Little Naadam in Big Sky Mongolia
July in Mongolia is all about the Naadam festival. Centred around Ulaanbaatar these annual national games are drawing more and more tourists every year to Mongolia. But it’s not only tourists who visit UB for the festival.
In fact, tourists are, pleasantly, still a small minority during the games. Thousands of Mongolians from all over the country descend on the capital to witness, or participate in, “the three manly sports”. Contests of strength (wrestling), of skill (archery) and endurance (horse racing) are conducted on the first two days of the festival, the 11th and 12th of July, whilst the third day is reserved for the unofficial fourth “manly sport”: drinking and revelry.
The festival kicks off early on the 11th at Sukhbaatar square in downtown Ulaanbaatar with a ceremony that unites the Nine Horse Tails representing Mongolia’s nine (traditionally rival) tribes “coming together” for the festival. The ceremony forms a procession that ultimately winds its way into the National Stadium where the grand Opening Ceremony takes place. Parachutists descend from the sky into the stadium and various marching bands, famous personalities, performers and athletes circuit the stadium to the rapt attention of the locals. But not all the action is inside the arena. Surrounding it is a bazaar of food, drink and ice cream stalls as well as vendors selling everything from Mongolian flags to traditional boots! The stadium is the venue for the wrestling and nearby is the archery arena. The horse riding takes place on the grasslands just outside the capital. And despite being called “manly”, women participate with the men in all but the wrestling.
With Naadam to look forward to we set out into the Mongolian wilds to do some cycling in nomad country. Our trip took us cycling over nine days from Bayankhongor, on the edge of the Gobi Desert to Khakhorin, Chinggis Khan’s ancient capital, through the Arkhangai Mountains in central Mongolia. With lots of river crossings, big hill climbs and gnarly downhills on some of the most unforgiving terrain imaginable the cycling was both a challenge and superb fun! But even more rewarding than this was the incredible experience of travelling through country accessible only to horses and (sometimes) four wheeled drive jeeps and at a pace that allowed us to ride with nomad herders and wild horses, stop and visit families in their traditional homes, the “ger”, with time to absorb the beautiful changing landscapes that we cycled through. Each day was topped off with a camp under the stars at night!
The most memorable day for me was one that started under an endlessly blue clear sky. We cycled along the crystal clear Tuy River and were literally dragged into a ger to visit a family. We were given a warm welcome with bowls of “koumiss”, fermented mares milk, and various cheeses of varying degrees of hardness and palatability! The family was delighted to share with us some of the snacks and sweets we had brought along with us. We were proudly shown around their home and introduced to the methods for making cheese and koumiss. It was a great visit and I won’t forget the hospitality that we were shown by these people. Next was two seriously big climbs and speedy descents as we crossed two river valleys under darkening skies. We were greeted for lunch by our local crew who had set up a marquee to shelter us from the imminent rain. Suddenly the temperature plunged and lightning and thunder flashed across the sky. With enough time to gobble down our lunch of borscht, salad and goulash with an entre of boiled egg topped with Russian caviar! we scrambled to the support vehicle as the wind and rain blew up the walls of the marquee. After ten or so minutes of watching nature at work the sun popped out briefly to reveal distant mountains covered in white hailstones.
Despite the rain we mounted our bikes again but only managed to get as far as the next ridge where we came across a crowd of Mongolians of about 150 conducting their own local Naadam! Many were circled around the wrestlers who were competing just off the jeep track we were cycling along. Most were on horse back and circled us slack jawed foreigners on metal horses as curious as we! Some of us headed off to watch the wrestling but most remained rooted to the spot on the track amazed at what we were seeing when suddenly all those on horseback started whooping and screaming and gesturing wildly at us. Somehow in the confusion we noticed that all those on horse back had lined the road and in the distance, charging down the road we were originally headed, was the first of the horse racers charging toward us! We quickly got off the road and watched, cheering and yelling with the locals, as the leaders ran their final sprint to the finish line. After being paraded around the winning horse was touched by all for luck and the young rider, about ten years old, presented the horse to be touched by us as well. Luck for us was to come across this local Naadam. Unlike the National Naadam festival the timing of these small local festivals depends on when the grass is most likely the greenest and the responsibility for choosing the dates is left to the elders who employ a combination of astrology, history, the advice of monks, intuition and common land know how!
Reluctantly, we had to leave but spent the rest of the afternoon inspired: racing with wind, rain and mud in our faces across a vast soggy plain to our campsite. All that and we still managed to cycle over 70kms on some very challenging terrain and in some very challenging conditions! That was the day I’ll remember most fondly! It was hard to leave the countryside and our local crew and our experiences behind and head back to the “big city”. But rather than be a letdown, the National Naadam was a real treat! Experiencing our own little Naadam brought the National event into sharper focus for us. We felt we could share the sense of journey of the many Nomads who make the pilgrimage from their far flung “home” in the sparsely populated grasslands to the spectacle and prestige of competing with and watching their national heroes in their nation’s capital.
Article by Scott Spencer