Best Travel Destinations - Mongolia
Not for those faint of heart the Mongol Rally is a choose your own adventure of sorts, where participants set out of London, England and travel to Ulan Bator, Mongolia . The organizers of this race do not believe in providing you with a route, and actually encourage you to travel off the safe path and get into some trouble. Not only does this journey entail complete self reliance in terrain that is unknown to most, one of the most important rules of the Mongol Rally states that the drive must be done in a crap car with an engine that has no more than 1 litre of power. The race holds no recognition for the first one to complete the trek, that traditionally entails ...
The Gobi desert is the third largest, and one of the most famous deserts in the world. One of the best ways to experience the vast expanses of rolling sand dunes and spans of open desert is on a camel trek. These unusually regal animals are perfectly adapted to the harsh desert climate. They can go days without water, and their soft padded feet expand over the surface of the sand as they walk. In the chilly early morning hours just before sunrise, we bid farewell to our ger (Mongolian tent) and prepare to mount our desert beasts of burden. Getting on a camel is somewhat like riding your favourite thrill ride at an amusement park. You climb onto the saddle of stacked blankets while ...
One strong personality comes to mind when thinking of Mongolia, Genghis Khan. The rule of Khan was legendary. He conquered almost half the globe and united the then fighting Mongols into a powerful army. On a softer side, Mongolia is a wonderful mixture of cultures from all over Asia, particularly China. Its vast regions team with Buddhist temples, and its snow capped mountains seem to graze the sky with splashes of green. Still maintaining its legendary power and culture, Mongolia's wild mixture of life old and new, is nowhere better embodied then at the Naadam Festival. Mongolia is a country of traditions. Its celebrations are historic and they are proud of their heritage. Naadam Festival or "Eriin Gurvan Naadam" as it is known locally, is ...
It's summertime in the Mongolian steppe, and at such a northern latitude, we must wake early to beat the sunrise. Even in mid-July, the predawn air is crisp and cool in Mongolia's Hustai National Park, home of the last surviving wild ancestor to the domestic horse. We begin emerging from out traditional Mongolian gers, bleary eyed with cups of steaming milk tea in hand. As the horizon begins to brighten, we caravan out of camp on a jeep safari to spot the world's last wild horses. The takhi horse, native to the rolling green steppe of central Mongolia, went extinct in the wild in the 1960s. In 1992, the Mongolian Association for Conservation of Nature and the Environment and the Foundation Reserves for the Przewalski ...
The horse has always been the most important animal for the Mongolian people, from the days when Genghis Khan led his horse warriors on a mission of conquest to today's nomadic families traveling across the rolling green steppe. In addition to providing a means of transportation, horses are a primary source of food. While families occasionally eat horse meat, the milk of the Mongolian horse is practically a food group all on its own. Airag, the traditional beverage of Mongolia, is made by fermenting the milk of mares in an open leather sack or plastic container. After the milk has been left out, it gradually transforms from a basic yogurt-like beverage to an acidic and very sour beverage with an alcohol content comparable to wine. ...
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