You probably already know

that I visited Mongolia in August. A number of months ago, I blogged about the frustrations of arranging transportation for my trip. Happily, everything worked out fine. The large chunk of money that I wired to a Mongolian bank account ended up with valid plane tickets! i was relieved about that.

As I was flying to Ulaanbaatar, I looked out the window of the plane. From what I could see, there wasn't a whole lot in Mongolia. A few gers here and there. Some mountains. But mostly empty, flat land.

The day after I arrived, I set out on a 5 day tour of central Mongolia. Because there is close to no public transportation in the country (people get around by hitchhiking), I needed a jeep and driver. A few other people came on the trip, including a translator/guide.

In most of the country, there weren't any roads. I was really impressed with our driver who, for 5 days, never seemed to get lost. He always seemed to know which dirt road led where. Often we didn't even drive on dirt roads- we just drove on the grass. This made for quite a bumpy ride.

Often the driver had to stop the van to wait for herds of animals to pass. We passed herds of horses, sheep, goats, yaks, cows... In those 5 days, I probably saw more animals than the total human population of Mongolia.

After driving many hours each day, we stopped to sleep at a ger. Sometimes we slept in a ger for tourists. Other times, we were house guests and slept in a ger while the owners camped outside.


The first night, someone asked where there was a toilet. The guide laughed a bit before declaring that nature is the toilet. Everywhere is a toilet! The gers we visited didn't have electricity or running water. A few had pit toilets, but most didn't have any kind of toilet at all. People just go on the grass wherever they want. There is so much land and so few people in Mongolia that the chances are small that someone will happen to walk by your "toilet."




On this trip, I sampled the staples of a Mongolian diet. Mutton, dried & curdled milk, fermented horse milk, and noodles made of flour. Because our guide (who doubled as our cook) was being thoughtful while grocery shopping in Ulaanbaatar, we also had some pasta, carrots, and potatoes.

Here you can see some horse milk sitting in a bucket. It is curdling, fermenting, and/or drying. I have no idea. About half of Mongolian food looks like this while it is being prepared. (Prepared = sitting exposed to the flies for a few days)

There were a lot of bugs in Mongolia. Surprising considering how cold the country gets. You would think that everything would die in the winter when it is minus a bazillion degrees outside. Mongolians have an excellent way of keeping away mosquitos. They burn dung, which actually smells like strong incense.

At the end of this 5 day tour, I returned back to my hotel in Ulaanbaatar tired and more excited than I've ever been in my entire life to take a shower. Remember: dusty dirt roads and no running water. I enjoyed the luxury of a shower and a little bit of TV. That evening, a Mongolian wrestler won Mongolia's first ever Olympic medal. As you can imagine, there was a bit of celebratory chaos outside.

I woke up early the next morning to meet my ride to a summer camp for Mongolian orphans.