Naadam

Blogging was starting to feel like a chore, so I took a break and really don’t fancy the stress of trying to catch up. I’ll get back into this with yesterday and today, and a lot of photos (I’ve managed to find the best internet connection in Ulaanbaatar, I think; it uploads in seconds).

I arrived in Mongolia yesterday lunchtime, tired after a 1am-6am flight to Beijing (the Chinese stamped my passport just for transiting!) and, a few hours later, a connecting flight to Ulaanbaatar, in which the airline served chocolate as a snack. Far superior to peanuts or those multicoloured things Qantas gave me. I wanted, most of all, to curl up and sleep, but I’d arrived in the middle of Mongolia’s annual festival, Naadam, so I ambled down the road to the grounds where a lot of Ulaanbaatar’s festivities are held.

The park is turned into a fairground: clothes stalls, food stalls, little barbeques set up on the path-side grilling meat, familiar games (throw the hoop over the Coca Cola bottles, throw a ball at the stacked-up tins), short horseriding circuits for children, many people walking around with the Mongolia flag temporarily tattooed on their cheek. As in Sukhbaatar Square, people posed in front of big posters to get photos taken.

This poster is advertising the afternoon’s main event, in front of the stadium.

I saw people entering through various archways and thought, Hmm, one of the competitive events – horse racing, archery, wrestling – is probably going to take place. Touts stood around with handfuls of tickets. I approached a few and bought a ticket (tourist price, naturally) and found my way to entrance 7, which admitted me to benches on the sunny side of the stadium. Many people sitting around me had umbrellas. Smart. I compromised by putting my white jumper on my head, as my umbrella is in Bangkok. The Mongolian sun is very hot in July.

Wrestling it was!

First of all men in Mongolian dress of various colours stood in a triangle. Then men in dark red and men in blue stood in facing lines, and men in wrestling clothes – the bottom half like underpants, the top half like a bolero – joined them, often walking in circles around a fully clothed man. They stood a long time as someone sung. All commentary was in Mongolian. Then these lines dispersed and the wrestlers began pairing off. The fully clothed men seemed to be adjudicators, one of each clothes-colour to a fight (most of the time).

The two wrestlers would face each other, sometimes for a long time, going for a grip. Once locked together, they might not move much for another long time, or they might immediately get into it – wrestling and sometimes trying to trip their opponents. One or two fights broke into punches. When one man felled his opponent, a cheer went up from whatever part of the crowd had the best view. The victor got to do a victory run near to or around the small green stage with gold things on poles in the far left of the picture; he’d slow at two points, hands in the air, exaggerating his steps. Later on in the contest, the victor was awarded a pointy silver or gold hat and, after his victory run, left the fight area.

I left the stadium after an hour, feeling the heat and almost falling asleep from exhaustion. On the way out, I passed a stall selling hats.

I didn’t do much else – too tired. As the sunlight still wouldn’t fade, I lay in my bunk with cookies and Top Gear, chilling out before a long sleep, feeling a bit guilty for being inside when the sun lasted so long. Light past 9pm. 9pm! I’ve been too long in the tropics and forgotten how much I love that. (Today, annoyingly, is overcast, so my plan of a late evening sunny walk is temporarily thwarted.)

Today I slept late and felt a bit mehh – a museum visit would improve my mood, I thought. Except, passing Sukhbaatar Square, I noticed a procession of people in fantastic clothes. A man in furs caught my eye, but had gone ahead by the time I found a good spot among the hastily amassed audience who, like me, hurried across the road and square on seeing the people.

One group had puppets:

This is only a sample. Around me, locals and tourists stepped forward to take photos, as yet another group in yet another set of costumes walked past.

I decided, after a while, to see if the guy in the furs was still around, and ran around the square – past model gers and souvenir stalls and a stage with plastic chairs abandoned in the jostle for a view – and saw the lead group passing the stage. I stood on a chair to get a better look. They kept walking. I jumped down and ran on, saw them take a turn, and finally got my close-up view of people who I sorta assume were dressed as Chingghis Khan and family.

Possibly-fake-Chingghis grinned at me! I felt all a-flutter. The widespread smiley-ness was really infectious and definitely cured my mood.

Are those the best hats ever? You decide.

I then noticed the littlest ger.

I still went to the museum, which was great, but my laptop battery’s about to die so that’s all for now.