Sleeping in a Ger

What really made our visit to Terelj special was spending the night in a ger, also known as a yurt. Gers are the round felt tents that Mongolia is famous for, although they're more like a portable room than a tent. We stayed in a ger next to that of the family that hosted us. It was a little weird having the whole thing to ourselves when the entire family was crammed into the other one (we counted at least 4 kids), but hosting tourists is a business for them, after all, so I didn't feel too bad.

We stayed in the ger with the yellow door.

It was a bit like camping in a cozy circular cabin. Beds lined the walls, and there was a small wood stove in the middle. It got pretty cold at night, but with the stove and warm blankets we were OK. We did wake up a couple of times in the night when the horses were screaming and the dogs were barking (at some sort of wild animal, I suppose--I just put my head under the covers and pretended they were just having some sort of party).

Early morning in the ger.

There wasn't any running water, which we expected, so we were happy to get back to UB and a nice hot shower. What we didn't expect, though, was satellite TV! Several gers in the area had satellite dishes, including the family we stayed with, and they made ample use of them.

Mongolian soap operas, anyone?

True nomads don't have electricity, but most of the Mongolians who live in the park are only seminomadic--they either stay there year round or during the spring, summer, and fall instead of moving around all year. (It's estimated that of 2.7 million Mongolians, about 25 percent are truly nomadic, 25 percent are seminomadic, and 50 percent live in cities and towns).

Mongolia isn't known for its exquisite cuisine, but at least it's hearty. They used to look down on the Chinese for eating vegetables, because vegetables are for animals--they subsisted on dairy and meat. Today they also eat rice and noodles. It was pretty much dairy overload the entire time. I love dairy almost as much as dessert (which is its own food group, right?), but it was almost too much even for me.

Breakfast--tea, cheese, bread and jam, and rice with milk.

With every meal, we had tea (which was more like salty milk with just a splash of tea), and for breakfast we also had some sort of cheese made from mare's milk. It was surprisingly tasty--very creamy and mild. Still, it just felt wrong to eat any kind of food product from horses! Luckily we didn't have to eat any horse meat--just mutton, mutton, and more mutton. And when we got back to UB, we ate lots of pizza and spaghetti to make up for it.