More of Mongolia -Vegetarians beware, "hot pot"

We were kind of stuck in Pingyao for a couple of days, waiting for the train than goes to the exotic Yinchuan, once the capital of the Western Xia Empire. The guy of the hostel was stunned that we want to go where there are people that don't eat pork. (There is a lot Hui population there which is Muslim). Then we were stuck in Zhongwei for other day (and that's a very interesting story that will be told some days (or maybe weeks) later and we finally got to Xining in Qinghai province to realize that most of the inland ways out of the province are closed because of Tibetan unrest. Anyway, more of this later, the point is that I had time to continue the Mongolian story.

Eight Lakes Valley - the yak's way

The Yak!

So we hit the road (or the mud) again: 400 km (see footnote), 12 hours, several stops when the driver had signal and only one Mongolian tape played in loop. Almost a month later we still hum the songs.

Taken by Teresa

We were supposed to start a 2 day walking, 2 day horse riding trek, but the evening we arrived it was raining so heavily that we started to doubt the plan. But when we woke up, it was sunny. But (again) when we were ready to go, it started to rain. We decided to start anyway.

One hour later, it was raining so heavily that we were completely wet and we had to stop in some ger on the way. We were received, as usual, in the Mongolian way, salty milk tea and some more diary products, and we had the chance to dry ourselves.

Wet!

We asked our guide for the forecast, and for what will happen with the weather and our trek. However, in a country where weather changes every other hour, it was useless. One hour later, the rain stopped and we had a sunny day again.

“It’s better for you to go on”, I’m pretty sure the guide said.

We went on for another hour until the storm forced us to stop in another ger. It wasn’t the place we were supposed to spend the night, I mean, the guide knows the families that are glad to receive foreigners for some tugriks, and we usually stopped at those families. However, this family was also happy to host us and this place happened to be highlight of our countryside trip.

We got dry there, and ironically it stopped raining for the rest of the day. The little boy of the family was glad to show us the sights of the place. Everything was bright green because of the rain and the yaks moving slowly into the twilight added a surrealistic flavor to the view. There was a small frozen body of water and also pieces of ice that broke the earth from underground (I think it’s called permafrost). And maybe one kilometer after that, a big transparent lake under the mountains.

The permafrost

The new little guide - taken by Duncan

We walked around until it was getting dark. When we came back, we saw the poor family cat tied to the front of the ger. Our guide was so afraid of it  that she wanted to have it tied outside!

Next day was sunny, but we were worried that we would have to make up for what we didn’t walk the previous day.

The distances and the times she told us didn’t make any sense and they seemed to change depending who asked…

The thing is that asking for information to English speaking Mongolians is a very hard task.

I’ll give my linguistic explanation, for something completely different. Mongolian is an SOV language: first, the subject, then the object and then the verb.

“The boy ate the goat” is said by a Mongolian speaker as:

“The boy the goat ate”, change of course every word and use a completely different phonologic system.

Then something more complex as “The boy thinks that the girl ate the goat”, should be something like “The boy that the girl the goat ate thinks”.

So think about the effort for Mongolians to understand complex sentences such as:

“What do you think we should do if the rain doesn’t stop?” or “Do we have to walk today for all the distance we didn’t walk yesterday?”

So we ended up making simple yes/no questions or multiple options questions. The problem is that most of the time we got a “yes” as an answer (as it happens in many Asiatic cultures), and the yes, we found out, has many meanings:

1.      “The answer is yes”

2.      “One of the multiple options you gave me is correct”

3.      “I don’t have the faintest idea what are you talking about”, or “You talking to me?” or, simply, “I don’t understand”

So the rule was to only take “no” as a valid answer.

Anyway, it take around 5 hours walking with many stops and very minor rains through an astonishing landscape of mountains and lakes and we got there – handmade dumplings waiting.

Lunch!

What’s more, after 5 days far from a shower, we had the chance of a bath in the cold lake.

We slept there one night and we spent the next two days riding horses through more of that beautiful landscape and many yaks everywhere. The riding was amazing; the horses didn’t hesitate in running and galloping with a small kick and some “choo choo” at their ears. But those two days killed us, and we could barely move afterwards!

Evening after our first day riding

After horses

Next morning, we met our driver and van again and a big pot of stew. We started a short drive again and we had new promises of “hot pot”.

Orkhon Valley – where we ate the famous hotpot and the driver gets into a fight.

After half an hour driving, we stopped near a herd of goats. Our guide left the van and we see her talking with the herder. 5 minutes of discussion, she  points to a goat and pulls some tugriks from her pocket. Then she and the herder start to chase the goat until she almost throw herself over it and grabs it from its horns. The driver runs out to open the door, and the guide drags the goat –next day lunch- to the front seat.

They were thrilled and happy and talked loudly, and our vegetarian girl was completely in shock!

It seems that doing a hot pot is an especial occasion and kind of a celebration. I think it’s pretty clear but picking a goat is not so different than going to the supermarket and picking some meat, only that in the Mongolian way, you don’t need a fridge.

So we drove with the goat screaming once in a while and the girl silently crying in shock until we arrived to our next destination on the side of the Orkhon river.

The father of the family that received us there seemed very glad with the goat and the prospect of doing a hot pot and they killed it while we were exploring around... By the time we came back the goat was clean, the little girls of the family were playing with it, and our guide was again preparing inside meat sausages (not our meal this time).

Next day, after a beautiful sunny morning and 2 seconds under the freezing water of the river, we had the famous hot pot.

They put a rather big pan with some water over the stove in the ger, then some layers of meat and hot stones, onions, carrots, potatoes, and again meat, stones, veggies, etc… The meat was assorted pieces of the goat, which was cut in chunks of different sizes with bones and skin. This was an activity that involved all the women around cutting veggies, and all the men trying to catch the incandescent stones from the stove and putting them in the pan...

Our driver putting goat pieces in the pan

The hot pot is ready!

The result was, well er.., pieces of boiled goat. By Mongolian food standards, it was, well er…, kind of ok.

The same day started sunny became a stormy day with hail that caught me, and two of the girls, Teresa and Jen, several kilometers away. And again I had to unfreeze myself in front of the stove. The gers were packed with people this time. It seems that it was a popular spot and another group was also there, and we slept in tents despite the rain.

The night in the tents was ok, except for the yells and what I correctly guessed were the sound of punches. It was raining heavily and none of us left the tents, but on the morning our guide told us that our cheerful driver got in a fight with the father of the family when he refused to provide him with cigarettes and vodka. It seems that the fight also included our driver waving a knife, but everything ended there.

On the morning, the driver did his best to hurry us out of the place.

The footnote: Distance are provided as perceived the Mongolian sense of distance and I’m not sure regarding the relationship with reality. But it was a relatively short distance done in a very long time.