Many travellers think about Mongolia a bucket checklist vacation spot. For Intrepid leaders Bata Erdenekhuu and her husband Timur Yadamsuren, it’s merely residence.
It’s a sight to behold.
A dead-silent stadium crammed with hundreds of spectators, seemingly holding their collective breaths, whereas solely the sound of galloping hooves fills the air. A single horseman clad in full Genghis Khan-era warrior apparel gallops at full pace throughout the race observe carrying a big flag of Mongolia.
And so opens the centuries-old revered Naadam Festival, which celebrates three historic sports activities – wrestling, archery, and horse racing – in essentially the most immersive and spectacular approach.
“We don’t have many big celebrations here,” shares Intrepid chief Bata Erdenekhu, who’s Mongolian. “For us, it’s the Lunar New Year in winter and Naadam during the summer. This is a celebration that brings joy and happiness to all Mongolians after a long harsh winter.”
“We have been celebrating Naadam for over a thousand years,” provides Timur Yadamsuren, her husband and fellow chief. “And it’s during the peak time of the year in July when everything is green.”
For nomads, it is a essential time with lush grass and blooming flowers. Dairy merchandise are plentiful as animals and their offspring have entry to considerable meals, develop stronger and fatten up. People start to achieve their bodily power again.
“I am from a nomadic family, and during the summer, nomads have no fear of animals dying due to scarcity,” Timur says. “Everybody has survived the previous winter and spring. Everything is thriving. So it’s time to meet, gather, celebrate and compete.”
With a background in tourism spanning over 20 years, Timur was born to a Western Mongolian household of nomads who herd yaks and sheep. “Growing up in the mountains far away, I often felt lonely as a kid,” shares Timur. “I was very keen to learn about different people. I was good at geography and wanted to see the world.”
This innate curiosity drove Timur to depart his technical profession as a mining engineer and search significant alternatives to work together with folks outdoors of mines.
While Timur grew up across the Altai mountains, his spouse Bata was raised within the bustling capital metropolis of Ulaanbaatar. She studied Russian and English in highschool, and would go on to main in English at college. “One summer, I went looking for a job as a waitress at a cafe. Timur was the manager there,” Bata shares. “He told me I didn’t need to be a waitress because my English was good enough to be a tour guide.”
Within a 12 months, they grew to become a pair, and that was how the dynamic duo began their new guiding careers inside tourism.
Since 2006, and now with 5 youngsters of their very own ranging in age from seventeen to 2, the couple have been main two-week journeys – individually and generally, collectively – round their residence for Intrepid Travel, together with Mongolia’s Naadam Festival and Wild Mongolia.
For Mongolians, Naadam is a boisterous celebration of life displayed by means of three foremost occasions – archery, horse racing and wrestling. While ladies have began progressively collaborating as archers and jockeys, wrestling stays traditionally devoted to males. “Wrestling was for training the soldiers and warriors,” explains Timur. “Women are seen as the source of life. While warriors take lives, women make life.”
Various Naadam festivals are held throughout the nation – at county, provincial, and nationwide ranges – and Intrepid travellers will expertise smaller, extra intimate venues in addition to the principle opening ceremony. Timur and Bata additionally take travellers to close by coaching camps for the skilled athletes and go to native households.
“Staying with nomadic families can be a great shock even for experienced travellers,” says Bata. “Even though Mongolians are very welcoming, we also give people time to adjust emotionally and mentally to staying in our gers [round, traditional dwellings] and experience our rougher countryside.” Beyond staying with locals and visiting camps, travellers may also strive their palms at these sports activities themselves below the steering of competing professionals.
For Bata and Timur, horse racing is their favorite sport. Travellers could be stunned to see that the competing jockeys truly vary from six to eleven years in age. “On average, they tend to be between seven to eight years old,” provides Bata. “And it requires great technique. How to make your horse go slower, faster, change direction or tactic. So the child is really thinking hard like an adult, making concrete plans towards victory.”
Beyond sharing their nation, passing on the innate pleasure this celebration evokes feels significantly poignant for Bata. “Everyone at the festival is really happy, cheerful and joyful. And tourists feel this same joy. They feel the festivity in the air, and I feel like that little Mongolian kid passing that joy into their hearts. It truly makes me happy.”
Timur factors out that Mongolians basically hibernate by means of eight frigid months of winter, so when travellers flock in over the summer season, it looks like he’s reconnected to the world once more. He can proudly exhibit his tradition and educate folks his traditions from the within out.
For many, Mongolia stays a visit of a lifetime and each Bata and Timur really feel proud that their “small, remote, spacious” nation is a bucket checklist vacation spot for travellers. “To think that we’re part of these lifetime memories for people, and hearing that, makes you incredibly proud.”
Want to discover all Mongolia has to supply? Check out our Mongolia journeys.