Same Same But Different

We heard the phrase so often in Southeast Asia that we started using it ourselves. And cringing.

Australia and Canada: same same but different. Tomato sauce: ketchup. Quickies: Tums. Big W: Wal-Mart. The place is crawling with 7-11s and coffee shops. It's difficult to find regular coffee here but espresso drinks abound.

What I missed while in Asia: drinking tap water and eating whole wheat bread. I'm now fully sated. Mmmm... chlorine water. Best water there is!

What I first noticed when I arrived in Australia: all the extra space! The country and the streets seemed empty after China and Southeast Asia. I've become used to it now.

Some things are expensive in Australia. A 500 ml bottle of coke is $2.50 and up. Accommodations is a lot more than what we paid in Asia.

Aaron, Adam (Aaron's bro), Yindee (Aaron's bro's partner) and I drove from Sydney to Brisbane over the last several days. We saw a lot of coast, wineries, some really cool sand dunes, kangaroos (!) and koalas (!!). Adam and Yindee have now headed back to Sydney and Aaron and I are flying to Cairns tomorrow.

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.

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...

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.

Wild for wild horses

Last Monday, we went to a national park about an hour and a half out of town to see wild horses. Called Przewalsky horses (or tahi in Mongolian), these horses were reintroduced to the area after disappearing in the wild several decades ago.

Tahi have 66 chromosomes instead of the usual 64 chromosomes for a horse. I don't quite know what this means but it's interesting.

There's 197 horses in the 50,000 hectare park. They hang out in groups of up to 20 horses.
We saw three separate groups while we were there. They were quite pretty and we spent a long time observing them from a safe distance. There were young foals in the groups. The baby horses are white for the first year.

We also saw deer in the park and hiked a mountain. Our group were the only ones visiting the park... all this space and only the wildlife to share it with.

Again, we'll upload our photos as soon as we can.

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver.

My eyelashes were icicles this morning.

Sighting: Stray dog sporting full-on dreads. Quite a sight. I actually stopped and looked at him for a while. I wanted to take him home and shave him. I don't know dog breeds but he was like a tall, long hair cocker spaniel. I didn't have my camera with me (not that it actually works in this temperature).