Land of the Blue Sky

Tent Eye

(Quick warning: This post is rather long and full of photos – give it a sec to load.)

Let me take you to a magical world of fairy tale delight and unicorn dreams:

There once was a very special girl who wanted to do some travelling before she left Japan. She looked and looked for interesting places to visit but didn’t have anyone to go with. One day she stumbled up this site and learned about the 2007 Khanuy Valley Settlement Project in the Khanuy Valley, Arkhangai, Mongolia. Excited about the project, she applied and was accepted. Two months later she found herself on a plane for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia very hung-over and not quite sure how she got there.

100 bottles of vodka and a campfire later, there were many stories to tell.

The Khanuy valley is a large valley about 15 hours on dirt roads west of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. Several nomadic families inhabit the valley, 4 of which were of immediate walking distance of camp. In fact, on the second or third day Scott (another participant and I) made a “ger visit” and had some amazing, home-made yoghurt.

Culturally related aside: I still don’t know how I felt about the ger visits – the information that I read regarding Mongolian culture on the steppes indicated that the families of the valley were warm and always happy to entertain guests and strangers.  The western American in me thinks “God, I hope I’m not inconveniencing them by showing up out of the blue…” etc ad nauseum and the Anthropologist in me says “Interesting view from the “Western American” lens – why do you feel this way?” etc ad nauseum.

Yogurt, cheeses, milk and other dairy products are incredibly important to the nomads and are the main staple used during the long winter months where the temperatures drop well below zero.

Hard cheese inside of a ger

For the entirety of the tip, participants lived in tents.

Home - mine is the yellow one up front

We had some wild storms that threatened to blow down a couple of the tents – and in fact, we ended up losing the kitchen “tent” ( though I’m not sure how accurate that term is) and one of the gals had a tent pole vs. tent material issue. The tent pole won. Thank god for duct tape!

Because we were in a valley, storms would often blow in during the afternoon, pass quickly, circle beyond the mountains and hit us again much harder when the sun went down (which was at about 11:00 PM and it rose at about 4:30AM).

Incoming storm

One evening at about 1:00 AM a huge lightning storm came in. There was so much lightning that for about 30 minutes, it was all you could see through the skin of your rain fly, strobing. It was one of the most amazing and downright terrifying experiences of my life, and because it gets so dark out there (we were miles from the nearest light bulb) the stars, moon and everything else were stunning. When the stars came out at their fullest around midnight, it was breathtaking.  The sky was so huge, so enormous that you would get vertigo looking up into it.  When we had a full moon, it was so bright that you cast shadows on the ground.  I’d go back in a heartbeat just to feel that again.

The bulk of our field research dealt with Bronze age nomadic pastoralists – a lifestyle that the modern nomads still adapt. As we were studying the nomadic way of life, much of our research dealt with where things weren’t as well as where things were. As such, most of the time spent in the field was spent conducting shovel “test probes” – a 30cm by 30cm hole that was approximately 20 cm deep, depending on the soil strata.

Tools of the trade

However, one of the directors was conducting traditional archaeological excavation at a separate site about 8 minutes from camp.

Other tools of the trade

Horses are hugely important in the valley and Mongolia is well known for their unique, and incredibly study “Steppe ponies” (though there is nothing “pony” with these horses) that are smaller and more compact than their western counterparts.

As modes of transportation, the horses are green-broke; that is, only “tamed” to the point of wearing a saddle and bridle. They are still spirited and I have seen someone bucked off. (It is important that the horses remain “wild” while in the herd in order to protect themselves.) In fact, I myself almost fell off while trying to get a horse into a canter the first time I rode!

Part of the archaeology involved looking at and understanding these amazing standing stones known as “deer stones”, whose main motif involved beak-nosed, flowing antlered deer, as well as belt-like motifs, chevrons and earring or sun emblems.

Awesome

Deer stone and bone

Here you can clearly see the deer pattern

Before the race

It just so happened that one day while trying to finish some probes near a winter camp near the deer stones, we found ourselves in the path of a Naadam horse race. Naadam, officially held in July from the 11th to the 14th in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, is often held in rural areas any time in June and July. Three events are held for the festival, wrestling, archery and horse racing (the only one of the three events that women can participate).  Normally, only children and young adults participate in the races because they are lighter than adults.  I was told by one of the neighbours that at the big Naadam in UB, kids are sometimes tied to the horses so that they don’t fall off. At any rate, as we were digging pits, a nomad come riding into our area and tells us that we need to stop digging, as pulling up sod during the sacred day of Naadam will keep the rains from coming. With a free afternoon on our hands, we decided to stay and watch the race.

My pronunciation of Mongolian was crap and I found it more beneficial for everyone involved to pass over the phrasebook and point to my questions. It worked like a charm and I was thrilled at learning about what the people of  the valley did, felt and who they were.  This guy turned out to be 78 and was the resident doc of the valley.

Rock on old man

The start and finish for the horse race

Saddle

At the starting line

Naadam certainly wasn’t the only time for celebration. Because the field directors have been working in the area since 2001, they’ve made some friends in the valley – one of which invited the lot of us to a goat dinner.

Goat dinner

A proud father and his sons

Shy

Dinner!

That brings us to food.  Because we were living on the steppe, vegetables and fruit are hard to come by in the field, so meals consisted primarily of mutton pastas, rice and fry bread – which is so amazing that I could eat it every day. Well, ok, we did eat it everyday for breakfast. We were fortunate enough to have an amazing cook who did wonders with what she had. A camp favourite was an amazing dish called “houshurs” (don’t check me on spelling for that one) which involved a mixture of ground mutton, spices, and some veggies wrapped in dough and fried.  Something akin to sucking on the sweet teat of Jesus himself.

Mongolia is a primarily Buddhist country, animals are slaughtered in as humane a way as possible and without the spill of blood. This involves making a small incision on the belly of the animal and shoving your arm into its chest cavity in order to snap the aorta with your fingers. In this way, as little blood is shed as possible.

Poor White Fang

Our vehicles often fell apart because of the beating they took. One day, while coming home from the field for the evening, we lost a tire. It was a good thing that I was sitting on the very rear wheel well that took the crap!  Sean is one of the Mongolian students with whom we worked. His dad, Otro was one of the drivers for the project and aunt, Puje was the cook. Puje had a son, Tamiraa who was Sean’s cousin. The Mongolian project director, Erdna, was Otro and Puje’s older brother.  Also helping out were Hoa and Bayamonk, who was kind enough to procure horses for us.

For good reason, Mongolia is called “The Land of the Blue Sky” and they weren’t wrong. The scenery of the place is mind-blowing and sometimes surreal, especially with a horse under you and the sun setting.

Standing stone

Our bathing facilities

Camp from Dos Titties

Lone Tree

It was not uncommon to have visitors stop by every night with vodka or marriage proposals. Sometimes, when we were feeling especially crazy, we’d have Hoa start a bonfire. With gasoline.  It is customary to offer or be offered vodka, Mongolian National (home-brewed vodka from the remnants of airag) or airag (fermented mares milk) when a visitor comes to camp, and considered rude not to drink at least a sip of the offered drink when it comes around to you in the “drinking circle”. As such, it’s best to have a big group so that the vodka is shared amongst everyone else. Sometimes you have a small group and…well, those certainly were good nights.

A frequent visitor

Guests at our last fire

Family

After coming in from the field, I spent about a week back in UB mucking around, seeing the sights and taking as many showers as possible.

One of the highlights of my stay in UB was Gandan Monastery:

Prayer wheels at Gandan

Gandan Facade, UB

Naadam in UB:

Archers at Naadam

Naadam Dancers

Thanks for reading from me and Roland; our camp mascot:

Say goodbye Roland.