Mongolia and the Nadaam Festival: A Rocky Road
Mongolia July 2009: I had been looking forward to Mongolia as it would be sort of a "vacation" from my travels. I had been pushing myself pretty steadily for the past couple of months. Starting in Hanoi, I had travelled by bus across the beautiful and lush green hills of northern Vietnam. I then pushed on northward across China toward Xinjiang Province, the huge and troubled westernmost province of the country. I finished my journey in Kashgar, the historical Muslim Turkish trading post on the old Silk Road. On the way I passed through Urumqi just before the bloody riots and government crackdown that rocked China.
After this long slog, I was ready for some fun and a bit of a rest. It was a good time to be in Mongolia, being summer and the time of the annual national festival of Nadaam. The Nadaam Festival is the biggest annual event in Mongolia, a 3 day party centered on sporting events covering the "manly" sports of the country: wrestling, horseback riding and archery. To enjoy the Nadaam Festivities I would stay in the shabby and nondescript capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar (UB for short) for most of my time in Mongolia. However, rather than having the fun and restful time I anticipated for my short 13 day sojourn in Mongolia, I would end being stranded unexpectedly in a dusty remote town whose name I did not know and where no one spoke English, locked out of my UB hotel building in the middle of the night with no place to go, have a face-off with angry bartenders and bouncers for a very high restaurant and bar bill that wasn't mine, and be attacked twice in the street. Otherwise, it was a nice time.
Mongolia is a huge land mostly empty of people. It is a challenge to travel as there is neither a well-developed road system nor much of system of public transportation. To get around affordably, most travellers in Mongolia go in groups, usually with tours. I had read that most of central Mongolia is the classic Mongolia of endless grasslands and rolling hills, dotted here and there by Gers, the traditional nomadic tent houses we know as "yurts" in the west. The harshness and sparse population of the land has led to a strong tradition of hospitality towards any travellers who arrive at a Ger camp. So, while it is difficult to get around, when a traveller arrives at someone's Ger camp home, he can be assured of a warm welcome, food, shelter, and strong drink. Because I would only be in Mongolia for 13 days, attending the Nadaam Festival and wanted a rest, I only did a 5 day trip out of UB into the middle of the country.
UB contains around 1.3 million people, which is about half the population of Mongolia. The center of the city has a veneer of shabby rundown modernity. There are a few main boulevards a kilometer or two in length, lined mostly with low rise buildings, a small number of higher rise modern buildings, and a few of the glass and steel modern style. The city has a number of squares, the biggest in the city center featuring a gigantic stature of a seated Genghis Khan, the national hero. To serve a small but growing middle and aspiring modern class of citizenry, a growing number of new restaurants, cafes, chic international style eateries are opening. Modern nightlife has started to move in as there are even a couple of world class discothques now in UB.
Amidst this growing bit of modernity, one still needs to watch their step though. Sidewalks are often busted up or very uneven, dangling live wires hang down from power lines, manhole covers are often missing, big holes can lurk in the sidewalk and street, and crossing the street can be a hazardous undertaking.
Surrounding this semi-modern core is the more "real" Mongolian city of mostly older desultory low rise buildings and ramshackle wooden structures. Further out, vast Ger camps dot big sections of the outer perimeter of the city, crawling up some of the surrounding hillsides.
I spent my first two days in Mongolia in UB and then caught a bus to Karakoram, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire on the morning of my third day in country. During the 8 hour ride to Karakoram I sat next to a Canada and French lady. They were going to a town called Tsetserleg, about 2 hours past Karakoram. Hearing that I was going to Karakoram, they gave me a convincing argument that I would probably enjoy going to Tsetserleg more as it was supposed to be the most picturesque of the Mongolian provincial capitals, set in a beautiful valley surrounded by majestic mountains, and very cultural. In contrast they told me, their guide book was saying that Karakoram was an old dusty city and not so interesting. So, I decided to continue on to Tsetserleg as they were.
The bus ride took us on a bouncy dusty jaunt through the classic Mongolian scenery I mentioned earlier: endless rolling green hills stretching as far as the eye can see in every direction, with a few Gers sprinkled into the landscape here and there.
When the bus stopped at Karakoram, I went to the bus driver and told him I'd pay the difference in fare to continue to Tsetserleg. However, the bus driver, seeing I was a foreigner, indicated he wanted double the extra fare. A Mongolian lady sitting in front of the bus who spoke English heard the driver trying to cheat me on the fare and duly rebuked him for it. Soon she was joined by several others in the front who understood what was going on. Embarrassed and red-faced, the driver motioned to me to pay the proper fare and waived me back to my seat.
Two hours later the bus came to a stop at another somewhat sizeable settlement. Tsetserleg this must be, I thought (there was usually no sign to indicate the name of smaller towns or villages). The driver, in an affirmation of this turned around and gave me and the ladies a grudging nod. So, I and the Canadian and French lady got off. The bus driver glowered at me, but did not say anything. The passengers in the front of the bus that had raised the commotion earlier had long since departed at earlier stops.
Once the bus left, the two ladies and I could not figure out the layout of the town. There was an inn run by an English proprietor that was supposed to be next to a landmark on a corner on a road parallel to the main drag; but, the layout of the town did not match the map the ladies had in their guidebook. So we wandered around for about an hour in the hot sun and dusty windswept village trying to find the inn. Since no one in the village spoke English, this turned out to be a challenge.
Then it dawned on me that this was not Tsetserleg. The bus driver, in order to avenge not being able to cheat me, had allowed us to get off the bus in the wrong town! I confirmed this assumption in a convenience store where the women working it had a map of the area (I could not pronounce "Tsetserleg" intelligibly to the locals, so needed a map to point to the town). The women in the convenience store indicated on the map where Tsetserleg was and where we were at that moment, about an hour from Tsetserleg. So, to get there, the ladies managed to hitchhike, while I hired a guy to drive me (not enough room in the car the ladies stopped for the hitchhike). The bus driver had gotten his revenge on me, but had also taken out his petty anger on the innocent women travelers as well.
Tsetserleg was a pleasant surprise. A charming and neatly laid out village, it was indeed in a beautiful spot; and the people were very friendly. I enjoyed my time in the area hiking the hills and checking out an old temple turned museum. While there, I met two German guys on a 4 month motorcycle journey. Starting in Germany, they had travelled across Russia and into Mongolia, and would continue to Manchuria. They were sponsored in part by a German sporting wear company and had special helmets with video cams built in to record their journey. As it turned out, they were heading to UB around the same time that I would be going back, so we agreed to meet again back in the capital.