horses in the land of genghis khan

so we finally managed to get our constipated bums in and out of mongolia despite 1 missed train (in to the country) and a few brushes with some thievery (prior to leaving). oh yes, now we're talking.

strangely enough, the land of genghis khan felt incredibly welcoming as we tiredly walked off of the train platform. the 30+ hours had taken its toll but we were all anxious to see a country other than china. it was snowing which immediately made me wince. how the hell was this happening?

three strange things greeted as we walked down the streets of ulan bator: 1) a spray painted graffiti creation that read DETROIT. HAH! lovely. 2) a drinking hole that was aptly named "DETROIT AMERICAN BAR." 3) a goddamn mongolian barbeque. what was the world coming to? i found this quite ironic after my tongue in cheek comment about finding one when we arrived. it was the same "BD's" sign that we are all accustomed to in the US of A but the cuisine was ACTUALLY mongolian. funny how that works.

wonderful! home we were.

mongolia is an interesting place. historically, these pups were hard as rocks when old ghengis was in power. they had the strongest empire around, but sadly enough you see no traces of that robust image today.

the capital city, ulan bator, has a population of about 1 million. half of which live in fun little "tents" called gers (rhymes with bears). another large portion of which drink yaks milk for breakfast. sadly enough, we never got to have a try.

they love their mutton, which i still dont really know what the hell that stuff is. from what i gathered, basically it is a shitty portion of the lamb that they pawn off as a national meat. go figure. but after chewing through lots of fat and a few tendons and such, the meat is quite tasty. and trust me when i say that they LOVE it-- it is the basis of every meal. mutton soup, noodles with mutton, mutton balls, mutton salad. you get the point.

having enough of the city, we decided to kick it in the rural parts. oh yes. three americans in rural mongolia. this has got to be good, right?

about 2 hours in a mini-bus and we pulled in to terelj national park. after getting outside the city it was like barren, cold desert.

nothingness is probably a better word.

there were rolling hills, some "mini-mountains" and lots and lots of animals running about (horses, camels, sheep, dogs).

bryan, omri and i settled in with a family below a couple mini-mountains. there was a nice little ger with our name on it. it was nicely outfitted with a wood stove and three beds. the thing looked strikingly similar to an igloo.

we got by with a little broken english-- apparently there were horses to ride and some views to take in.

horses? jesus, i hate horses. but the views sounded nice. looks like the indiana jones shoes were coming out again.

turns out henry and i got along real well. henry was in fact my horse for the afternoon, thank you. the wind was blowing particularly harder than normal, i had about 18 layers of clothing on, but still managed to enjoy the hell out of trotting around the countyrside.

it was scary. historically i am not an animal person. i hate cats. not a huge dog fan. guinea pigs and the like i find to be useless. i never enjoyed pet goldfish-- they always died after about day 3 and i never got my money back. the petting zoo was never a fun place for me as a young boy, it always smelled like ass from my point of view.

see, i am the person that enters someones home who has a dog and just cringes when old "scruffy" jumps in my lap for a little play time. its always an awkward situation, and for those that pay attention to my body language, it appears as though i am deathly ill as i sit trying to "appear" as though i am playing with my new furry friend. what's really happening couldnt be any further from the truth. in fact, i usually end up inflicting pain on the critter to get it away from me and then things usually end up in the gutter from there.

anyway, so the real irony of the situation is that this horse and i were getting along quite well. i felt like i was straight out of a john wayne film as i rounded up stray cattle and trotted bare back through the great terrain of mongolia.

ok, so i didnt get much past a slow trot on the thing, but how about a little exaggeration?

the landscape was stunning really (i would share photos, but i think thats illegal in russia. haha only kidding, the ruskis are nice people but lord knows how i would even manage to get them on the computer with this setup). well at least i thought it was at the time. as i sit here now, part of me thinks i was enjoying it only because old henry the horse was doing all the work.

the following day we rode horses again. this time i managed to take some risks with a full-on gallop. good fun.

late the second evening after a few cocktails, i woke up in the middle of the night having to take a leak. i stumbled out of our ger in to the extreme cold and i damn near pissed on myself. i stood without shoes in the middle of the frozen desert and was staring dumbfounded out around me. it had snowed during the night-- and holy shit, there was a decent amount of it. i was not expecting such an event to occur. i ran ferociously back to my bed.

needless to say it made for some nice mongo landscape views the next day. snow capped mini-mountains and trees covered with a light dusting of snow. kind of cool, i guess.

we were off that day on the train to russia (that will be the next blog post after i get off in moscow. right now we are in irkutsk-- the eastern capital of siberia. look it up on the map. tomorrow we leave to take the 80 hour train to moscow. if you connect the dots from irkutsk to moscow, you can see we will be cruising along the railtracks in the absolute middle of nowhere.. somehow that is kind of cool to me).

more on that! promise. there are good stories already.

in other news, my sister emily is coming out for a visit in europe! she will be meeting up with me in budapest and we will trek on through to istanbul. i have been quite lucky with the visits from my pals back home! two of my favorite girls in the whole world will have joined me on this little adventure when it is all said and done.

pictures will come from the mongolian excursions when the time is right. they will surely paint a better picture than my words i imagine.