Get thee to a Ger

One highlight, unexpectedly, was visiting a nomad family. These sort of things can be a nightmare, at least in the anticipation. Of course there are no phones out here, so you do just turn up at someone’s home and expect to be welcomed in. Well, this family hadn’t got their dirty washing out and did seem genuinely pleased to see us. We sat around drinking very salty tea and eating freshly made yoghurt while they asked us just as many questions as we did them, thanks to our fantastic guide and interpreter, Oggi. Kid goats ran around inside the ger to our own kids delight, and we tried to avoid stepping on the semi dissected sheep’s head in the corner. We watched the father – herdsman come wolf hunter – breaking a wild horse with his brother. We meet the sheep, the horses and the calves, but it was the goats that the children adored, picked up and generally couldn’t resist. I think the mother of the nomad family must have quite liked our kids (hers being away at school for the week) as she dressed them up in her own childrens’ traditional clothes. Joe liked his slightly less!

Just as the Uros Islands on Lake Titicaca in Peru showed us one utterly sustainable way to live, so did the nomads of Mongolia. The ger is easily assembled, taking an experienced family a mere half hour to erect. They live in close but comfy quarters, with the animals an integral part of life. They don’t break the ground, so vegetables aren’t high on the agenda, but we did learn that there are a whole variety of things you can do with mutton! We actually ate pretty well at the ger camp. The family move with each season, but never that far. They visit and are visited by friends from the surrounding hills, their kids go to school in Ulan Bataar during the week to leave the family to get on with the work with the herds. Wealth is counted in head of sheep, goats, horses and cows. Nothing is wasted. Horse dung makes great fuel, horse hair the ropes. They have solar power which allows them the luxury of TV, but refrigeration and cooking is done in the traditional way.

Three nights flew by at Elstei, but Jenna seemed to be faring less well than the rest of us. She had eaten very little and OK, the food was a bit different, but she seemed very cryey and just not herself. On the last night when I was hugging her I noticed how hot she seemed. It soon became evident she had not just been being naughty, she was poorly. She complained that her throat hurt, and I did an amateur diagnosis of tonsillitis on taking a peek and feeling her glands. As we were due to get on a 2 night train the next afternoon we hastily rearranged our plans for the morning, and added in a stop at the doctors. If Jen did have tonsillitis, she was going to get worse – and the train or Siberia was no place to do that. Not without amoxycillin.

Sometimes places and people amaze you. Ulan Bataar and Oggi our guide were no exceptions. Oggi had been lovely during our whole stay, and now she became organisational maestro. Early the next morning we had left our beloved ger, waved off by four herdsmen who galloped bareback alongside our van in a wonderful salute, and were back in the capital at a hospital. I paid the princely sum of 5000 tugruks (£10) to have Jenna seen immediately by a doctor. He turned out to be American, with a 4 year old daughter, diagnosed tonsillitis or step throat immediately and provided a script for Amoxycillin. It took all of half an hour with a great doctor, and just shows how efficient other countries medical systems can be … are there lessons here for the NHS??

We had time, thanks to Oggi, to visit our beloved supermarket, do internet and bank admin and enjoy a rather nice Italian lunch before we boarded our next train, bound for Siberia.

Apart from Jenna getting ill, which we put down to escaping the pollution of Shanxi and the rather abrupt change in climate, Mongolia was just excellent. We absolutely loved the country, wild and wide as it is. Get thee to a ger, and live an amazing life while Mongolia remains unspoilt.