An excellent adventure
Trip Start
Sep 2005
1
51
52
Trip End
Sep 2006
Erdinbulgan,
Mongolia
Friday, July 7, 2006
Another reason for coming to Mongolia was the Taimen fishing. Taimen is the largest species of salmon in the wolrd, and Mongolia is the best place to go fly-fishing for them. Lucky for me Iīd come across a guide at the camp who is used by all the scientific expeditions to locate and catch the fish. Iīd found my man, now all we had to do was find the fish. Actually there was three of us, Bayaraa the guide, Zagd the driver and me the international fly-fisherman. This was my last week in mongolia, and I was expecting it to be the highlight, even better than the marathon and the horse race put together. Iīd seen lots of pictures of fish that had been caught just 2 weeks earlier by Bayaraa with some rich american clients. These guys had been catching 3-4 fish a day. All I wanted was one, and I had about 6 days. It should really have been easy. But I finally got a taste of the mongolias famously erratic climate, and how it plays havoc with the rivers
01.Us Setting off
. Instead of sightfishing for these beasts in crystal clear rivers, all we could do was throw out a fly into a muddy torrent and hope for the best. Fishing-wise it was a disaster, we didn't even see a Taimen. Adventure-wise it was great. On the last day of the horse trek weīd had a fair bit of rain. The day we headed off in our packed-to-the-gills jeep with fishing rods, it rained a lot too. Reports on the roads were bad and the flash floods can be terrible in mongolia so we got travelling fairly early and got through the danger spots ok. The other horse trekkers who left the next day got stuck in a river which was only 6 inches deep when we passed through it.
I hadnīt really travelled much along mongolias roads so the first day was an eye-opener. If you like off-roading in a jeep in mud and marsh it was heaven. The weather caused havoc with the transport. I can't say roads because there wasn't any. We ended up spending most of the trip just trying not to get stuck. At one point we got stranded on a mountain looking for a safe passgage down. After 2 hours of driving round in giant circles we ended up back at the same dead tree. But full credit to the driver we didnīt get too seriously bogged down anywhere. The only time things got really bad, some nomads looked after us, and that was only for one day when got sandwiched between 2 flooded rivers
02.Dirk and Nadine setting off 1 day later
. Many people got stuck for several days, hundreds had to be helicopter rescued, quite a few people died because of the floods, others got killed by lightning!! I kid you not. Like I say it was a bit of an adventure. The day with the nomads was one of the highlights on this bizarre trip. Their hospitiality is the stuff of legends. They stuffed us full with every dairy product imaginable, then we sang songs together and got drunk on fermented mares milk and homemade milk-vodka. Nomadic mongolia is dairy product heaven. Fresh cream, butter, sour cream, yak yoghurt, dried curds, you name it. The mongolians are a bit like the Irish in that they all like to sing or do a party piece. I was really amazed at how many of them can play the guitar. As well as the food and singing we had a great time fishing. Ulagan, the eldest son (26), had recently been in an accident and was paralyzed from the waist down. His mother Enchtuya, said that he was depressed and that it would do him good to come out with us. So we brought him down to the local spring creek and let him loose wih a fly rod. Between the lot of us we caught an awful lot of grayling. The next day Enchtuya cooked these up as empanadas and fish head soup which was delicious.
The food got more adventurous when we left the nomads
03.Getting stuck up a mountain
. The high point was the mongolian equivalent of Christmas turkey - which is boiled sheeps head, with trotters, tail and lashings of fat, all served in a plastic bucket. Mmmmmmm. As special guest I was allowed first pick of all the extra tasty bits, like the lips, eyeballs, brains, etc. As special guest there was no backing out of it. I particulary recommend the left eyeball, provided it's not overcooked. You still want the hot runny juice to shoot into your mouth when you bite into it. Luckily we ended up in Erdinbulgan village (4000 people) for the Nadaam festival which was superb. At the villages you can get right up close to everything, which you can't do in the capital. It's also just a really good excuse for the whole community to let the hair down and party. So I thought, what-the-heck, why not do a spot of wrestling? I mean what's the worst thing could happen? The boys put my name down, and next thing I know I'm in the middle of the stadium, dressed in the garb, doing the falcon dance in front of a couple of hundred very tough mongolian villagers, cheering me on. My first opponent like myself saw the funny side of it, and I managed to wrestle him down quite quickly. My coach had me well tutored. Another falcon dance, pass my wing over the loser and pat him on the bum, grab some sweets from the judges table, and run round the stadium tossing them into the crowd
04.Looking for road down
. It's a sudden death competition, so the next opponent had already won a bout, and was a better wrestler. There were also many little things that conspired against me, and to cut a long story short I lost the second one. Only just. It was a long contest, my clothes started to rip, the crowd went mad when I had him on the backfoot. I started laugh and before I knew it I was on my arse. To be fair he was very quick, and like all mongolians he knew how to wrestle. It is officially their national sport. So it was like going to Brazil and trying to play football. It was a good laugh though. A great idea for a stag weekend!
The wrestling gives you a bit of a thirst for the fermented mares milk. It's not that bad, just like drinking runny natural yoghurt. According to my guide it's very good for you too. "Many shitting, many many shitting next day, very healthy!" I mustnīt hve drunk enough as I didnīt get to enjoy the health benefits that were promised. It's pretty weak too so I didn't even get drunk. I did manage to get typsy on homebrew vodka made from distilled yak milk. It's fairly weak so you could easily polish off a litre, if you can get used to the taste. The tasting notes should read "a very, very long lingering aftertaste of bad milk, with a bouquet of baby-burp." Still you can't complain when it's free
05.Finally, time to set up gear
. It all added to a very memorable week. And I can still taste it now.As ever itīs the people that really make travelling interesting. We stayed with a family who were racing horses in festival. I watched the mother stitching up jockeys outfits for her own boys while I sipped my salty tea. Most of jockeys are less than 7, and ride bareback. (The races are between 20-30k long! Even better itīs a straight course so they have to trot 20-30k to the starting line. And people joke about the Irish!) There was a big hulk of a guy stayed with us whoīd come to town to try his hand at the wrestling trophy. The winner in every village gets a motorbike! Myself and Bayaraa got a very tempting offer to a party at the river. Apparently, there were a lot of women there who were "in very good condition" because theyīd been drinking all day. There would be Big "Chiggyboom" that night. (Chiggyboom is a mongolian word for the reproductive process.) Real shame I had to save myself for the wrestling.
