Cooking Meat in Western Mongolia

 The Steps:
1. Buy some meat. Between the 5 people on my trip we bought 22,000MNT (18USD) worth of meat.

I was satisfied that two giant hunks of meat would no doubt prove to be a feast for the nights dinner. 

Our guide Mada said that we were buying beef, but like most of the beef I've eaten here it tasted suspiciously like mutton.

2. As you leave the butcher shop, take note of the authentic decor.

This butcher shop a freshly beheaded sheep's head next to a leathery sack that looked like skin, and a bottle of blood.

This is the stove.

3. Put some firewood in the stove along with the cooking rocks. The idea is to heat up the rocks until they are incredibly hot-- hot enough to cook the meat on.

4. When the rocks are hot enough, put them in a separate metal basin with the meat and other things you would like to eat. For us we had the hunks of meat cooking with potato and carrot.

5. Remove the rocks. The guy who was cooking our meat told me to put out my hands, and then he put one of the rocks into them. Those things are HOT!

I played hot potato with myself, tossing the rock from hand to hand until I had had enough, and gave it back to him.

Before calling us to dinner, the guy who cooked our food made off with half of our meat as well as the delicious soupy broth that you generally find at the bottom of the pan. Is this custom or thievery?

6. Eating!
To make up for our stolen meat, Mada brought us extra coleslaw...

:/

Good thing we bought vodka!

The aftermath:

Mining, Real Estate, Investment, Corruption, Politics

A great article from Bloomberg for a snapshot of Mongolia today:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-21/mineral-rich-people-poor-mongolia-prepares-for-flood-of-money.html

Driving In Mongolia

I walking past the Grand Khan Irish Pub with Sarah Johnston, about to cross the street, when a large white van sped on the turn and nearly ran us both over. Sarah, an Australian English teacher who had lived in Ulaanbaatar for 7 years, chuckled at my indignant and puzzled reaction, and responded to my ensuing rant on irresponsible driving in Mongolia.  "A lot of the people here are still getting used to cars," she explained, "its very cut-throat, and it makes you think that they drive their cars like they ride their horses."

I could immediately see the truth in her observation.





I got back Saturday night from a 5 day trip in the Mongolian countryside. On my trip I at times rode in a rickety black Hyundai van, on my hungry camel Mufasa, and my gallant pony Murr (Mongolian for horse).

Mufasa was stubborn as hell, and it took all the strength in my arms to control him. At every blade of grass he lowered his giant head and start munching. At first I let him eat, figuring that once he had his fill, he would be more than happy to trot along at my command. But he kept eating. Eating and eating and eating.
Eventually I had had enough, and I pulled up on the reins as hard as I could. Mufasa snorted, lifted his head to face me, and wiped his sopping mouth on my arm.

One thing I'll say for Mufasa is that like me always wanted to be in the front of the pack. He let the other camels go ahead while he ate, but then as soon as he noticed how far ahead they were, let out snort from his enormous nostrils, and a burst of energy from some mysterious source, and sprinted until he was once again in front.





Murr, my gallant pony, was much easier to ride. All it took to get him going was a HAA!!! and a few nudges.Sometimes when I wanted to speed up he would sense it and take off, and when I wanted to slow, or turn he would also somehow know. Like the flying creatures in Avatar it was like he responded to my thoughts more than anything else as we galloped away from the guides, letting their voices fade away as they yelled "SSSTOOOOOP!"

the guides: 13 years old, and 16 years old. When they were younger they competed in the Naadam festival for the horse racing event. Here they look a little grumpy, but most of the time they couldnt stop laughing and playing.

As we raced along on our van I learned a lot about our driver Miga. This guy hates to be behind anyone on the road. When there were cars lined up in front on the toll booths for several hundred meters, Miga drove around the line and then cut in at the front. When we drove on the dusty dirt roads that are commonplace once you leave Ulaanbaatar, he would actually race with anyone else who was on the road with us, and cover them in the dirt that flew up from the back tires of his Hyundai.

 

The Wishing Mountain

The first stop in our journey to the religious hot spots at the Khamar Monastery area was the Wish Mountain. After getting off of our overnight train at 1:30 am, our merry band of 10 APIP employees sleepily piled into a grey van (whose many “aromas” we quickly became all too familiar with), and tore through the night into the Gobi desert. We made our first stop several hours later at the foothills of the wish mountain.
















Thus began our ascent.
At the shrine a third of the way up the mountain, we made offerings of candy, lit incense, and wrote our wishes on small pieces of paper to later shred and burn in the shrine. Midway up the mountain the girls stopped climbing. I asked Orta, APIP’s IT specialist, why they were not climbing with us. He said to me, “this is the men’s wishing mountain, there is a mens and a womans, they’ll stay down there until we are done.” He then gave myself and the other two guys on our trip, Davi and Carter, blue scarves to wear around our necks.
We arrived at the summit in time to see the sunrise.

At the summit there was a mound of rocks with blue, white green, red, and yellow scarves wrapped around it, and the remnants of a sacrificial animal and some edibles positioned facing the sunrise.

Orta then gave us each a small bottle of vodka and a cup. Noting the look of incredulity on our faces, he quickly explained that we were not meant to drink the vodka, but instead to poor vodka into our cups, and as we focused on our wishes, to fling three cups of vodka towards the sunrise.
Next I walked around the mound three times, and then tied my blue scarf on one of the ropes on the mound.

On our descent, we were greeted by a shepherd who had brought with him his herd of mountain goats.

Hello there.

This guy really liked the candy.

On the way down the mountain I stopped at the small shrine to tear and burn my list of wishes.

A view from the bottom of the mountain

We returned once again to the van for several hours, bouncing through the Gobi until we arrived at the women’s wishing shrine. The women’s shrine resembles a pair of breasts and represents fertility. Rather than vodka, the women offered milk.

Khamar Monastery Energy Center

This weekend I'm going on a trip with my co-workers to the Khamar Monastery Energy Center, located in the south Gobi. The story behind the energy center, according to Ariuna, is that long ago there was a Buddhist monk who was venturing into the countryside. One day he came upon a large natural circular area with mystical powers. He prayed and meditated there and achieved enlightenment. After this, he discovered another energy center, and he proceeded to build monasteries on both locations. These monasteries expanded rapidly as word of their mystical powers spread throughout the land.
Unfortunately, these monasteries and the towns that grew around them were destroyed during the purge of all things Buddhist and Genghis Khan by the Mongolian communists during the 1900's. The monastery we will be visiting was built after the democratic revolution in 1991.
Despite the original monasteries having been destroyed, people say the energy is still there. Many Mongolians and foreigners alike go to the Monastery several times a year for its renowned wishing mountain that grants wishes to everyone who goes there.
More to follow when I return from my trip!

My Swingin' Pad in UB

My accommodations are a lot nicer than I was expecting. My room has a bed, desk and chair. The apartment is decked out with a spacious living room, a kitchen with an oven and stovetop, and a bathroom. The only downside is that the toilet refuses to flush more than once per day.. I'll leave that disaster up to your imagination.

A Tour of Ulaanbaatar

Today I was taken around on a property tour around Ulaanbaatar by Jess Lampe, the Director of Mongolian Properties (and my tour guide for the day). What a city. We started at the office on Seoul Street at 9:30 and made our first stop in Zaisan at the Zaisan Soviet Monument, which commemorates the friendship between the Soviet Union and Mongolia. The Zaisan Soviet Monument is at the highest point in Ulaanbaatar, up on a hilltop. Even from there all I heard were echoes from the multitude of construction sites in the city. From that point I was able to see Ulaanbaatar in its entirety, and to appreciate its enormous scale.

Residential buildings are springing all over the city, and you come to wonder if there are enough people to fill them with Mongolia's total population at 2.8 million, and Ulaanbaatar's at 1 million. Assuming there are, the next question is if they can afford to live in these new and expensive apartment complexes. 60% of Mongolia's population currently reside in the gerr districts, living in Yurts, and burning coal for heat in the winter. The average income is around $3000 per year. Many of these new apartments start at several tens of thousands of dollars.

This seems at first like a terrible bubble, and it very well could be. However I can guess at two reasons off the top of my head why this situation is not as dire as one might first believe.

1. "the Mongolian government has just given each citizen 538 shares in the Erdenes-Tavan Tolgoi IPO. If the IPO hits its anticipated $10 billion, each Mongolian shares would be worth about $360." (http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Investors-Salivating-Over-Mongolian-Energy-Resources.html) There is a holding period on those shares, however, in which the Mongolians are not allowed to sell their ownership of the Tavan Tolgoi mine.
538 * 360 = $193,680
Right about now, I wish I was Mongolian.

2. The Mongolian mortgage market is starting out, making it possible for families to begin occupying these apartments now.
I'll look into the mortgage rates and write about it in my next post. I feel like the rates would be high.. MBS anyone?

Next we drove through the 3rd and 4th micro-districts area. Jess told me about an acquaintance of his that owns a mid-sized multistory box shaped building which houses a bunch of flea market type stalls and makes $100,000 per month on rent. I'd need to look into real estate prices in that region, but it sounds like one of those situations where if I had some money lying around I'd go buy a nice property on the main street in the bustling 3rd and 4th micro-districs.