionally live) dotting the landscape. We stopped in a small village to catch of a glimpse of their festival.


Not the best picture because it was taken while we were in the car... we stumbled upon a parade walking to the local village's Nadaam Festival. Although its not the best picture, I love it! The woman looks so beautiful and happy! so proud to be Mongolian!

An hour and a half of bumpy roads later, we arrived in the National Park, did some hiking, ate lunch.

Gorgeous landscape in Terelj!

This is a religious thing.. but, that's all I got.

The highlight of our trip was toward the end of the day. My friend Kimberly was hell-bent on riding a yak in Mongolia. It was her mission. So our guides were completely amazing and found a local family who owns yaks, and spoke to them about letting us ride their yak.

Not only did they let us ride their yak - they invited us into their home! They fed us! We ate fresh bread, yak milk butter, yak milk yogurt, drank Mongolian vodka - all products they produce themselves, and use to sustain themselves daily. This was an absolutely amazing experience. I can't describe how cool it was to see how these people live their lives - SO drastically different from the way we live our lives in the U.S., hell, in Beijing! About 50% of Mongolia's population is nomadic. They live in gers because they are easy to pack up and move from place to place. They live off the land.

The family we visited was so hospitable towards us, we asked our guides "are these your friends?" ... nope. They had never even met them before, but this sort of friendliness and hospitality is the Mongolian way. You can walk up to any ger and knock on the door and receive this same sort of hospitality.

The inside of a ger/yurt, in case you were wondering what one looked like inside (I was!) Its cool in the summer and stays warm in the winter! You can see the pipe leading out of the ger - they use that coal stove to create warmth, and for cooking, too.

Um, so shortly after we were invited in and sat down, this adorable old shirtless Mongolian man passed his snuff bottle to the husband. These snuff bottles are a cultural thing that dates back hundreds of years - today, politicians use them to indicate respect, power, and welcome. When this man passed his snuff bottle over to my hubby for a snort, how could he say no? The man had just invited us into his home! FED US! Let us ride his yak! You can't say no. Luckily this is a "man thing" and I didn't have to partake. And luckily - snuff is just a form of tobacco.

So here the hubby is, snorting some snuff. Or at least acting like he is. LOL.

Bread, yak butter and yak yogurt.


I'm on a yak and....its going fast and... I've got a Mongolian-themed pashmina afghan.... no, actually, he was really slow, and utterly bored, and if I could have heard his thoughts I am pretty sure he would have been saying "Damn foreigner!"


This was the nicest lady ever. This is some sort of yak cheese curd. It was really tart!


Goat milking time!


She truly got a kick out of us. We were so interested in her just doing her daily chores... so excited to ride a yak... she thought it was hilarious.


Here we are with the entire family - the mom and dad (the guy who gave my husband the snuff!), the daughters and the son. We finished the night by eating dinner inside their yurt, at their own table... what amazing people. OK so I thought I was regaining my Florida tan, until I looked at this picture and see that I am by far the whitest one in the picture. I almost match the ger, ha ha ha!

This goes to show that all women are the same! Our cultures are as different as night and day, but as women, we all worry about how we will look in pictures! We asked for a picture and she was like "oh my gosh! In this old thing?! I'm not picture-ready!" We didn't need to speak Mongolian to understand that! Thats why she grabbed her son and made him stand in front of her.

I was being typical me (lazy), told my husband I didn't want to walk anymore, so he carried me... about 5 steps, acted like he was going to throw me in the river.. then put me down.

I'll never forget some of the things I saw in Mongolia. Horses running free! A herder in traditional Mongolian garb, sitting atop his horse, herding over 50 sheep with the beautiful hills in the background. I didn't get pictures of these sights, and I wish I could share them with you because the stark beauty of them will always remain a memory for me.

Stay tuned for my final post on Mongolia - the reason we went - for the Nadaam Festival!

Back in Beijing! just returned from....

MONGOLIA!! We had an absolutely amazing time in Mongolia. What a gorgeous country with such friendly people. It was so nice to get out of Beijing for a week and into Mongolia's beautiful countryside with lush green rolling hills, blue skies and the sun shining down on us!

We had a nice and short 2 hour flight from Beijing into Mongolia. When we arrived it was drizzling, but from the plane windows you could see the gorgeous rolling hills with nothing but space... so we were excited. A friend had told me that in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, almost every car works as a taxi... so I knew to expect that. Once at the airport we found one of these unofficial taxis and off we went to our hotel.

As we set off from the airport, my husband was in the front seat and our friend Kimberly and I sat in the back. Between the three of us, we knew absolutely ZERO words in Mongolian, so we were truly without a way to communicate with the driver. As we were riding along, we noticed the roads were crazy bumpy, oh, and that our driver was driving like a bat out of hell. Flying over bumps, getting into the lane of oncoming traffic, playing a game of chicken while I grasp the "oh shit" handles and fumble around for my non-existant seatbelt... Catholic school came rushing back to me as I crossed myself in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! Please God let us survive this car ride!

Little did we know, we'd soon come to almost a complete stop - of course, that is until our BSC driver took things into her own hands and began some more opposite-lane-driving. Our hotel should have been a 15-20 minute drive away, as it is only 10 miles from the airport. Unfortunately, some traffic lights apparently weren't working which created utter chaos. I kid you not, it took us TWO HOURS to arrive at our hotel. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen, EVER!! I have never seen anything like this in Beijing. I wish we had an aerial shot - picture one intersection, 50 cars, each car clustered in the middle facing different directions - and 100s of cars lined up.


Its all part of the adventure, baby!

We spent the first day exploring the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. UB is a pretty undeveloped city, infrastructure is not so great, especially when considering its the capital of an entire country. One thing I noticed was that despite the fact that UB gets significantly less foreign visitors than a city like Beijing, they don't stare at me! In Beijing I get stared down almost daily, like they've never seen a foreigner (despite a large expat population). I would have thought staring would be even worse in UB - but I didn't notice any at all.

That's Ghengis Khaan sitting there in the middle (Chinggis Khaan)


The square in front of the government building


Not historically significant obviously, but one of the few modern buildings in UB, and very distinctive part of their "skyline."


Statue of Lenin in front of the UB Hotel (yes THAT Lenin!)


Our favorite day while in Mongolia was the day we took a tour into Terlj National Park. It was just my husband, me, and our friend, plus a guide and a driver. We controlled what we wanted to see. The natural scenery was so pretty, the sky was blue and the air was fresh and the sun was out!

This is getting pretty picture and text heavy, so I am going to stop here and make a new post for the rest of my Mongolian adventures! Stay tuned!

The best is definitely yet to come!

Steph