# 23 - Raising yaks in the Khangaï moutains
Full immersion for the Travelling Farmers
Once back in Ulaanbaatar after our incredible immersion in Jamar and Ayona’s family, first thing we do: take a shower - the first in two weeks, and the last one before our return to UB, fifteen days later. There, we host Simon, the older brother of Jules who decided to join the Travelling Farmers and share the adventure with us. We directly take the bus to Tsetserleg, the small decrepit capital of Arkhanghai, central province of Mongolia.
Once again, we are surrounded by huge monotonous and sometimes frightening landscapes. The rain falls and gets really strong on our bus, as we follow the only road that can be seen on the horizon, an infinite line: we will turn only three times throughout the 500 kilometers of the journey. A cheerful group of six Israelis get into the bus under the pouring rain; the hitchhike was not favorable to them under such a deluge. Seeing the difficulty to sit in the aisle of the bus, we engage the conversation and share our meager provisions with them. When getting off the bus, their goal is to sleep in a tent wherever they can, outside. Yet, given the torrential rain, we manage to make them stay in the same place as us: the house of the translator of the Association of Breeders of Yaks in the Mountains of Khangaï, the association with which we work.
Ariel, the group's cook, thanks us by cooking us a divine curry, and this improvised dinner, shared by ten people under a roof that does not stop the rain, is the best we have eaten since our departure. All this little unlikely and happy community falls asleep late, and we decide to share a car the next day because we're all going in the same direction. After some negotiations with the driver who hesitates to take nine people and nine big backpacks in his five places car for a journey of seven hours, we finally pile up in the car.
Until the end of the world!
The dream team
In seven hours of drive we travel a total of 250 kilometers. Your skillful and accurate calculations do not deceive you: our average is close to 35 km/h. Why so slow? Most of the journey is not done on a paved road of course, or on a conventional dirt road but in the midst of the Mongolian steppe. For nearly four hours we drive in this green desert. Sometimes we see in the distance a herd or a geer, and that's it. Amazed by the immensity that spreads before our eyes we understand that we will live an experience like we have never known before in one of the most isolated places in the world.
We arrive after nightfall in the family who welcomes us with open arms. There are not three but four of us since Aviad, one member of the merry band decided to join us.
The small ten geers of this new family are close to a river in a valley located between high mountains.
A River Runs Through It
These mountains seem friendly and almost reassuring when we arrive, and we manage to climb to the top of the nearest one without difficulty, the day after our arrival.
Aviad, the prophet on the moutain
The temperature is pleasant and we are happy to enjoy the favorable climate of the summer Mongolian. But the next day, to our surprise, a storm hits our small community. The 35 ° C we have supported the first two weeks leave room for negative temperatures accompanied by a biting wind. Snow invades the steppe and the mountains become threatening.
A cold morning
Happy that the stove works
The moutains don't seem welcoming anymore
Not having internet we only understand once back in Ulaanbaatar that our new residence is located at 2300 meters altitude and the surrounding mountains exceed 3000 meters.
But more is needed to scare two Travelling Farmers, who are now getting used to a hard life outdoors. For three long days, we live inside the geer we share the fours of us, grouped around our pan (decisive element for our survival).
Isolated between these huge mountains, time flows differently, and a fierce card game competition (Tarot) starts between us. Stuck in fifteen square meters, we must all demonstrate kindness and patience to make this life community a valuable time.
What about agriculture in all of this, we hear you ask 7000 kilometers away?
The family that welcomes us raises yaks, close cousins of our placid cows, but larger and more hairy, trimmed to resist attacks of wolves and the cold winter (-50 °) in the mountains of Khanghai.
Jules imitates the yaks and tries to protect his eyes from the cold
As we explained earlier, milking animals requires considerable manpower. If it was possible to Simon with whom we worked in New Zealand to milk his 250 cows with its automated milking station, fifteen people live and work around the herd of about 150 yaks. Perhaps this is related, but the family in Mongolia is not a nuclear as in France, but brings together several generations and several couples with children.
Jules observes these impressive animals
Twice a day, morning and evening, the milking of the yaks takes one hour and half. First, we have to take the calves to their mother. We let them suckle for a minute and then start milking the yak, whose legs are tied. Yaks are also prized for their long hair, which is used to make yak cashmere, an increasingly valued material. Seeing few minutes these impressive beasts is enough to understand that a piece of cloth with such material is worth all technical cloaks in the world.
The morning milking of the herd
Simon helps doing yak cheese
It is surprising to see that, even with these people more than remote from everything, a modernization starts to appear. In addition to the superb traditional Mongolian songs, one regularly hears the women of the family humming a tune of Britney Spears or Lady Gaga. Moving yaks from one place to another is often done on horseback, but sometimes it is easier for them to get on their motorbike to do so. And in empty moments of the day, when Jamar and Ayona sat for hours to contemplate the horizon, some of our guests rush behind their recently acquired television.
Yet, this trend has to be relativized. The toilet are no more than a hole in the steppe and the water to drink comes from the river that we share with yaks and sheep: the feeling of remoteness could not be more intense. Getting some more wood is the result of long expeditions into the mountains, thanks to a wooden plow painfully towed by one of the most massive Yaks of the herd.
Filtering the water from the river
The yak has arrived, there will be wood tonight
Here again, the diet consists almost exclusively of meat and milk. Such protein intake explains the impressive bodies of the Mongols we meet, and despite the massive physics of the Travelling Farmers, local people here are sometimes larger and heavier than them.
Between two milking sessions, we climb into the mountains to gather Jims - kinds of wild blackberries that will be eaten raw with a little sugar. Strangely we do not eat yak meat, but sheep, goats and marmots that men of the family go hunting in the surrounding heights, almost daily. The marmot liver with onions that was served to us for breakfast will long remain in our memories.
After harvesting jims in the moutains
Jules shooting with a "made in USSR" rifle
Hunting is a necessity so far away from cities and shops
Marmot for lunch guys !
When tit doesn't rain or snow, Tristan goes fishing in a beautiful mountain lake located two kilometers from the other side of the valley. Accustomed to a relaxing fishing (i.e with no fish at the end), it is with unfeigned surprise that he got two nice perches of thirty centimeters long. These, seasoned with salt and accompanied by onion, improve our daily life.
Last step: preparing the fish
Our departure is of course difficult. We are saddened to leave our new Mongolian family. Although all the tourists we meet later do not share our opinion, the Mongolian people appeared to us as one of the friendliest and most cheerful we've met since the beginning of our journey.
Yet we must get back. Back at the translator’s house, who feel amused by the feeling we all share: to be back "home". Tsetserleg is not a big city and is 500 kilometers from the Mongolian capital, but the little civilization found back is still sharply in contrast with the place where we come from.
The weather is beautiful again, but it's already time to go away
We return the next day in Ulaanbaatar and say goodbye to Simon and Aviad. The Travelling Farmers are only the two of them again, and can now turn to new adventures.
Our next journey will be in Israel where we will spend one month and a half !
Until then we wish you a beautiful end of summer,
We’ll be back soon for new adventures!
PS: For the curious ones of you, Jules is the one that finally won our Tarot competition. Congratulations to him!