As we had a pretty cold and soggy Naadaam in central Mongolia, we decided to attend another rural festival this time in Mandalgovi – ie. Middle Gobi. It was super arid, we got to see wrestling and I got to touch the sweat of a few of the horses who won the race – this is supposed to be auspicious – I washed my hands a lot after…..
This Naadaam had lots of colourful bouncy castles and for a while I felt like I was back on the playa at Burning Man. One super old guy came up to me and I got kisses on both cheeks – most of the folks here are super friendly and seem to like my beard…. the kids were in stitches as the old bloke loved me up!
we then checked into our ger/ yurt which had a mini fridge and WiFi….kids even got to play some football with the hosts little daughter….kids also got to plant a tree to add to the Gobi Oasis Project – an effort to stop desertification of the local towns.
Didn’t you try your hand at wrestling Doug???
Only wrestling with my own demons. The Mongolian wrestlers were huge and we were able to be right on the field with them at the rural event. We also got to watch the main wrestling from UB on tv – it was awesome!
Nice post. I guess if you are going to glamp in a posh yurt, the middle Gobi in central Mongolia is really the place to do it. keep it coming.
It was pretty sweet…the fridge was particularly nice as cold/cool drinks were pretty rare.