2025-07-01 Seoul and Mongolia: July 14 (Monday)

We had an early lunch today and then headed out for our day’s sightseeing.

No horse racing today, so not much traffic.

And this was the state of the road from the resort to the main road. What a mess.

As soon as we got to the main road we stopped at a local market to pick up water. The little market had lots of snacks, some staples, beverages, and horse gear.

Our destination today is the Mongol Nomadic Tourist Camp.

They have a “show” that starts at 2:00 so we waited around for the start. We all wandered down past a fence around the main camp for our welcome. A group of men (and one boy) on three horses, three yaks and two camels cam out waving as a traditional greeting. Lots of pictures were taken and then we started heading towards the camp.

Liam was able to get a ride on a yak.

Once at the camp we watched as they demonstrated how they load the ger parts onto a camel.

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Video of loading parts of the ger onto a camel
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They topped the camel’s load with a small boy.

Then, they gathered up their yaks sand camels pulling their cards, and their horses and headed off in a big circle…a Mongolian nomad caravan in real life.

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Video of the caravan
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From there we went into the first ger (us along with about 30 other people in a tour group) and were given a typical nomad welcome with dried curd and mare's milk.

We were then treated to a nice concert. Mary ended up sitting right next to the musician with the two-string violin. Had to duck to avoid getting hit as he drew back his bow.

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Video 1 of the concert
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Video 2 of the concert
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There was a small cart in which they were drying meat.

And in another ger we saw slabs of curd hanging from the ceiling to dry.

And they also showed us the set-up for making Mongolian vodka (very low alcohol content…almost no flavor).

We also got to watch knucklebone shooting up close and Liam and Jessica each tried it. Without much luck.

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Video of Knuckle-bone shooting
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Video of Liam doing Knuckle-bone
It takes a lot of practice.
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As we started to head back to the car a couple of riders came out to show their riding skills by riding at a full gallop and reaching down to pick up a hat off the ground. Most impressive.