The horse champion and his wife

Our next hosts were an older couple and their 19 year old son. They were horse people and owned a whole posse. Bold was a champion rider and trainer in his time and very much a man about the steppes, alpha through and through. His wife was lovely and tried very hard with her english. For the third time in two days I was served milk and boiled white rice as a meal. I had to stop myself from a) gagging b) weeping. I don't eat either of these products. But, as a veggo, they seem to think this was a good option. On top of this, you get a bowl of milk tea (diluted milk, really) every time you enter the ger. Urgh. There are lots of do's and don'ts when it comes to being in a ger, engaging with the locals and we were briefed on them before we left. But. Still managed to transgress now and then.

Here's what the inside of a ger is typically like.

After a spot of archery and a very tense game of ankle bone horse racing, we turned in. The second family was quite prosperous and had a spare ger for us to sleep in. It was substantially warmer then our nights in the tent and a good nights rest was had by all.


The next day we joined in the seasonal ger moving. We were visiting the family in their winter pasture. Summer had ticked over and the ger had to be moved to the summer pastures. Handy having an extra 6 pairs of hands at such a time, eh?

So we helped dismantle it and load up the ox cart and then were transported to the new place ourselves. Putting up a ger is actually quite complicated- the tension of the central structure and the surrounding poles that make up the roof had to be just right. We were more of a hindrance then a help on this front so spent alot of time hanging about in the sun, getting burnt and dehydrated. The nomads use the river as a water source, but, not being nomads ourselves, we could only drink this if it had been boiled. At one point three of us were sent inside the ger to fix up some aesthetics. Finished, we sat down to enjoy the shade. At some point Bold remembered us and with a "hey hey!" flung open the door to find us sitting in a row, immobile. He had great fun recounting our laziness to his wife later that evening.

On a smoko break, Bold uncovered a wrestlers outfit (small "underpants" and vest) and decided one of the guys should try it on. No, not over your clothes. He practically undressed a somewhat distressed young englishman, slapping on the wrestlers garb, tucking in underwear here and there. It is hard to say no to this man. He took great pleasure in demonstrating to the guys that his wrists were the same size as their ankles.

Job done, we returned to winter pastures and had a brilliant feed (no milk!) that ma had prepared for us whilst we were erm, hard at work. A little rest for us and the oxcart was loaded and some horses saddled for our return journey to the Terelj bus stop, where we would catch a crowded ride to Ulan Bataar.