Mongolian diaries - Happy Naadam

It’s official, we have landed in Mongolia, Ulan Bator (Ulaanbaatar or UB, depending on how you want to go about doing things). 

It’s a complete coincidence, but we have arrived on the last day of the country’s most important festival: Naadam. 

Naadam, also known as ‘the three games of men’, is a three day festival during which athletes compete in wrestling, horse racing and archery. We were told that Mongolians come to Ulaanbaatar from all over the country for the occasion. The atmosphere in town was vibrant, the streets were full of people, young and old were all dressed up. 

This was despite the insanely strong wind blowing. The moment we stepped out I got dust in my eyes and had to take my contact lenses out. It suddenly made sense why everyone was wearing sun glasses despite the grey sky. It started to rain too but no one seemed to mind. No one seemed to mind the wind either, it’s normal for that time of year. (Uh, uh, looks like we didn’t do all our homework). 

We walked down to the National Stadium, in the direction of loud cheering sound. You need tickets to get into the stadium - which we didn’t have - but we could see a lot by standing near the entrance. We arrived towards the end when close to forty men in traditional uniforms paraded on their little Mongolian ponies. They paraded through the streets all the way to the main square. We enjoyed plenty of local snacks  - mainly meat in fried batter - and walked around admiring everyone and everything. 

What an unplanned, exciting first evening.  

not so discreetly posing in front of the parade

soldiers, horses on the main square

one of the half dozen snacks we gulped down:

sausage, batter and potato

not sure if you can see it clearly, but they have a horse as the green light!!

the main square

what looked like an abandoned warehouse but surrounded by men wearing suits 

- a complete mystery and one of the joys of traveling in a country where you don't understand half of what's going on around you

we ended the evening in a bar full of young people all dressed up