(Naadam, the finish line.)

Mongolia must be the most horse-crazy country in the world. People sing about horses, talk about horses, have horse pictures on their walls, and watch TV shows about horses.

When we first met our driver, Baira, he invited us into his log house in the town of Moron, and we watched a TV show about horse wrangling. It includes races, bucking broncos, and agility competitions such as picking up a stick off the ground from the back of a running horse, and it’s on every week. Baira’s three sons, in their teens and twenties, were glued to the screen, and so were we. I was a horse-crazy kid, and I still love horses and being around them. When I saw how the Mongolians behave, I felt like, “Ah, I’m home!”

Horses are all the more in eveyone’s thoughts as Naadam approaches. Naadam is the national holiday in mid-July when they celebrate the county’s independence (from China, 1921) with a three-day celebration. It’s like a combination of the 4th of July, the Olympics, and the Kentucky Derby. Besides horse racing, there are horse beauty contests, matched pair contests (with 1 male and 1 female rider, wearing traditional clothing), and wrangling, as well as wrestling and archery. Many of the local towns’ Naadam festivals are scheduled ahead of the national one at UB, so the local winners can go on to compete at the national level. 

The jockeys in the Naadam races are mostly children. The government has set the minimum age at seven. One evening when we camped on the steppe, we watched a young boy riding bareback, rounding up a herd and driving them home. When he stopped at our camp, he told us proudly that he’s a Naadam jockey. He looked like he was about 8 years old.

We attended a one-day “mini-Naadam” in the Gobi area. It was staged for tourists staying at the local ger camps, but the competition was in earnest and the crowd was mostly families of the competitors. They raced the two year old horses in the morning, about 8 kilometers. At that age the horses have hardly been ridden before, and they were an unruly bunch as they rode out to the starting line. By the time they came in to the finish, a lot of the moxie had been run out of them, and a few came across the line in a tired trot, but everyone got a cheer. 

People talk about riding the wild horses of Mongolia, and in a way that’s right. There are no fences, except for a few small paddocks for rounding up and sorting flocks of sheep and goats. All the animals spend their days out on the grassy steppe doing what they do: finding the best water to drink and the best grass to eat. They learn to come home every evening because when the young are small they are kept at home base while the adults roam. 

The horses aren’t broken and trained. They are just caught and mastered. When you walk up to them you can tell they aren’t used to having people nearby. I think that when we made our horse trek, they chose three old timers who were pretty docile for us to ride, and I was grateful. I was also grateful for the months of horseback riding I did to get ready for our trip. The wooden Mongolian saddles aren’t very comfortable, and it helped a lot to be used to being on a horse.

Every horse herd has a stallion who works hard to keep his herd together. On the day we got horses for our ride into the mountains, they had been collected from several herds in the valley where we would start our ride. The group were tied up near our ger, and several of the mares raised a ruckus whinnying for their herd. Then, when we mounted up and started across the grasses toward the forest, their stallion decided it was time to come to their rescue. These were mountain ponies, not big horses, but that little stallion had all the fire and speed you could wish for. Pure white, he came galloping full tilt across the steppe with his long mane and tail flowing all around him. Our guide shouted, “Run for the trees!” and we did. Our wrangler galloped out to head off the stallion until we made it to the forest. That was the end of it, but I’ll never forget the sight of that tough little white stallion coming after us. 

Lots of Mongolian songs are about horses — “I brought my love a beautiful white horse,” “My love came to me on a handsome palomino,” “I remember the horses of my childhood” and so forth. But I did find that many of the young people in UB rarely ride horses any more, and for them songs about horses are merely old-fashioned or nostalgic.

(A tent with a view.)

We slept at all kinds of places on our trip through Mongolia–a backpackers’ hostel, several gers, and a teepee. For about a week we were tent-camping in the remote northern province. In Ulaan Baatar, we stayed at a three star hotel, and in the Gobi we spent five nights at the luxurious Three Camel Lodge, which is a regular stop for high-end tours like National Geographic. No wonder we ran into all kinds of tourists, from hippies camping in their van to wealthy achiever-travelers on deluxe tours.

It’s funny how the most in-your-face tourists are the ones at the most expensive places. The more people pay, the more entitled they feel. And it’s no longer just the “ugly American” like people used to say—now the “ugly” ones came from all over the world. A group of Americans and Europeans stayed at Three Camel Lodge with us. They were learning photography from several “experts” accompanying them. At the local Naadam festival they just walked up and shot people, even close up, as if they were props, with no “please” or “thank you.” (How hard is it to communicate “May I take your picture?” with sign language?) One woman jumped out in front of the oncoming horses at the finish-line to get super action shots, without regard to the hazard to the young riders as their horses shied away from her. Almost as amazing was the wealthy young tourist urging her driver to invest in the stock market. “Find a company you really believe in!” she said (loudly), clueless about the economic realities that face the average Mongolian tour driver. And, at the airport we were treated to one woman’s rant as she reamed out her Mongolian tour guide for not getting her “the best room in the hotel” at the most expensive hotel in UB.

The worst offenders were three Russian businessmen at our hotel in UB. There was a buffet breakfast every morning at 8:30. Our first morning, we arrived at 8:32 to find the three ahead of us in line. The hot dishes included some hotdog-like sausage, some biscuits, and a pile of fried eggs. By the time we got to them, these three guys had about 8 fried eggs each on their plates, and there were only 2 eggs left for the rest of us. It turned out the hotel’s policy was “no refills” for the serving dishes. The next morning, it was the same. We caught on, and lined up the third day at 8:20, so we could get a few eggs before “the Russians” hit the line. 

Talking with Mongolians, I learned (to my surprise) that nowadays some of the most unpopular tourists are from South Korea. I guess that’s because foreign travel is new to the older generation of Koreans, and they tend to travel in large groups. In Korea these days, it’s the Chinese who are known as loud and pushy tourists. It’s the same thing: travel abroad is new for most of them.

Of course, I complain about other tourists without knowing what faux pas I may have committed. I do remember the day Shagai, our driver in the Gobi, took us for a visit at his family’s ger. We thought we were communicating with him pretty well even though he didn’t speak English. >From his ger we went to a neighbor’s place and had a ride on their camels. Then he brought us back, and it turned out that his father-in-law had just slaughtered a goat and was butchering it inside the ger. It was late in the day and we only wanted to go back to our lodge. “Don’t you want to have some meat?” they asked (through sign language). There was no way to tell them we were exhausted and I had a cold. And we couldn’t say we just couldn’t face one more bite of goat meat after all the goat we had eaten in the last three weeks. I’ve worried ever since that they slaughtered that goat for us. I’m sure they found use for the meat, but a goat’s a valuable asset. I just hope they had a big party without us!

Some of my happiest memories of the trip are of watching Morley and Pacey negotiate photos with people, and then holding out the camera to display the results. They used a few key words in Mongolian: “hello” and “pretty” and “thank you.” And when people saw pictures of themselves, no one needed any words to share a good laugh.

At the Naadam festival, there was a young European woman with extensive tattoos. She wore a tank top—an exotic enough sight outside of UB—and it showed off the colorful tattoos on her shoulders and arms. She presented a sight-seeing attraction for the locals, and it was fun watching them. People would approach her and pass by without staring.  Then, once they were past, they gathered around behind her to get a good look at the tattoos, but discreetly enough that she didn’t even notice. I don’t know what Mongolians are like as world-traveling tourists, but with manners like this, I think they’ll be among the best.

(Terror at Dalanzadgad.)

One morning in UB (Ulaan Baatar) we went into a small pharmacy. Our Mongolian friend, Ariun, had agreed to act as interpreter so Pacey could ask about treatments for arthritis and rheumatism. Pacey’s a rheumatologist with many years’ experience in the US, and she was curious about the nature of treatment in Mongolia. 

We approached the glass case that served as a sales counter. The young woman behind it was helping another customer. Or trying to. It was a Frenchman with gray hair, trying to communicate his request. The attendant turned to us and held out a scrap of paper, asking if we could help. Ariun accepted it, and started to explain to her what it said. But the customer was gone out the door in an instant. 

Ariun chuckled and said,”Poor guy…” She showed us the paper. On it, the man had written, “Viagra.”

Sometimes it’s tough being a tourist. It’s hard to communicate your needs and wants, and, when you try, you risk its becoming public information. If you depend on a guide, he ends up knowing so much about you that he’s like a family member. We were lucky that our guide and his employees knew how to handle things in a professional way.