Mongol!

Mongolia is a land of change. The traditional Yurt based lifestyle is meeting the western worlds seductive charms and promises of wealth and ease of living. As a newly reformed country this sparkly populated ex-Russian powerhouse and warrior state is struggling with its identity.

As a consequence the rapidly growing city of Ulan Baatar is a hodgepodge of badly designed living spaces with little or no infustructure. This developing country has definite advantages for the visitor – pint of beer will set you back about $2-4 and meals range from $1-15 depending on how classy and how many courses you want to go. And speaking of the food: again fantastic – everything from beef hourse to goat tasted great. As the lonely planet puts it if you are a vegetarian you will struggle, if you are vegan either reconsider your A surprisingly large number of people speak English and signage and menus are also commonly in English (unlike in Russia). Rather than a “build it and they will come” philosophy they have adopted a “come and build it” approach. As a consequence the city is a loose conglomeration of slums, buildings and yurts, connected with a vuage network of crumbeling, oft flooded, streets that have names but not street signs.

After watching the nandam festival, known as the ‘mongolian olymics’, we tried our hand at all 3 sports and discovered that Mongolian people are very strong. Archery is done on a lightly recurved bow with wooden arrows. As a result they are short ranged slow projectiles that take a lot of strength to use. Horse riding is done on a wooden saddle that will either cut into your thighs or neuter you at an in opportune moment. Having to stand the whole time gives you an appreciation of just how fast these horses can move on uneven ground, firing arrows from the horses is best left to the professionals. Wrestling too is not for the faint hearted... let’s just say that I ended up upside down within less than a minute. Even our strongest warrior (that’s you Duncan) fell to Mongolian horde (that sounds better than admitting some 15 year old kid beat the lot of us)