Day 40 - Mongolia Tour. Tsangaan Suvraga (White Stupa)

Day 2 on tour.

We were woken at 6.30am by knocking on the ger from the oldest lady in the family, she appeared to be a grandmother figure for the young girl. She came into our ger to get the hot water flask & restart our fire. It was a relatively cold night, hard to know exactly what temperature but definitely in the negatives. We were told that overnight some of the baby goats had died from the cold & from huddling together & getting squashed by bigger members of the herd.

We left the camp just after 9am, enough time to eat breakfast, have a baby wipe shower, pack & say goodbye to the goats & sheep that were still hanging around. Before leaving we gave a block of chocolate to the nomadic family as a thank you. I definitely need to practice the basic Mongolian words! My English tongue is still struggling to pronounce them & I am quite shy. This seems to be a source of amusement for the nomads, they are all laughs & smiles as they accept the chocolate & wish us safe travels. As we leave the camp in our van we see some wild gazelle bounding away in the distance.

                                                              The inside of a ger

We drive the whole morning off road & enter a small city to buy warm clothes for Jordan. After leaving the city we are driving back on bitumen roads, a small relief despite the vans amazing suspension. We continue driving for another hour or so, the warm air in the van & the motion of the driving sends us off to sleep. When we wake up its lunch time! We have stopped at a rest stop with a restaurant, service station & an outside toilet hole facing the road & no doors for privacy. I've already drunk nearly a litre of water with no hope of hanging on after lunch, I decide to brave the toilets after eating & station Tom on guard outside. In all honesty, it's a lot cleaner & less scary than some of the porcelain toilets I used in China.

After lunch we set off again in the van. The landscape is consistent and hasn't really changed much. The dirt is a lighter brown, it's very dry with lots of small whirly winds appearing, small tufts of dead grass & it's slightly less open with more hills. There is still the occasional granite rock & unfortunately still the frequent sighting of dead live stock. Another thing we noticed yesterday & today is empty glass vodka bottles lying on the sides of all roads from fully established bitumen to the faintest dirt trail. It seems to be the only noticable rubbish we see. We are told its tradition particularly with the nomadic men to drink & share a lot of vodka. At approximately 3pm we drove past a lost lamb on the side of the road, Jackie did a U-turn & we drove back to 'rescue' it. We were told lambs have a habit of sleeping on the ground & not realizing the herd is moving on, then they wake up all alone & lost.

Jackie was easily able to catch it & then it sat quietly on my lap while we drove through the desert looking for its flock. They hadn't gone too far, only a couple of kilometers. As I walked towards the herd, the lamb started to bleat & was very happy to be reunited with its mother.

At 3.45pm we once again leave the bitumen road & follow a faint track through the dirt.
We saw a large herd of 2 hump camels, the biggest herd we had seen yet. We stopped the van to get out & take photos. The camels were making the most ridiculous wailing noises & they had a lot of calves that were tied up. The nomadic families tie up the young camels to a section of the ground to keep them safe, this also guarantees the adults will come back to feed their young twice a day. The nomadic families will also milk the lactating camels. We could see a few of the bigger Male camels had sections of their winter wool shaved off, normally from under their necks & front legs. Camel wool is sold for approximately $4 USD a kilo & is a huge part of the Mongolian economy. Mongolia also is a huge manufacturer of cashmere, which is the blonde wool from a specific breed of camel. the wool for cashmere sells for approximately $50 USD a kilo.

As we were about to leave a nomadic farmer on a dirt bike (also the owner of the camels) pulled up next to the van. We were told about traditional nomadic greetings. Its polite to greet each other & then enquire about how they are going in relation to the season, how their herds are going & if they are fat, how is the rain & how grows the grass.
The nomadic man was very excited about where we were from & where we were going. It was also explained that nomadic families welcome visitors to their ger & if they are expecting to be away from their ger for a long period of time they will leave the ger open for any visitors & will also leave out tea and meat. It's such a trusting & sharing culture !!

We stopped at a place called the Tsangaan Suvraga (White Stupa) or The White Cliff a fantastic limestone bluff, where we got to climb down and take some photos of the amazing cliff formations, and various coloured seams exposed in the hills.

We arrived at the ger camp just after 6pm, the weather feels warmer possibly cause the camp is more sheltered. We are greeted by 4 large, fluffy black guard dogs with tails wagging. There are 5 gers set up here & we are invited into the families ger this time. It is quite impressive, with many luxury & comfort items. By far the biggest ger we have seen yet, it has linoleum on the floor & 3 different mats, 5 single beds, a distinct kitchen area with tables, bench's, a hand washing sink & cooking utensils. A Buddhist shrine could be seen opposite the door, with blue Mongolian prayer scarfs tied to some of the roof rafters. The individual rafters also had paintings on them & there was a mirror on the wall. In one little section which seemed to be the technology section there was a battery connected to several appliances such as a telephone, TV, & multiple mobile phone chargers. There is also a dirty torteshell cat playing inside & smooching the nomadic people. They seem more fond of their domestic animals than the previous nomadic family & the animals are obviously more affectionate. We were made milk tea & given biscuits with the whole family, there was about 10 members from 3 generations.

After spending time with the family we went outside to see the goats & sheep while watching the sun set. The adult animals were still grazing in the hills, while the young sheep & goats were confined in a large pen. The poor little goats were only a few weeks old & they were skinny to touch & ravenously hungry. They were obsessiantly sucking on our clothes, boot laces, fingers & the end of my plait. I sit down on a rock and cuddle a few of them while waiting for their mothers to come back & feed them.

Winter has been hard on the animals. Walking around the perimeter of the camp we saw multiple dead baby animals. It was also hard watching a young sheep with short irregular hind legs trying to find its mother, we assume it has a birth deformity. There was also a young goat with a broken leg, swinging in the breeze as it hopped past. I can't help but feel sorry for them & wonder about their fate, life is already hard enough out here. The sun goes down just before 8pm & we eat dinner shortly after that. We are then spoilt when one of the young boys plays a few songs on a traditional Mongolian instrument. The name of the instrument in Mongolian is Morin Khuur & translates to; horses whining, or also known as a horse fiddle.

Another perfect end to the day.

- Alli