Naadam finale and farewell

Michal Ann made rice pudding for breakfast. It was a nice change and quite English. It wasn't bad either, as evidenced by my second helping. I have this deprivation thing going on; if I find food I like, I gorge because I may not like the next meal.

We started our Naadam activities with the Shagai competition. You might be saying to yourself, "But Dana, you said Naadam was three manly sports, but this would make four." And you would be right. Apparently they recently added the Shagai and much to my delight. I could have watched all day. We didn't get a translation, but this was our general agreement on what we saw. It is a team sport, although they compete in pairs. Four men sat on tiny stools in a line facing a box about twenty feet away. The box had a platform on which two sheep ankle bones were lined up. The bones were a little smaller than a golf ball and are rectangular in shape. A long carpet extended from the front of the box about half-way to the shooting pairs. On each side of the carpet were the other team members waiting their turn. They began to sing/chant, while one of the shooters lined up a wooden platform (maybe 3" wide by 12" long) aiming at the ankle bones. They had a square wedge about 1" by 1", which they placed on the platform and flicked with their middle finger. The wedge rocketed across the carpet area and hit (or missed) the ankle bones. When there was a score, the team yelled something resembling the commentators of TV soccer broadcasts, "SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" then the team tossed the wedge to each other, down the row, until it was returned to the shooter. It was all quite fun and one team finally won. Surprisingly, one of the losing shooters stood up abruptly, yelled, and threw his tiny stool at the bone box. His outburst was generally ignored, and the other team celebrated with kisses, hugs, and high fives. We watched Shagai for a long while before moving to the archery range. Unfortunately, the competition had concluded, so we went to lunch instead. Circling the front of the stadium were several small tents, some with tables/chairs, selling food. As we looked, it appeared that just about everyone of them was selling meat pancakes. We each ordered two with a Coke.

Following lunch, we entered the main stadium for wrestling. I have never liked wrestling. There's something about sweaty, smelly men rolling on top of each other that doesn't appeal to me; but this is Mongolian wrestling. I loved it. As far as we could determine there weren't many rules. The "arena" is the grass field in the stadium about one-half the area of a football field. When an opponent has the advantage, the other losing wrestler can run away. There's lots of slapping, pushing, and clothes-pulling, but the winning strategies most used seemed to be one of the following two: using a leg to trip the opponent or using a bear hug to pick up and throw down the opponent. The best part was having the matches going on all at one time. No. The best part was watching the wrestlers dance before and after the match. No. The really best part was when the coaches sang before the wrestling took place. Some of the matches were quite suspenseful, and one had come to a rematch because the decision was disputed. Ok, the really best part was watching the coaches slap the wrestlers' butts during the match. The two coaches circled their wrestlers during the match and basically regulated the contest. We only saw a couple matches out of two days which it appeared the judges needed to step in.

We left the stadium to watch the horse racing on a TV at the American Ger'll. The races are regulated by the horse’s age; the younger horses racing farther than the older ones. The jockeys are children, seemingly as young as 8, but that's just from their looks. We found no official information on how old they could or could not be. There were a few girls sprinkled in among the young male jockeys, as well. The winning jockeys later came to the stadium to claim their prize: a backpack filled with items and presented by the president. The horses were fun to watch, and I got a chocolate milkshake while we watched. What a treat!

We decided not to go back to the stadium but rather do some limited sightseeing. I walked Max up to the monastery and even paid again to see the gigantic Buddha. It is incredibly impressive. We spun some prayer wheels and walked back through the ger district. We met Michal Ann at the Mongolian Fast Food restaurant next to the guesthouse, to watch the wrestling finals. It was captivating and lasted right up the moment we had to leave.

We packed our bags into the cab at about 10pm. Our flight left UB at about 11:30am (Mountain time) on Saturday morning. We had stops in Korea and Tokyo before getting to LA. I landed in Denver at 2:20pm on Sunday afternoon, happy to have spent some time in a beautiful country with wonderful people.Baca lagi