Final Days in Mongolia

My second day in Mongolia was perhaps one of my favorite all time travel days. Ogi took me to a once every two year Buddhist ceremony atop one of Mongolia’s four sacred mountains and then to see a Naadam festival.

First about the Buddhist ceremony.  There are four sacred mountains in Mongolia with shrine’s atop each.  One mountain honors the Grandfather, another the horse, the sheep and finally the pig.  The mountain I visited and attended the Buddhist ceremony was appropriately the mountain honoring the pig.  The country’s Buddhist faithful climb this mountain once every two years to worship give offerings at the mountain top shrine to one of their Gods and to make offerings to a carved  rock pig statue.

IMG_4825.JPGThe first thing I noticed as I trudged up the mountain in a cold drizzle was that hundreds of people of both sexes and all  ages were trudging up the mountain in their Sunday best.  The second thing I noticed was that I was the only round eye on the mountain.  A couple of interesting observations about Mongols is that first they don’t seem to understand the notion of switchbacks to ease the difficulty of the climb.  Ive been on mountains all over the world and everyone except these people zig zag their way up a mountain to make the climb more gradual and less taxing on the cardio vascular system and leg muscles.  Mongols just trudge straight up without so much as a turn.  When they get tired they just turn face down hill and plop down.  Then promptly light a cigarette and begin puffing furiously.

It seems that everyone in Mongolia smokes – men, women, children, the healthy, the half dead…  hell I bet their horses and camels even smoke.  I was accompanied up the mountain by a young friend of Ogi’s.  I nice young man who loves American RAP music and Movies based on Marvel Comics.  Even though he is only in his twenties he hiked up the mountain alternating between holding his chest, like Redd Foxx used to do as Fred Sanford, trying to keep his heart from exploding.  Then when it looked like he could take no more he would reach into his coat pocket and whip out a pack of unfiltered cigarettes an light up.

He would smoke until he burnt his fingers on the butt trying to get the last little bit of cancer stimuli, then he would go back to holding his heart in his chest.  He smoked an entire pack on the climb up 3000 vertical feet.

About half way up the mountain I learned that Buddhists are no more enlightened when it comes to women’s rights than Catholics or Muslims. Turns out that women are only allowed to climb to the shoulder of the mountain where they have a smaller shrine with attending chanting monks banging on drums and tooting horns.  And this is as far as the fairer sex goes.  Women are prohibited from befouling the last 1000 vertical feet of the mountain.  The mountain top ceremony is a stag only affair.IMG_4844.jpeg

As I finally approached the summit and beheld the spectacle atop I was surprised to see a big shrine, chanting monks of all ages, the Mongolian army band, a big shot general decked out in all his medals,  and men from all over the area sitting and standing around grooving on the sounds of Buddhist rapture.  After an hour or more of monks chanting and banging their instruments, a rousing march by the army drum and bugle corp, speeches from the general, local politicians and a strange ceremony involving three local celebs shooting an arrow each into the crowd of late comers working their way up the mountain we were all then invited to bring our offerings to the idol.

The ceremonial shooting of the arrows was pretty interesting. There was a dude all dressed up in a beautiful silk costume and carrying his bow and three arrows climbing onto the stage as three older gentlemen made their way center stage.  The bow keeper presented an arrow and the bow to each of the big shots in turn and they then shot their arrow down the mountain as the entire crowd of men stood and chanted Uh Raaa Uh Raa Uh Raa while forming their hands in the shape of a bowl (palms up and little fingers to little fingers )and churning them in a clockwise motion three complete circles.

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The last celeb shooter nearly hit a cluster of late comers still trudging up the mountain.  Instead of scattering these guys all dove for the arrow.  The next thing I knew there was a pile of Mongols ten feet high like a rugby scrum kicking, punching and biting for control of the arrow.  Finally a little guy squirted out from the bottom of the pile holding the arrow over his head whooping it up.  The crowd went nuts cheering his good fortune.

As soon as the last arrow was recovered the crowd surged forward laying their offerings at the base of the shrine.  Men brought all kinds of things for the God to eat and drink.  Milk, cheese, bread, fruit, veggies, flowers, cookies, meat anything a god might have a craving for.  I chose to make my offering of some dried apricots that I had bought in the fruit and vegetable open market in Irkutsk to the Pig Shrine rather than the Buddhist Idol.

Supposedly the mountain god will grant a wish to the offerer.  And guess what?  It worked for me!  Got my wish a couple of days later in Beijing but Mongol rules prohibit me from telling.  Just like the first rule of Fight Club is that there is no Fight Club – the first rule of idol worship is no sharing your wishes.

Once the offerings were complete and everyone had congratulated themselves on a successful ceremony it was a mass scramble down the mountain to get to the Naadam Festival and the food and fermented mares milk (Airag) jerry cans.  Mongols love milk!  People of all ages walk around with cartons of milk like southern rednecks walk around with a can of beer.  And they drink milk from everything, cows, yaks, goats, sheep, horse, and camel.  But their all time favorite milk drink is fermented mares milk which they make themselves by leaving the milk in huge hide sacks to turn then they transfer it into five gallon jerry cans designed to hold petrol and dole the potent brew out to friends and family in bowls for drinking.

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You may be wondering what Airag tastes like – simple exactly what it sounds like, foamy, a little sour, warm, and a little thicker than your Publix store pasteurized 2% purchase.  In addition to imbibing Airag the festival goer can visit any number of food tents selling everything from boiled mutton to boiled horse and camel meat.  Mongols tend to boil all their meats or to mince their meat adding spices then making meat pies and meat dumplings.

Back to the Naadam Festival – this festival takes place once every two years and the entire day is scheduled around displays of strength, horsemanship and marksmanship and feature Mongolia’s three favorite sports; wrestling, archery and horse racing.  The festival grounds are organized in the shape of a large C with the opening of the C set up as a stage and the center of the C used as the wrestling arena.  bleachers are set up in the form of the big C with three tables set up inside the C for scoring officials and a winners victory spoils table.

Behind the bleachers there is second C made up of 12 x 12 tents stocked with cooked foods and strong drink.  Each tent is owned by a family or business and appears to be very similar to our skyboxes in concept with invited guests coming and going constantly.  There is a third C outside the Mongolian Skyboxes made up of more tents which serve as Mongolian concession stands selling everything to drink from milk to cokes, to Airag and everything to eat from mutton, goat, camel, horse and yak to fruits and veggies.  My friend Ogi’s family had one of these stands and I enjoyed my first taste of Airag and horse meat stew there.

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Before the Three Games of Man begin the locals and visitors like myself enjoyed an elaborate opening ceremony involving the Army’s Drum and Bugle Corp, the raising of the flag, blessing chanting to banging on drums and tooting of horns by the Buddhist monks, speeches by local politicians and a big shot general and a very cool rendition of “the long song” by a gentleman in traditional mongol attire accompanied by another playing the traditional Morin Khuur (horse head fiddle).

The wrestling arena is not what you might expect.  The area covers about an acre and the there is not a ring and canvas mat –  just pasture grass. The Mongolian concept of wrestling is also very different than our Wrestle Mania.  First of all there are no weight categories or age limits.  You might see a 300 pound 16 year old paired against a 90 pound eighty year old opponent.  The second thing you notice is the attire.  The wrestlers wear heavy felt and leather boots that come to nearly their knees, a tiny tight loin cloth speedo thing,  pair of sleeves that meet across the back of the shoulders with no waist and just a rope holding the front together and finally a pointed felt hat.

The combatants take the field in an exaggerated gallop jumping and dancing while flapping their arms imitating a soaring eagle.  The bout begins with the two wrestlers standing and grasping each others elbow and either the opponent’s loin cloth or sleeves.  The bout is over when one of the wrestlers forces the opponent’s elbow or knee to the grass by knocking him off balance.

Once the vanquished touches the ground with his elbow or knee he then must walk under the winner’s out stretched arm as a sign of respect and untie his vest sleeves.  The victor then begins prancing and leaping around the field with his arms flapping like a cross between a dancing horse and a deranged eagle.  He then ends his best interpretation of a gay flamer by dancing around the flag pole in the center of the field.

He concludes his NFL style victory dance by prancing over to the winners table to receive his reward of the symbolic prizes of biscuits and aaruul (dried milk curds) and a nice bowl of Airag.  Once he has had his fill of curds he then grabs a hand full of the biscuits and passes them out to the refs, scorers and people in the grandstands.

There are traditionally 512 competing wrestlers and they are paired off in groups of six or seven pairs wrestling at a time.  The six or seven winners of the first round of matches will later be paired up against other winners.  In the end the ultimate winner will have to fight his way through a half a dozen or more competitors over the course of a day.

IMG_4921The archery contests take place in a field just below the wrestling field and is just as interesting.  contestants are divided by men and women.  Men compete by firing their arrows into a plate size target angled at a 45 degree slant 60 meters out.  The women loose their arrows at the same size target but from only 45 meters.

The contestants are dressed in traditional Mongolian costumes and use traditional recurve bows with no modern sites.  Each contestant seems to have their own cheering section standing down by the targets and in addition to cheering their local champion on they serve as human range finders signaling the archer how high or low his arrow passed by the target.

A few pictures from the last day in Mongolia with Ogi and his family.


This post is being uploaded two years later than when originally written because I could not get on the internet for 21 days after the draft was written while in China and then I was separated from my laptop for two more weeks in Central Asia.  By the time I was reunited with the laptop I forgot this was in drafts and never posted.

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2 Responses to Final Days in Mongolia

  1. Erin says:

    Glad I could help find the lost blog post of Mongolia! Have fun Dad!

  2. Bee says:

    I’m really glad you realized this post hadn’t been uploaded yet. Such a unique experience and not a trek I’ll ever make. Thanks, Rockie (and Erin!)

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