waiter, there's villi in my khuushuur!

In a moment of beautiful synchrony, my knowledge of anatomy and random ordering from a foreign menu came together. We realised belatedly that the khuushuur (meat pancake) we had ordered - the more expensive one mind you - contained makh. Literally 'meat', but more generally meaning sheep bits - all of them. Strangely enough the intestines and liver were ok. It was the globules of fat I couldn't quite stomach.

This use of all parts of the animal is not only not wasteful but has also been credited with preventing scurvy in Mongolians (not sure what level of evidence that is). Eating more fat is apparently more manly, and also necessary to survive the long winters.

We have been accepting of pretty much all dishes put before us, grateful for some decent protein-and-carbon sustenance in a country so recently struck by dzud. Imagine our joy when informed by our guesthouse host that a whole sheep had been brought in from the country. We were very lucky, as this dish was only prepared maybe 4 times a year: sheep intestines (?khonii giiz).

The smell of mutton in the ger was overpowering all afternoon, only drowned out by the smoke billowing from the stove when it was stoked. When the rubbery offerings were extracted from the pan, the assorted family and extras tucked in with an almost primal glee. After some hesitant staring, so did we. The taste was strong and fresh, with textures ranging from squidgy to impenetrable.

Anatomy identified in bowl: vertebra, pericardium, liver, lungs/bronchus, intestine (large and small).

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Yak attack

Following 160km of battling through roadwork-affected tracks, headwinds (again, this is becoming quite the theme), two river-crossings and a snow-fall (while at 2100m) we finally made it to Tariat.
By this time today we thought we'd be nestled in a tourist ger camp on the banks of a frozen lake complete with hot showers. Unfortunately such luxurious accommodations don't open until 1st June (when official tourist season commences). Instead however, we were found wandering in the main street by Tunga, an English teacher come guesthouse operator who has welcomed us into her ger.

Random Road Ruminations

• Spring is fickle. This week, Restaurant Mongolia is featuring a set menu of dust storms, snow falls, sub-zero wind chills and nose-peeling sunshine. Restaurant Mongolia reserves the right to dictate the order and quantity of dishes. Bon appetit.
• Gravel is bad, but sand is worse.
• 60kg of bicycle is difficult to push.
• Dogs hate bikes.
• Dogs, over short distances, can run very, very fast.
• 8 colourful bags being carted across the steppe on bicycles is an easy way to induce curious smiles and enthusiastic two handed waves from families in trucks relocating gers to the countryside
• It is part of Mongolian etiquette not to whistle in a ger, as it attracts the wind.
• Andrew mistakenly whistles in gers.
• Despite the honeymoon tailwind, wind is not your friend. It takes great pleasure in reducing your average speed to a crawl...
  
  
  

A dog of a day

As far as cycling days go, this wasn't the best. When the day starts with an eviction from our hotel at the ungodly hour of 9am, we should learn to read the omens. Despite an excellent bowl of breakfast banshtai shol (meat and vegetable soup with meat dumplings) at one of the zoogin gazars (dining room) in the main street, we were chased out of town by a pair of dogs. Then came the 50km of erratic headwinds. And dust clouds that crossed the road and temporarily blinded us, first from our left, then from our right...

The adventure begins - first 3 days alone on the steppe

On a lunch break, under a wide blue sky dotted with cotton-ball clouds, about 150km from Ulaanbaatar is not the place you'd expect to see a familiar face. As we munched on rye bread and tuna, a cyclist in full race-kit rounded the roadside rubble and headed towards us. Surprisingly incongruous, but we recognized Degi from a roadside meeting 2 days earlier.

Ulaanbaatar Scavenger Hunt - 10days in UB

If our time in Ulaanbaatar was a scavenger hunt, our submitted sheet would read something like this:

Equipment provided upon beginning scavenger hunt

• Mongolian-English phrasebook dated 1995

• Mongolian Lonely Planet 2008 Edition (poorly researched with grossly inaccurate maps and telephone numbers)

• No working knowledge of Cyrillic script

• Copy of UB Post (English Newspaper)

• Smartphone with optus SIM card (global roaming not operational)

• Internet access

• $30 USD. 0 Mongolian Tugrug

There’s a ger in there…

We were a little apprehensive at first, despite the uniformly excellent couchsurfing recommendations. All we knew of the ger districts around Ulaanbaatar was that they were not places to be wandering around at night (mostly due to dogs rather than people). Our comfortable urban lifestyle had us in its clutches, but we figured all those surfers couldn’t be wrong. Most of our worries slipped away when we first met the smiling Begz, who met us on his own bicycle in Sukhbaatar Square, the centre point of the city. A ride eerily reminiscent of our first ride to Will’s place in South Korea followed: us nervously wobbling behind our new host as they confidently led us through increasingly rubbly roads and unpredictable traffic to god-knows-where on the outskirts of the city...