Mongolian Kitsch

29 August 2007

Terelj National Park Outside UB

Posted by admin under: Countryside; Food; People .

Immediately after arriving in Mongolia, I went out with the group to this park east of Ulaanbaatar. It wasn’t exactly the “real” countryside with nomadic people and the bit, but it was definitely sweet to get out and do something so soon after arriving. The park seemed to be filled with a lot of these semi-commercial “ger camps”, where tourists come and stay in a ger tent for a few days, basically just so they could say they did it. The fact that they were more or less permanent added to the semblance of the whole operation. It’s definitely a good low cost tourism deal for the Mongolians, however, because they just need to set up some tents and people will flock to them. The novelty can be fleeting and some of the camps have houses with showers and stuff to keep people happy.

So we basically hung out in the camp for most of the day getting to know the other volunteers and doing the usually cultural note swapping about the differences between Mongolians and English, English and Scottish, Filipino and Canadian etc., etc. We got an excellent traditional Mongolian meal that consisted all the greatest hits: huushuur (hamburger covered with dough and deep-fried), buuz (same as huushuur, but smaller and steamed), mutton with noodles, mutton with rice, and milk tea (hot thinned milk with salt, apparently actual tea is involved somehow, but I’ve never tasted it).

Outside the camp there was a nice river and some pretty impressive mountains. We didn’t get out too much, because it was rainy, on the other hand everything was super green.

The obligatory group shot. We’re not entirely homogeneous, but definitely stand out in a crowd of Mongolians. Some of the people are current volunteers who have been working for a few months to a year already the rest are new like me.

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