Eerie Travel Secret - Mongolia - The Land of Ghosts

Mongolia- Freedom Of The Nomads- 
An Eerie Travel Secret Shared
Mongolia - At The Edge Of The World
 - Fascinating And Wild

We arrive at Uelgiy, a smallish place 

in the farthest of West 
of Mongolia - 

which in itself only counts
closed to 3 Million human inhabitants.

 
This country is vast- Uelgiy is 1800km

from the Kasack real capital, Ulan Bator. 
The phantastic Altai-mountainchain

creates a natural barrier to the

normal overland traveller. 
Therefore, in Uelgiy you find

what you expect: Kasac nomads, who 

came here 140 years ago 
in search of new grassing-land for
their herds. And it's indeed touching and

amazing how nomads are clinging

to their tradition. 

Surely you've heard the stories, when

the first oil-Sheikhs travelled into

Western capitals, stayed in 5-star

hotels and brought a live sheep into

the room to grill it right there,

on open fire?

This association cropped up in my mind, when

learning, that although most people in Uelgiy are now 
living in stone houses, they prefer to build-up their Jurts in 

their own  courtyard in Summer! Some of them go even further and move to

the outskirts of the city to put up their Jurtes - 

bringing their complete family and household with them.  
Quite some way from Uelgiy we find Aidos Schabdanuly,

living with wive and daughters on 25m2 in his "Ger"- (Jurte). 

Smiling he invites us inside: beds and all household stuff are well 

organized and tidy, a little stove fed with dried cow-dung makes 

the cool evenings cosy and warm. After a while, we also get used to

the stench. Make no mistake, this and a lot of other modern nomad-households

sport a solar-power station plus a satellite-
antenna for TV-channels from all over the world. 

And the daughters are busy sending one SMS after another - like all 

teenagers seem to do these days- all over the world.

Aidos tells us his worries - as in socialistic times you knew you could get a small 
pension when you grew old, today - you don't even find the meanest jobs.

If you want one, you'll have to go to the  capital - 5 days of journey away. 
Forget education for the daughters, he simply can't afford it..; 
but there is hope, as more and more tourists are coming.For Trekking- 

and Jeep-Tours through the wilderness 
of the Mongolian West. Using Uelgiy for stocking up supplies and petrol,

hiring guides etc. before starting off into the wilderness completely

void of human life or any store.

On the planned departure day, we all squash into an old UAZ-Jeep 

to go to  Altan Zuegz, around 100km distance from Uelgiy. 

During the  Summer weeks, this is the favourite "meeting for parties" 

place for many nomad families, the peak being celebration of 

the mongolian Naadam-Festival. 

On the 3 hour drive we go through broad valleys of 
the high mountain region with glaciers on top - a spectacular view- 
past wild rivers, now and then we see some Jurts standing in the middle 
of nowhere.  No vegetation covers the mountains - a strange sight for 
someone coming from the European Alps. Grass in the valley is nice and 
green and the air smells just great, crisp and clean. 

At the Naadam festival, horse riding and wrestling are the main 
disciplines. Lacking an order of weight-classes - like in 
boxing or wrestling sport championships of the West, the winner is 
obvious: it's the one with the most fat - or the heaviest, anyway. 

It's a nice sport and a lot of fun - for us - but naturally, the locals 
take this dead serious. Tears are shed by girls and mothers, for

the winners as well as the losers, and the men look solemn; I'm told that

the fate of the girls' marriages /match_making is decided on such days -

and the fathers try to hide their shock when they have lost heavily in

betting high values on the outcome.

Then comes the riding competition, clearly this is spectacular - 
but you can hardly see much for all the dust and I cannot really

fathom the rules deciding who wins- if any. 

We get a good explanation for this, too:" we are dependant on the 
extremeties of nature here. All we do is try to enlargen our herds 
of yaks, sheep, goats, horses and camels." And it's not an easy life.

The older folk understand well why many of the young ones go 
to the city in search of luck, money or both -

or are leaving Kasachstan all together.
It's also said that many of them come back again, too. 

Nomads are not made for city life, they get terribly homesick 

even suffer physical illness in the consequence."Take a nomad his

freedom, and he'll die" is one of their sayings.

The trip was originally planned to be done with the group of us

on horseback, packing horses, and  with local guides. 

We'd have stayed in guest-Jurtes with the nomad families.

And yes - eaten their food all the time, as there is nowhere

to buy your own provisions.

Due to an accident I've suffered some months before

and broken bones etc., we had to settle for going by car.

But - having come here for this mini-excursion, I can see how 

lovely this would have been. 
Definitely, if you have a weight problem- THIS holiday is

the best for you (and me) - I've lost 8 kg.

Surely- had we done our planned riding for 3 weeks, with all the 
excersice and the kind of food, where you only eat just enough so 
as to not to die of starvation (just be sensible enough not to pack

Hershey-Bars to take along - you'll definitely eat just

enough to keep body and soul together- and NO TEMPTATION around!

Just like you always should in normal life! 

And since Kasach people are extremely supersticious, they dip their 

finger into every drink they take (forget hygene), and snip it in 

all 4 directions as a token to the spirits, in order to thank them 

for their gift (=this drink). Since they snip it over the
shoulder without looking, just make sure NOT to stand behind
a Kasach just about to drink!

And I should not forget the juicy bit: I actually got a proposal for

marriage from a very nice Kasach man, who took a facy to me. When I

saw him in agitated discussion with my friend from Moscow - and later

asked, what is was about, my fried simply said: we were discussing

your price! But Sergei could not keep his face in earnest for long!

A really ancient looking woman read my future out of the tea-leaves 

in her cup- and guess what it was:"that I'll return - for sure!"

Some ghosts are surely good for business....