2 July 2018, Monday

More than 92 hours since boarding the train at Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, my Trans-Mongolian Railway train number 6 finally arrived at Ulaanbaatar railway station in Mongolia at 6:50am. After spending the past few days on the train with Ray and Tony, and later also with my new bunkmate Aveline and neighbours Pepÿn and Eline, it was time to say farewell to them. It had been nice spending time and chatting with them, and I really hope we will meet again in future. After disembarking from the train for the last time, we went our separate ways.

As pre-arranged with my Airbnb host, my driver was waiting for me, holding a piece of paper with my name on it. He then brought me to a moneychanger at the railway station, where I changed US dollars to Mongolian Thugriks. The exchange rate was US$1 = MNT 2,450. After conversion, MNT 1,000 is approximately equivalent to S$0.55. You can only obtain Thugriks currency in Mongolia and nowhere else.

As also arranged with my Airbnb host, my driver procured for me a mobile SIM card. He brought me to a convenience shop located beside the railway station and I paid MNT 7,000 (S$3.85) to top up mobile data for five days. I am not sure how much data allowance I was given, but it was sufficient for my stay.

With those two errands completed, I was ready to set off for my homestay with a nomadic family. Their ger camp is located near Khustai National Park, about 100km west of Ulaanbaatar. I booked this homestay through Airbnb and it cost S$136.44 for two nights’ stay. I also paid US$100 (S$131.20) for the two-way transport and US$15 (S$19.68) for an hour of horse-riding. It was a little expensive overall but I really wanted an authentic nomadic family homestay experience, and I was glad I found it on Airbnb.

We departed the railway station at 7:25am. It had started to rain and it was a grey and cloudy morning. I was still feeling quite tired so I napped periodically during the drive there.

At about 8:43am, the driver went off the main road and turned into a track road, which was secured by a gate. He stopped the car and went to open the gate before driving through. At that point, I thought we must be quite near the destination already. However, he kept driving on and on.

It was amazing how he knew the way because there were no signboards and the scenery looked the same everywhere. There were track marks on the ground but every now and then, the track would split and he would intuitively know which way to go. He wasn’t using any GPS, and I doubt GPS would help anyway since they were not proper roads.

He was driving a Toyota hybrid car that was really silent, and it didn’t seem equipped to handle the terrain. There were a couple of times when he had difficulty moving the car due to the sandy ground but he maneuvered skillfully and overcame it.

At 9:47am, we finally arrived at the ger camp, with five gers clustered close together. As soon as I stepped out of the car, a lady dressed in black traditional attire with green trimmings walked towards me and offered me a bowl of milk. She asked me to take only a sip so I sipped from the bowl. The milk tasted salty. She then led me to a ger, where I met her husband, who welcomed me warmly in English.

The couple introduced themselves as Batchuluun and Oyunaa. Mr Batchuluun informed me that there was a group of 13 tourists coming later in the day, so all the other gers would be occupied for the night. As such, I would have to sleep in this ger with their family tonight, and I would be able to move to the other ger tomorrow. I didn’t mind of course, since I was here for a homestay anyway.

The ger that I stayed at was the kitchen, where all the cooking was done. However, there was also a bed, a dining table and satellite TV. I think this would be considered their “living room” ger.

After putting down my bags, I was introduced to Mr Batchuluun’s 7-year-old son, Batuka. He was very adorable and he would be my best friend for the next two days. Besides the basic “yes” and “no”, the numbers from one to ten, and the animals (camel, cow, sheep, goat, dog), he didn’t speak any English at all. Oh, his favourite line to me was “What is your name?”, because he kept forgetting my name and had to ask me many times.

We communicated mainly through body language and sign language. Sometimes, he would use his finger to draw in the sand on the ground to show me what he was trying to get at, and most of the time, I could understand what he drew.

Mr Batchuluun showed me around the other ger, which was where his family normally slept, but it would be occupied by the other guests tonight. It was much more beautifully furnished and had many personal effects and photographs of his family.

Batuka also brought me to another ger, which contained some items made by his mother. They were all made of felt (sheep wool) and I ended up buying two of those miniature gers as souvenirs. I paid MNT 25,000 (S$13.75) for the two of them.

I was actually quite hungry by then so I was glad that Mrs Oyunaa offered me some sliced bread, fried man tou and tea. I think the driver must have told her that I was very tired because she kept asking me to go to sleep. Indeed, as soon as I lay on the bed, I fell into a deep sleep. I woke up about an hour and a half later and saw Mrs Oyunaa busy making lunch, which was a simple affair of dry handmade noodles with mutton, potatoes and carrot strips.

I observed as Mrs Oyunaa prepared lunch. She was cooking the noodles in a big pot placed over a cooking stove in the middle of the ger. A pipe ran upwards through the hole in the roof to discharge the fumes from the cooking stove. I assumed that they were using coal for fuel but a closer inspection revealed that it wasn’t coal but dried cow dung being used as bio-fuel! It was amazing how resourceful and eco-friendly they are. In case you’re wondering, the dried cow dung does not smell at all.

After lunch, Mr Batchuluun informed me that Batuka would like to bring me to the river, which was not far away. I said yes, of course, and Batuka held my hand and led the way. It was just a small and shallow river. As we walked along the bank, he picked out a few small clams from the river and put them in my hand (we later put them back into the water). We also saw tadpoles swimming in the shallow waters. He scooped up one tadpole to play with it before releasing it back to the water.

I liked the way he respected life and nature, even with the smallest living things. It was his way of showing me his world and his environment. He must have come to this river hundreds of times. I also loved how he derived simple pleasures from small things such as these.

For the next two days, we were practically inseparable as he would grab my hand and lead me everywhere. I became like an older brother to him. I think Batuka felt an attachment to me because his three elder siblings (two brothers, one sister) were all not living at the ger camp anymore so he missed their presence. It also helps that I am Asian so perhaps I can pass off as his brother.

The tourists were an all-female group of Americans and they had a local guide with them. They came in minivans and were well-equipped with individual safari chairs and a portable toilet. As part of their tour package, they were treated to some “workshops” where they had a glimpse of Mongolian nomadic life.

Obviously, I was not part of their tour group and I didn’t want to look like I was freeloading off them, so I tried to keep my distance as much as possible. But there were only so many places I could go at the camp so I inevitably “eavesdropped” a little.

As part of the workshops, Mrs Oyunaa demonstrated how she made rope twines by using horse hair, and how she used sheep wool and water to make spherical balls of felt that became earrings. She also made yoghurt-like curd and invited the tourists for a hands-on session.

I also had the good fortune of witnessing a demonstration where a horseman rode a horse at full speed and attempted to pick up a wooden stick from the ground. He tried a few times without success before he finally got it. I would only fully appreciate the difficulty of executing this maneuver tomorrow during my horse-riding session.

I discovered that when you’re on a horse, you’re already so high up above the ground, and to bend over to reach for a slim wooden stick on the ground is very difficult. It is already not easy to do it when the horse is walking, but to do so at full running speed is practically impossible and requires a lot of practice.

Mrs Oyunaa has a sister and their mother also lives in a ger nearby, about 300m away. As usual, Batuka led me to his cousins’ house and I got to meet more of the kids. There were two teenage girls and a little toddler girl, who was the cutest thing ever. There was also a teenage boy and a smaller boy who is younger than Batuka. Actually, I’m not sure if they are all related because they don’t speak English so I can only make educated guesses and assume that they’re all Batuka’s cousins because they seem to live there.

For dinner, Mrs Oyunaa prepared a big feast for the American tourists and I got to enjoy it as well. It was a sumptuous meal with big chunks of mutton, boiled potatoes and carrots, gherkin, salad (coleslaw) and rice. The staple meat here is mutton because goats are one of the four main livestock of Mongolia. The other three are cows (for their milk), sheep (for their wool) and camel (for transport).

After dinner, I took a glass of tea and went for an evening stroll around the camp. It was even nicer in the evening when the sun was less harsh and the temperatures were cooler. As I was enjoying my stroll, the herds of cattle were also enjoying their evening stroll. Hundreds of goats, sheep and cows walked past me, filling the air with sounds of their bleating and “meh mehs”. I thought I had seen a lot of them in Tibet, but there were even more of them here. Such a beautiful moment.

Evening time is also when the cows are being milked. I learned that this is done twice a day – in the morning and in the evening. The tourists were invited to witness the process and Batuka led me to join them, so I got to watch it as well. Grandma (Mrs Oyunaa’s mother) demonstrated how to milk the cows and she made it look so easy.

A few of the tourists tried but they hardly got any milk at all. The guide asked them to pull harder to squeeze out the milk. I didn’t try it, but from what I saw, it really wasn’t easy and you’ll need a lot of strength to extract the milk. The guide also explained that they don’t collect all the milk from the cows because they need to leave some for the calves, who still need the nutrition from their mothers’ milk.

There were many cows to be milked and Grandma could only do one at a time. The kids had to help out to manage the cows and the calves. Batuka used a twine rope (made of horse hair) to gently tie the mother cow’s front two legs together so that she would stay still while she was being milked. Actually, the mother cows don’t struggle at all so the rope wasn’t really necessary.

While the mother cow was being milked, its calf would be tied to a line of rope to keep it from running to its mother. When the milking was done, the kids would release the calf and it would run towards its mother to have its share of milk. Likewise, when it was time for another mother cow to be milked, the kids will need to pry its feeding calf away so that the milking can be done.

As you can imagine, the calf would not be happy to be separated from its mother and have its milk taken away. So there was quite a lot of work for the kids to do – to tie the legs of the mother cows and to round up the calves and tie them to the line. Everyone helped out. When all was done, there was one big bucket of freshly squeezed milk, to be made into milk tea and also the yoghurt-like curd snack.

At about 9:30pm, the sun disappeared over the horizon and darkness set in. I huddled into the ger with Mr Batchuluun, Mrs Oyunaa and Batuka. Mr Batchuluun initially asked me to sleep on the bed, then I realised that there was only one bed and they would have to sleep on the safari bed and also on the floor. There was no way I could let them sleep on the floor so I volunteered to sleep on the safari bed and let them have the bed instead. The bed was just large enough to fit the three of them. I could see that they were very grateful that I agreed to let them have the bed. After all, I was here for a homestay and I was a guest, and I actually felt bad about imposing myself on them.

That night, Mr Batchuluun and I watched the Brazil vs Mexico World Cup match on TV, while Mrs Oyunaa and Batukan slept on. It was certainly the most unique place to catch a World Cup game – in a ger in the middle of a grass plain in Mongolia.

After the match ended at midnight, I went out of the ger to use the toilet. There was some light from the full moon but it was still dark so I had to rely on my head torch for illumination. When I looked up to the sky, I could see so many stars and even the Milky Way. I don’t get to see a sky full of stars very often so it was a sight to behold. I stood there for a few moments to marvel at the sight. It made me feel so small and insignificant to realise that there is a whole galaxy out there, somewhere far, far away. The world is an amazing place indeed.

P.S. Here’s a little tour diary with some of the highlights of my two days on the grasslands. In it, you’ll find scenes from tomorrow as well. So be sure to read my Day 64 blog post too!