MONGOLIA’S WELCOMING GERS (YURTS) – Guest Post by Caroline Hatton

Sunset over tourist ger camp, Mongolia

My friend and fellow children’s book writer Caroline Hatton shares some notes from her June 2015 trip to Mongolia. To find out more about Caroline and her books, visit her website, www.carolinehatton.com. She took all the photos in this post.

VISITING NOMADS IN THEIR GERS

When my husband and I visited Mongolia, spending time in gers allowed us to enjoy many novel, interesting experiences. A ger (rhymes with air) is a traditional Mongolian home, a round hut made of a wooden structure covered with felt and canvas. Mongolian nomads can put up or take down a ger in about an hour! The Mongols live in gers in the countryside, in small towns, and outside of the country’s few cities, where apartment buildings are also found.

The following is based on advice from Mongolia Horse Trek guides, photographer Thomas Kelly and anthropologist Carroll Dunham.

* Mongolian families welcome visitors in their gers. There is no need to knock, but don’t approach a ger unless the occupants know you're coming, because guard dogs are likely to be on duty.

* To enter, step through the doorway over the threshold with your right foot.

* Once inside, go left. Never step between the two wooden poles that support the roof.

Never step between the poles

* When seated, never let the bottoms of your feet be visible to others. It would be very offensive.

* When your hostess offers you a dish of food or beverage, take it with both hands, or use the right hand (not the left hand!) with the left hand supporting the right forearm.

* If served, say, a cup of vodka, first you must offer some to the sky, to ancestors, and to the earth. To do this, hold the cup in your left hand, touch the vodka with the tip of your right ring (fourth) finger, then raise your hand and flick the droplet straight up. Touch the vodka again with the same fingertip, then flick the droplet over your right shoulder. Touch again, flick again, this time straight down on the floor.

* Drink as much vodka as you wish and give the cup back to the hostess, with two hands, or use the right hand with the left hand supporting the right forearm. If you don't want to drink any vodka, dip the tip of your right ring finger in it and touch your forehead just above your nose, before giving the cup back.

* If it's a food, take the dish, then take some food and eat it, or give the dish back—don't smear food on your forehead!

To say thank you, the Mongols I met said bayarla.

STAYING IN A GER

Lapis Sky Camp

The following is based on personal observations.

* Before walking in, take off your hat so you can see the top of the door frame and avoid whacking your skull on it.

* It’s great that the roof is always open because you won’t need to consult your mobile phone weather app to know that it’s raining outside.

* If the door is open, a squirrel (Citellus undulatus) might come in.

What squirrel?

The squirrel might run out through the crack between the floor and the bottom of the wall.

Squirrel exit between floor and wall

* Bathing: if the bucket of water you carried back from the river appears to contain a nearly-transparent baby fish swimming around, the size of a nail clipping, use a mug to catch him, put him back in the river, and rinse your mug with bottled water to prevent subsequent gastrointestinal distress. Alternatively, go take a hot shower in the shower ger.

* Laundry: if the next bucket of water you carry back from the river contains two baby fish (which you couldn’t see when you were at the river, in the dim evening light), if there is no sunscreen or insect repellent on your T-shirt and socks, and if you don’t plan to use soap, ignore the fish and gently rinse your T-shirt and socks in the bucket. When done, even though the water is no longer clear, you should still be able to see the fish swimming. Go pour the dusty water (and the fish) back in the river. Alternatively, the camp staff will be happy to do your laundry.

Bucket on wood-burning stove

* If you’re as lucky as I am, your wonder husband will hang your clothes to dry on the outside of the ger and the next day he will move them to the other side of the ger to keep them in the sun.

Wonder husband hanging laundry

* My husband was also quick to take the clothes inside as soon as we heard it coming—the bleating goat herd. According to experts, goats eat socks.

* If you step outside during the night and see two lights blinking in unison, it’s not fireflies on a date, it’s a yak batting his eyes at you.

Domesticated yak

Seriously, the superior comfort and charm of gers added a lot to our well-being and pleasure while in Mongolia, and to our happy memories ever since.

FOR MORE INFO

Watch Mongols set up a ger at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FCXuv6AiAc (2-minute time-lapse video)

Read about gers at http://education.nationalgeographic.com/encyclopedia/yurt/

Learn about Mongolian etiquette at http://www.mongolian-ways.com/customs.htm

MONGOLIA’S WILD PRZEWALSKI HORSES: Guest Post by Caroline Hatton

Przewalski horse, Mongolia

My friend and fellow children’s book writer Caroline Hatton visited Mongolia in June of 2015. Caroline has always been fascinated with horses and shares here a memorable experience she had with the rare Przewalski horses in Hustai National Park. To find out more about Caroline and her books, visit her website, www.carolinehatton.com . She took all the photos in this post, except for the one in which she appears, which was taken by her husband Bill.

Freeze. Nathalie’s silent body language was clear. As an eco-volunteer recording observations for the wild horse scientists of Hustai National Park in Mongolia, she knew how to follow the animals without disturbing them. Across the gully, a small horse, who looked like a live prehistoric cave painting, grazed peacefully.

Przewalski horses in the wild

This was no ordinary horse. It is called takhi in Mongolian (pronounced ta-chee with the ch as in the Scottish loch), Przewalski (pronounced prez-vahl-ski or sheh-val-ski) horse in English, and its scientific name is Equus przewalskii. It belongs to the same genus as the domesticated horse, Equus caballus, but it is a different species.The takhi are small horses. Average adult size is 135 cm (more than 13 hands, or 4 feet 5 inches) at the withers (the point between the neck and back).

The takhi once roamed the steppes of Central Asia in large numbers. It became extinct in the wild in the 1960s. But thanks to tremendous international efforts, it was re-introduced in 1992-2000, at sites including Hustai National Park, located roughly 100 km (62 miles) southwest of the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar. 

Although the takhi existed only in captivity for thirteen generations, it has never been domesticated. This makes it the only true living wild horse. In contrast, the American Mustang, a descendant of domesticated ancestors, is technically not wild, but feral.

As we watched the horses, Nathalie wrote down her GPS coordinates, the temperature, wind speed, and main activity of the band: grazing.

Caroline Hatton (left), takhi, and eco-volunteer

The takhi’s social life and behaviors are essentially the same as those of free-roaming Equus caballus such as “wild” Mustangs. Nathalie and I exchanged smiles when a foal took a peek at us, then suckled a few sips.

Mare and foal

The other mares and youngsters in the band grazed as they strolled uphill. The stallion brought up the rear. To drive one of his harem members, he “snaked” her by lowering his head, with his ears laid back.

The mare ran along well before the snaking stallion got near her.

Stallion “snaking" to herd a mare

Nathalie stood up when the takhi moved out of sight, up the gully. She followed them quietly at a distance. Every ten minutes, she filled out one line on her data form.

Mutual grooming between friends

The band of takhi now stood below the top of the mountain, resting. Nathalie’s anemometer whirred as the wind rose. The temperature dropped even in full sun.

At eleven thirty, we ran down the mountain to meet the park minivan on the dirt road for our ride back to camp at noon. My husband and I thanked Nathalie and her boss, Nara, a park biologist, for letting us accompany Nathalie all morning.

While at the park, my husband and I stayed in our own ger [the Mongolian word for a yurt] at the Hustai Tourist Resort (camp) and enjoyed the simple, tasty food at the camp restaurant. We hiked along gullies, up the low mountains, through steppe grasses and birch forest. Of the estimated 40,000 resident marmots, we saw an average of 14 per day.  We also spotted deer, squirrels, a hare, a gray fox, magpies, steppe eagles, and demoiselle cranes. We did not take advantage of the available domesticated-horse rides or visits to local nomads.

Foal nursing

Even when the takhi had gone extinct in the wild, it had remained alive in the hearts of the Mongolian people. Seeing takhi roam free in its homeland again was a moving experience.

For more on Hustai National Park (also spelled Khustain), visit http://www.hustai.mn.

To arrange a car ride from Ulaanbaatar to visit and reserve lodging, e-mail takhi@hustai.mn.

Watch the video, Hustai National Park part 1 of 2 (8 minutes) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkkaRe6u4C0.

Watch the video, Hustai National Park part 2 of 2 (9 minutes, including takhi info) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgKbZhq5ChY.

Watch the video, Hustai National Park’s ecovolunteer program (5 minutes) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AdA-bGHc7c

For information on takhi, visit http://www.treemail.nl/takh.