Day 135 - Around Kharkhorin - Mon 8 Jul

Day 135 - Around Kharkhorin - Mon 8 Jul
Light rain, cold morning, lovely to be able to sleep-in snuggled and warm, followed up by a cooked breakfast. Took washing to ger camp to have sheets and towels washed by machine.
We lucked into a regional/aimag Nadaam Festival, and caught whole opening ceremony, musicians, throat singing, acrobatics whilst skipping (impressive), jugglers (terrible, kept dropping), magician, swords through box with girl inside, parade of mythical creatures, VIPS, previous winners with jingling medals (mainly old men), traditional clothing, crossover coats with silver buttons tied with bright sashes, leather and stitched boots, some with curled up toes, felt hats (fedoras) and helmets with flaps and gold spires, some with tails, women same but carrying expensive handbags, often with high heels incl on boots. Cute kids abounded! An old man came up and talked to us in halting English, he’d been a musician and throat singer in the same time since he was a boy. Horses everywhere, some with fancy saddles, many riders bareback, great melee, maybe 2000 people, huge excitement. Big TV screen on back of a truck, but most people in the arena could see.

Break for lunch, food tents, giant pancake bread, mutton legs, huge slabs of fat, and milk soup in tureens and buckets. Everything was so crowded we had a salad wrap and mug of tea in camper. Archery, wrestling and horse racing followed in different places. Solid looking wrestlers wore tiny briefs, and arm wraps with three quarter sleeves tied on torso (goes back to when a woman won the "manly games" contest and then exposed her chest....). The aim of the match is to lock arms with your opponent and see who can get their man to touch the ground first. The winner does a short fancy weaving dance to the crowd, gets his hat back from the arena referee and goes over to line judge for a sip of milk soup (alcohol?) and some cubed bread which some then throw to the crowd. 

Archers were strong, using bone and gut bows to shoot good distances... crowd a little too close along the trajectory and at the landing area from BoyRob’s WHS perspective. Men playing “shoot the tile”, kids betting money on knuckle/ jack tosses, throwing darts at balloons, and quoits at wooden horse head stakes.

Watched the dust growing on the horizon before the first horse and rider came charging over the rise toward the finishing line, with other ponies close on his heels. Amazingly tight bunches, followed by large spaces before next bunch. Eventually the large number of entrants all came home, surprised to see how many were barebacked (and at least one entrant only in his socks - photo courtesy MnM!!). Wet horses were quickly unsaddled and brushed by gloved hand or flat stick on the spot before being led away. 

Drove up to have a look at penis rock and vagina slope, supposed to warn/prevent frisky monks from fraternising with local girls (don't know how THAT was supposed to work!) the usual trinket sellers were out and about. Drove out behind monastery to look for turtle rock, no problems once on right path. Head of turtle was dark from multiple celebrations involving fat being pored over head as an offering. Found pottery shard in open field on way back. Also drove over rough track (deep new erosion gullies from recent flood through town) to peak overlooking town, splendid view.... walked around the three huge mosaic panels around central stupa, each showing Mongol empire under different leaders. Sadly the monument is crumbling already even though only erected in 2004. Saw crumbling remains of Russian buildings incl power station vacated following their purges of 1937. Found container market and bought 11lt bottles for portable washing water to replace the fiddly small ones continuously filling now. Ate at ger camp again, to bed early tired after fascinating day.