Turtle rocks, Herman van Veen and Tibetan lamas

Slowly blending in to Mongolian life, ok maybe expat Mongolian life. I’m afraid that I have to admit that I haven’t tried any real Mongolian restaurants yet; however I am completely fan of a Mongolian delicacy called: Botz. Didn’t eat that in a restaurant though but prepared it at home (imagine me preparing Mongolian food), yes it is very easy; just have to boil it for 10-12 minutes. It looks a bit like dim sum.
But in a couple of days no pizza, burritos, curries and even no botz anymore, I’ll switch to bread, reindeer milk products and rice. Yes people on the 4th I am finally leaving for the field. We are going to make a bit of a round trip, before we go to the Taiga (the area where the Tsaatan – reindeer people live) we will visit lake Khovsgol which is a very popular spot here in Mongolia and appears to be beautiful. We’ll come back around the 2nd of October, so radio silence for almost a month.
My research is going great, already had a number of interviews with very interesting people. My first interview was with a Mongolian guy who studied in Wageningen. Sitting in his office I suddenly burst out in laughing, he asked me what happened. I said: ‘Who could have ever thought that I would be sitting in a Mongolian office building with a Mongolian guy talking about the ‘elfsteden tocht’ that he organized last year on lake Khovsgol and the ‘Unox worst’ that came along with it, reading Dutch articles that he wrote and in the mean time listening to Herman van Veen and Guus Meeuwis’, we both started laughing. When I come back from the field we have planned a biking trip (with a bike that he took from Holland), because he misses that so much along with Old Amsterdam Cheese and grapefruit (my reaction: huh grapefruit, that’s not typically Dutch? He: Yeah my favourite fruit can’t find it anywhere in Mongolia but in NL it’s in every supermarket).
In order to fully integrate in Mongolian expat life also the UB nightlife has to be discovered. Short summary in keywords: Batman, pole dancers, Russian DJ, fire show, acrobats, eagles and umbrellas. Hmmm maybe does need some more explanation because I think you will come up with really strange ideas about UB nightlife now. We celebrated Batman’s birthday (a Mongolian guy who really calls himself Batman and is decorated with a Batman sign tattoo on his upper left arm) went to a club called Amrita with a Russian DJ and pole dancers. At 2 o’ clock everybody is kicked of the dance floor because ‘the show’ will start. The show contains beat boxers, break dancers, fire eaters, acrobats and even more pole dancers. And then the decoration of the club: it was hideous, a combination of the ugliest stuff that they could find I guess. From Greek pillars, to mirrors, from giant eagles, to umbrellas attached to the ceiling etc. But we had a great night.
After spending a couple of weeks in UB a town where you can count the number of trees on maybe two hands, nature was calling. A daytrip to Terelj was the solution. Two years ago I had spend a couple of days in that area, made great pictures but my cam was stolen so this time I got a second chance.
We climbed into caves where hundreds of lamas (monks) used to live in during the Socialist time, they had to hide otherwise they would be killed. Climbed on Turtle Rock, the most famous rock in this area and it really looks like a giant turtle and visited a monastery up in the mountains. At the same time when we where in the monastery one of the most important lamas from Tibet was there, he blessed the monastery by throwing cups of milk around it. Our driver recognized the lama (we were only thinking ‘why is that guy splashing milk everywhere’) and got a bottle of spring water; the lama blessed the water and told the driver to give it to us. According to the lama it was for good health and protection, might be useful when I go up North.
So for now bye bye, doei doei, zaijian, bayartai, wiedersehen, au revoir, dovishdane, ciao, sawadee kha and I’ll let you know when I’m back to civilazation again.