(Three little girls are belting out a traditional song in the talent show. Photo by Haydock.)

Day 6. What a day! 

We woke up about 6:30 a.m., our first morning at the reindeer camp. Already the women were out milking the reindeers. I washed my face in the icy-cold creek behind our teepee before heading next door to Gambat’s teepee for breakfast. To my surprise, we had bread for breakfast,  a really hearty, chewy whole grain sourdough. The cheese, made from reindeer milk, was creamy and mild. 

I never thought I’d be eating such delicious bread in Mongolia. I expected rice and noodles, but it turns out they’ve made flatbread for hundreds of years, and the tall loaves of yeast bread became popular after World War II. No one has an oven, so they cook the bread in a covered pot on top of the small wood stove in the middle of the teepee.  They take it out and turn it over halfway through cooking, to prevent the crust from burning. It’s humbling to see people make such good bread under these conditions. I’d be proud to get such good results in my modern American kitchen.

Today we rode up the valley to fetch water from a spring. It’s marked by rock cairns on the slope above. It’s really a series of springs that feed a small pool. I got down on my hands and knees and drank right from the pool. Yum. We rode on up the valley to a place where we made snow angels in a snowfield and we were close enough to Russia to see the Russian mountaintops.

Tulga told us a funny story about Vladmir Putin. Years ago, Tulga’s friend, a professional wrestler, beat Putin in a Mongolia-Russia wrestling match by throwing him flat on the floor. Mongolians like to say that when Putin couldn’t make it as a wrestler, he went into politics instead. Mongolia suffered under Soviet domination for many decades, ending in 1991, so now they enjoy any joke on the Russian bear.

We let the horses run on the trail going up the valley. My little white horse has a jarring trot, and the Mongolian wooden saddle doesn’t help, so I’m a lot happier loping. The elevation here is about 7000 feet and I get out of breath just staying on. 

A team of Peace Corps volunteers are here in the village, doing a one-week English language summer camp for the kids. At first I was disappointed to find these foreigners here with us, but “PCV’s”  aren’t like tourists. Each is staying with a village family. They speak Mongolian, and have really bonded with the kids. This evening they had a talent show and good bye party, because they’re leaving tomorrow. The highlight of the show was a group of teenagers dancing like Psy to the “Gangnam Style” music with teepees and reindeer all around. Funny thing, Morley and I were at Gangnam, in Seoul, only a few days ago!

During the show we sneaked a few photos of the young men of the village — teens and twenties — who were hanging out with their motorbikes, dressed in black leather jackets and boots. Down in the lowlands people ride them all over the landscape to herd their animals. You see almost as many people riding motorbikes as horses. The reindeer people use them to bring cargo from town, and they carry stuff on the bikes when they move camp.

The village women had a handicraft sale after the talent show. It was mostly ornaments and jewelry carved from reindeer antlers. I got a lovely little purse made of baby reindeer hide. I’ve been petting the baby reindeers, and their hair is soft and smooth, like a rabbit’s. Obviously, this baby died, but when I touch it I’ll remember what sweet and peaceable animals the reindeer are. It was a treat when Purvee, Gambat’s wife, let me milk a couple of her mother reindeers before supper. I didn’t really get much milk into the bucket, but the reindeers were patient with my clumsiness.

After the talent show we said “goodnight” and hurried back to our teepee, because Gambat is going to start a shaman ritual for us at nightfall. More about that, next time…

(Reindeers. Photo by Haydock.)

Since we came to Hovsgol, I have felt like I crossed into another world, a world of grass, horses, yaks, and gers, and today we did it again, crossed over the mountains into another world.

This morning we woke up in a ger or yurt, toasty in our sleeping bags with a crackling fire in the stove in the center of the ger. After a quick breakfast of bread and Mongolian cheese, we packed up for the ride to visit the Tsaatan, a reindeer herding tribe in the northern mountains. Yesterday we stopped at the last town in the valley and went to an army base there to get permits, because we will be less than 30 kilometers from the Russian border. There has been trouble with illegal border crossings, so you have to register before going that close.

At last around lunch time we got our horses for the mountain crossing. Technically they would be called ponies at home, because they’re so short and stocky, but the Mongolians consider these tough mountain horses to be equal to the longer legged horses of the grasslands or “steppe.”  Our guide told us they’re more reliable, less likely to shy at surprises along the trail, and a lot more sure-footed than the steppe horses, too.

Our horses were collected from several families’ herds near our ger. Kids brought them and tethered them to a couple of hitching poles, where they stood, six saddled for the riders, two for the handlers, and two packhorses to carry our belongings and food. Our guide Tulga told us to “think like a nomad,” so we pared down our duffels to the bare necessities — no extra shirts, one pair of pants, only a pair of sandals for extra shoes, etc. 

When we got on our horses, we asked what were their names. The guys laughed at our question and said, “They don’t have names.” They are fat-bellied, clean, and healthy, but it didn’t take long for us to understand that they are not pets or friends, as people tend to think of horses at home. They’re work animals, and they’re valued for their ability to get the job done. This doesn’t mean people don’t appreciate a beautiful horse or a fast or smart one. We’ve noticed that people have often left horse skulls at ovoos. They do that if they had a good horse who died, and they’re praying to get another good horse.

With all the rain that has fallen, the mountainside was boggy. The horses sank nearly to their knees in mud, and in other places had to pick their way over logs and through sharp rocks and boulders. Yes, they really were amazingly sure-footed. 

After about 3 hours plus a break for lunch we saw a teepee through the trees with gray boulders scattered around nearby. But, as we came closer, we saw them, not boulders but reindeers lying among the trees. That was only a hint of what was to come. Another hour picking our way down a steep forested slope, and we found a narrow grassy valley dotted by white teepees, with reindeer walking, grazing, running, and carrying riders here and there. Some of the male deer had spectacular racks of antlers covered with dark brown fuzz. Best of all were the babies, which were tied in small groups, watching us with huge dark eyes.

We had finally arrived at the spring camp of the Tsaatan, reindeer people, of the eastern Taiga. They’re really Tuvans, and most of the Tuvan people live across the border in Russia. They speak Tuvan among themselves, and Mongolian with outsiders. This camp has 22 families and about 250 people.  And I don’t know how many reindeer, plus a few horses. If you want to learn more about Tuvans, there’s a great documentary movie, Genghis Blues, about an American bluesman who won a throat-singing contest in Tuva. If you wonder what throat singing is, see the movie!

The reindeer are lovely, gentle animals. Kids ride them around the camp.  Wherever we are, we can hear them gently snorting. Two days after we leave the camp, the whole village will move over the next mountain pass to their summer camp, even farther away from the valley with its villages. They have to keep the reindeer at a high elevation where it’s cool, and where there won’t be too many flies. People tell us reindeer can’t stand flies. There were a lot of biting gnats along our ride in, so I can sympathize…

The first thing that happened on our arrival is that Gambat, the village shaman, brought a bunch of poles and they put together a big teepee for the three of us. It was wrapped with white canvas but in the old days they would have used bark and sometimes wild animal hides.  The teepee went up so fast, with pure nomad efficiency. It has a stove in the middle, so it’s nice and warm, and they brought a pile of firewood so we can keep the fire going through the night.

Good night from the Tsaatan village in the northern mountains!

In the afternoon of Day 3 in Hovsgol Province, we crossed into “shaman land.” Really, we were entering a national park area and the main valley west of the great Lake Hovsgol. The valley or  series of valleys is known as the Darhad Depression. The entry is marked by a line of thirteen ovoos. An ovoo is basically a pile of rocks, often with a pole or tree trunk sticking up out of the middle, or with a sort of teepee of branches and trunks alongside it. People like to stop and add stone to the ovoo, wishing for a safe trip or whatever is on their mind. They also tie blue or white silk prayer strips to the sticks and branches. At one ovoo there was a pair of crutches on the rocks, probably left in thanks to the spirits for healing.

The thirteen ovoos included twelve for the twelve Year Animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and one bigger than the others representing the local spirits. Our Mongolian companions told us we should find our year animal, walk around it three times, as one does at an ovoo, and then bow and pay our respects.  I found the pig, Morley the rat, and Pacey the pig like me. We left rice grains and “lucky stones” we had collected along the way. At the big ovoo we left an extra portion of stones and rice, and just as we finished, the mountainside sent us a reply. 

A big whirlwind came up in the trees nearby, roaring and whipping their the branches around. It broke free of the forest and passed right over us in a shower of dust and leaves. At first we were a little stunned, but then we decided it was the mountain welcoming us and giving us strong windhorse.

What’s windhorse? That’s a Mongolian expressing for the state of your spirit. If your windhorse is weak, it’s hard to get things done and your life gets messed up. If it’s strong you can accomplish your goals and you have a strong defense against disease, difficulties, and anyone who would harm you. I love the expression, because it reflects the Mongolians’ love for horses. They even have a popular weekly TV show about horse wrangling and beautiful horses.

Many people here take windhorse seriously. So far, our trip has gone well and the three of us are healthy, so maybe it means our windhorses are strong.

May your windhorse be strong, too!