Camel videos

We took a lot of photos and videos when the camels came to town... Camels are exciting!

If you ever wondered what a camel polo game looks like here's your chance to experience it.




Aaron plays reporter in this next video. Please excuse my camera work... a little on the fast side.

Seen on a menu in a small UB pub

Chicken tasted by Singapore.

How many people live in Singapore? Will there be any chicken left for me if I order it?

Mongolian food

As I see it there are three categories of food in Mongolia: (1) meat, (2) white foods (literal translation from the Mongolian, meaning dairy products) and (3) Russian-inspired food. These don't stay totally separate and do intersect from dish to dish.

(1) Meat.

Mongolians love meat. They love their animals but they have no problem eating them. The more fat, the better. The younger generation is starting to move away from fat a bit but they may just be telling me this to make me feel at ease when I pick the fat out.

I've asked students many times "What's your favourite food?" and inevitably the answer is buuz (steamed meat dumplings). Buuz is considered the national food and is a special occasion and any occasion food. A variation on buuz is huushuur. It's a deep-fried flat meat pancake. Think beavertail with meat inside. In canteens at lunch, I often see students and workers downing several huushuurs for lunch. Another lunch favourite is tsuivan; homemade noodles mixed with bits of carrots and cabbage and sprinkled with meat.

Meat is omnipresent in basically any dish in Mongolia. Even the salads have sausage bits. In cheaper canteens, there won't be as much meat in a dish such as tsuivan but there's still some.

(2) White foods.

These comprise of snacky things like dried milk curds and crusty butter and of the national drinks: salty milk tea and airag (fermented mare's milk). I love the tea but I could do without the mare's milk. Just recently, I tried a drink I had been avoiding for a while now: aarts. They call it a yogourt drink but it's not as pleasant as that. Think dry milk curds (some of you got to try those when you saw me in November) in hot water and mixed until the texture is fairly even but grainy. Yummy!

A popular meal is salty milk tea served in a bowl with meat dumplings. White foods are especially popular in the summer.

(3) Russian-inspired foods.

Mongolians took some Russian meals and ingredients and made it their own. They have their own version of shepherd's pie usually served with a bit of salad and a well-shaped hill of rice or two. Another popular meal is a ground beef patty topped with a fried egg and some brown sauce (with sides of salad and rice). Goulash (or gouliash in Mongolian) is an all-meat stew which often features on the menus here. Ketchup, mayonnaise and pickles abound.

Where are the vegetables??

Vegetables here come in the form of salads and carrot bits strewn about in the food. When I say salad I don't mean the green lettuce kind. I mean grated carrot or coleslaw or potato salad. Most salads are drowned in mayonnaise.

Prices (CDN$)

In a cheap lunch canteen, buuz are about 15 cents a piece. Huushuurs are 20 to 25 cents. A small plate of tsuivan is 55 cents and rarely do the meals go above $1.00. Salty milk tea is 10 cents a cup.

In other more swank places, the prices do go above the dollar mark.

The verdict

I've come to like most of the Mongolian food. It's comfort food really. But, I could do with a few more vegetables.

Everybody is famous in Mongolia

Or is at least related to someone famous. In the last six months, Aaron and I have met the first woman driver of Mongolia, a man who was instrumental in bringing the market economy to the country, various high-ranking officials including the city’s mayor, former Miss Mongolia’s gynaecologist, the Prime Minister’s doctor, famous horse trainers and the list goes on.

In a country of only 2.6 million people and 35 million cattle heads, it may be easier to be famous. You could even call me famous. I’ve managed to get on stock street video footage for one of the national networks and every so often, someone tells me, “Hey, I saw you on TV!”

Camel mania!

This past weekend was all about camels. There was a camel festival in town which meant we got to see a few games of camel polo, a camel race and a camel parade.

We saw big and small camels, white camels, camels with attitudes, camels pooping, camels slipping on ice, camels weeping, you name it, we saw it.

The camels and their owners came from far and wide. Most came from the south, from the Gobi Desert where camels are more common. The polo teams represented their respective regions.

Camels in Mongolia are bactrian camels (the two-hump kind). They're hairy things and the size of some of them was impressive. I did the tourist thing and did sit on one for a little bit. They're quite comfortable...

Aaron and I added one more to our list of weird food experiences: fermented camel's milk. Description: very creamy with a slight tang. People at the festival were lining up in droves for the stuff.

Comments

Aaron and I are disappointed in how few comments we get on our blog. We pour our hearts and souls into our stories yet we rarely hear from you.

Alyssa gets regular comments. Why not us? Aren't we worth the effort? What about Billy, isn't he worth the effort? He sacrificed his life for your entertainment!

Leg bits

Discarded hooves are a common sight in Mongolia. They usually have part of the leg still attached with fur and all. The first time we saw some was at the nomadic herding family's home. Aaron and I went out to explore a bit and found ourselves walking through what looked like a hoof cemetery.

Just recently, I noticed a hoof near one of the posher stores in town, probably dragged there by one of the stray dogs.

Dulaankhaan or the story of Billy's unfortunate end

Once upon a time (last weekend actually), a group of 14 dedicated volunteers (and spouses) descended upon a quiet little town named Dulaankhaan. Dulaankhaan (translation: Warm-King) is about four hours north of UB towards the Russian border. Pete, one of the 14 volunteers, had once lived in Dulaankhaan and was now playing tour guide to the other 13. Pete had worked there helping a group of women start a jam cooperative.

We stayed at Dulaankhaan's newest and only hotel which also happens to be the only building in "lower" Dulaankhaan with a second storey. A family runs the hotel, a convenience store and the public transportation to and from Darkhan, Mongolia's second largest city about an hour away.

The highlight of the trip was to be a horhog party on the Saturday with the women from the jam cooperative. A horhog is a Mongolian speciality consisting of meat (usually mutton) cooked in a pot with hot stones. It's usually done outdoors in the summer but ours was done inside.

We met Billy on Saturday. Billy was a nice three-year old goat who was kind enough to sacrifice himself for our party. One minute after I petted his nose, Billy was on the ground, hooves up with a man's hand deep inside his chest snapping off the main vein (or was it the aorta?) from his heart. Billy died to an audience of shocked foreigners. The man attached to the hand then brought Billy inside, skinned him and removed the internal organs. While Billy was being cut into pieces, the women were preparing blood sausages and cleaning the stomach and intestines. Mongolians eat just about everything on a goat. It was all quite quick. And bloodless. Not one drop of blood was spilled. Finally and again to the shock of the foreigners, Billy's head went into the freezer for future use.

Billy was cooked with hot stones in a big pressurized pot. He was joined by potatoes, onions, garlic and spices. We ate, we sang and then danced. The women tried to teach us the tea cup dance. The dance is all in the shoulders but our shoulders didn't want to listen.

It was relaxing to be in the countryside away from the city. Deadly quiet too. Hours can easily go by without a car driving down the main drag in Dulaankhaan. Most residents walk or ride their horse to get around town.

I'd go back to Dulaankhaan in a second. Perhaps not to live but another weekend there would be nice...

Happy Women's Day!

International Women's Day is celebrated differently here than in Canada. First off, it's a full national holiday with schools and businesses closing for the day. Secondly, the day is more of an appreciation day. People celebrate the women in their lives. Husbands and sons cook dinner and give gifts to their wives and mothers. Grandchildren visit their grandmothers. It's almost like having Valentine's Day and Mother's Day on the same day. Yesterday, in one of my classes, the male students brought chocolate to give to the female students and well, me.

Weather report

For two days last week we could feel that spring was on its way. The snow was melting, the mercury made it above zero and the clothing layers started coming off people.

Then, just to prove us wrong, 10 centimetres of new snow blanketed the city. Once the snow storm ended, the temperatures plunged and we've been waking up to temperatures below -30 every morning since. Some days it does warm up during the day.

Last Sunday, a few of us (Aaron excluded) went sledding. It was ridiculously cold but we had a great time. There was a small sled rental place at the bottom of the hill. So much fun. I'm almost hoping the snow stays longer so I can go back.

A herding herder

A herder takes charge with his whistling and herds some cows out of a corral. I give him a "good job" compliment. I think he's done it a couple of times before.