A Short Day's Ride to Davaa - Day 4 Solo

A short ride today. Only a couple hours after leaving Otgon and family I stop for an afternoon break. This place is called ly. Nuur means lake, and sure enough, a large lake is a few hundred meters distant. Lots of gers around here to choose from. It is a crap shoot, which ger are you going to stay at? Children are a good sign, and most have kids. The one next to where I am now was the one I first approached. I walked in to find a woman sleeping on the bed. So I turned on my heels and a boy led me to his family's log cabin. The invitation to stay the night came quickly. After two helpings of noodles and mutton, I sit by the outdoor stove where the wood pops and bread bakes.

The man of the house, Davaa, has both his hands heavily bandaged. Somehow he burned them terribly, maybe by grabbing hold of the stove's smoke stack, falling over drunk? With my camera I show the family fotos of Tomor and others I have met on my trek. They know many of them.

Many young boys here. Ganza has taken to me. He helps me with my horse, unsaddling and watering. I show him how to use the compass, and he teaches his friends. North, east, south and west in Mongolian are khoid, züün, omon and baroon. The curiousity here is that left is züün and right is baroon, exactly the opposite of the directions when looking at a map. I have pointed this out to a couple Mongols and they laugh and turn the map upside down!

The horse ride was fine. Max responds better every day to my commands. But he is hungry. The grass is short.

Ganza cuts hay with a scythe. I try my hand at it. Muu! Muu! Bad! He imitates my body motion that gives a rising and lowering to the blade. Better is to let the blade ride smoothly over the earth. Not so easy with my few minutes of practice.

All in all, a beautiful day.

Sunrise at the Ger

I still don't have the consciousness as a photographer to realize that the morning hours are without a doubt the most beautiful of the day. At 5:45 the girls got up, slipped into their boots and jackets and went out to milk the cows. Fog enveloped much of the shallow valley, clung to the lake surface. Gorgeous.



After the girls had finished milking the cows I followed them on a trail northwest, toward a small river. Idyllic scenery as the sun rose over the mountains in the distance. Walking a horse behind the cows, Delger herded them toward the river, while Solongo stood on a few planks of wood and punted herself to the far shore.



Punting across the river



These bucolic scenes were just beautiful to witness. The tranquility was sublime. Hardly a sound out here to be heard. The occasional mooing of a cow, the neighing of a horse, the flapping wings of a bird. The cry of one of the girls, choo! choo! to get a horse moving. The sound of the river flowing, the sun rising echo loudest. Want to get away from it all? Come spend some time on the bank of this river. Such moments will set your soul alight.

Semi-Nomads

The annual schedule of this family: January to May they live in R town, where Otgon is a teacher. June to August they live here and tend their livestock. September to December they move bak to R town and live in their house.
I fetch water from the lake. The girls collect firewood - but from where? The river? Now Tomor is leaving for R town on a friend's motorbike. Otgon and the smallest child, Emüjin, are going, too. They fill a two liter bottle with airag, the slightly alcoholic mare's milk, to sell in town. The friend stays here.

Max got loose. I had staked him near the lake, but the ground there is soft and he pulled himself free. Suddenly I saw a horse galloping across the open expanse, not realizing it was mine. One of the twins took time off from milking the cows to help me catch it. Not much of a problem. Max soon came to a halt and the daughter gave me the lead rope.

An Extra Day in the Ger

Last night Tomor said that we would ride to R town together today. He has some work to do for ten days. That is what I understand. But I haven't a clue what he will be doing. Now the family is all together, girls chatting happily, what looks like school work is laid on the floor. One girl rests her head on the knee of another. Milk heats on the stove. I awoke this morning to the sound of one daughter scraping last night's dinner pot.

Tomor has been waiting for his friend to ride in from R town. It is now 3 pm and no sign of him on the horizon. So what shall I do: leave on my own or wait until tomorrow? Will I offend Tomor if I leave today and ride without him? Will I offend him by hanging around another day?

I would like to video a meal in the ger, the preparation, the eating, the cleaning up. They are heating up the noodles from this morning, cutting slices of bread. Not much to video there.

The girls got a kick out of the flapping bird I showed them how to make with origami.

Solo Trekking - Day 1

I am back at the ger of Tomor and Otgon, where M and I stayed four days ago. The lake looks beautiful.
M left my Lonely Planet phrasebook at this ger, so I have come back to get it. Without that book, the rest of my trek will be all the more difficult. M continued clockwise around the lake and is heading back to Khatgal.
I left Tsagaannuur at 2:40 pm. and went on the wrong path right away. I came to the river and my horse would not cross. I tried a second time at a different location, but had the same result. Max stood motionless on the bank. That was probably a good thing. If the horse cannot see the bottom of the river, he may be hesitant about entering the water.

I doubled back, went around a lake and found a bridge further on. For quite a while Max was neighing, missing his fellow animal companion. He also wanted to turn back to town on his own.

When I tried to mount Max back in T. the saddle slipped. I had put a new, broader cinch on Max that I had received from a Dutchman. I did not have it tied tight enough.

I arrive at the ger of T and O at 7:30. No one is visible. I hitch my horse and see a couple people in the cow corral. I enter the ger local style, without knocking. Mongolia may be one of the only places in the world where you can enter the home of a complete stranger unannounced and be offered sustanance and refuge for the night.



Two boys tag along up the pass

 Riding up to the pass a couple hours north of Tomor's ger I meet two small boys on a horse. They tag along for a few minutes. One shows me his trick: he stands atop of his horse.

Back in Tsagaannuur M and I divvied up the provisions. I told him I wanted the saddle that he had been using these past three weeks. It has better padding on the seat. But he did not want to discuss it. I said I would flip a coin with him for it. The best he could muster, with his 28 years, was "I don't know." M is not really into sharing.

Tonight's dinner: güriltai shöl. Noodle soup with mutton and potatoes. I am beat. Whipping the horse must have tired me. The old leather cinch I had replaced I used for a whip. It worked. Whipping the horse with the lead rope, as E had done, did nothing. The leather whip gets results.

A Couple Days in Tsagaannuur

The weather is bad. We hang out in Tsagaannuur partly to stay dry, partly in the hope of finding another shaman. We tell the guesthouse owner, Gamba, of our disappointment with the first two. He thinks long hard. The best he can do is come up with a sheep-shoulder-bone diviner.

Davaajau is in town. We first thought we would have to go 25 km on motorcycle to find him. But it turns out he is only 10 minutes by foot distant. Gamba gives me the shoulder bone and I pack it away with the vodka and cookies.

I still have not found someone to translate Davaajau's divinations, but I can sort of guess his answers to the same questions I asked Nergui.

Q and A

Nergui flubs the test

Tumee translates our questions into Mongolian. Nergui gives three of us answers. I ask questions about my past.

Q: Tell me what happened to me in my childhood.
A: One of my parents died.

Q: What happened ten years ago to make me angry?
A: An animal made me angry. 

Q: What happened to me 20 years ago?
A: I saw a dead person. My birthplace was shaking.

Q: Let me feel your energy.
A: No, because you are testing me.

Q: What is name of my girlfriend?
A: I don't do names, but it is a combination of sun and moon.

Dreadfully wrong on all counts, except that perhaps there was an earthquake in my birthplace 20 years ago.
The strange thing is, Yves, in his diagnosis, was much closer to the truth.