Nadaam pants and horses

Sooo, I have had a week off work, kind of enforced as my interpreter wanted to go on holiday, and there is not much I can do at work without her....

Over the weekend and mondya and tuesday it was nadaam, the manly sports festival of Mongolia, which was great.

I went out to the countryside with some pals and this is some of the scenes....

the wrestling ring. shame it was such an overcast day

some manly wrestlers.....

before they wrestle thay do a dance which is like an eaggle flying, it is hard not to laugh, as they look like kids pretending to be airoplanes...

can you see the guy at the far right of the pic

oh, and this is a shot from the van we came in, we got so many people in there it was sardine central.

this is a хошоор station, the fried dumplings, I dont really like them sice the food poisioning incident so i ate шорлог instead, a meat kebab which was so yummy, I had prok first, then lamb, and then later realised that eating only meat all day wasnt that great an idea.  aah, hindsight.

So, we watched the wrestling, then some horse riding and then just kinda wandered around taking in the atmosphere, everyone was chilled

the mix of modern and traditional was interesting, they went together quite seamlessly i thought, but then I have been here a few months now, and got used to it.

the mongolians go in for al fresco snooker in a big way, there are snooker tables dotted about all over the city, so of course it was only natural they would have some here too..

So - that was my nadaam, a good time.

the rest fo the week was pretty quiet, it was punctuated by the departure of a good friend.  The thing with this transient ex-pat life of exile, is that things are constantly changing.  I was discussing the other day how life here - and I would imagine in other places as an ex-pat - is like a soap opera.  Characters come along, and make an impressiona and then disappear.

I am very sad that J has gone though, probably sadder about it than I would be about anyone else.

We had his leaving do in the poshest bar in UB, a sky lounge with amazing views over the city, we dressed up nice, and pretended to be proper people for the night.

A live band played nineties indie ballads, and a storm raged outside, thunder and lightning punctuating the angst of the evening, a pathetic fallacy.

Then the "disco" and again, the strobe lights on the dance floor were so full on I thought i was going to have a seizure at one point, everyone gradually left as the visual assault was just too much.

The day he left we wandered through the city solomn and aimless, a group of friends soon to be depleted.

Then he left, and we stood in the street watching the taxi pull away. 

Anyway, to get over it I went to the countryside again, and this time the weather was absolutley gorgeous.

It was another sardine situation in the van though, and on the way there the door fell off...

welcome to mongolia!

We stayed in a ger camp, sunbathed and trundled.  I was bored after a while though, and got moody when we got stranded there, so I think I am going to stay in the city for the next few weeks, just venturing out to the hills a short bus ride away. 

I like to get some fresh air, but I feel unplugged from my life support if I am away from the smog and the crowds and the traffic for too long.