Greetings from Mongolia

Well I survived several days of primitive living in the South Gobi. These cats travel in style, a full dozen of us stacked into a Land Cruised and a full on Scooby-Doo style Mystery Machine complete with a Rambo sticker on the dashboard.


The trip was full of excitement and goat meat. Boiled goat soup 3 times a day can get old after about the third day. Interesting thing was there was no cooler for the meat, just a cardboard box with goat meat that rode atop the Land Cruised. We turned the meat over periodically but that was about it. Saw plenty of camels, by the fourth day you stop yelling “CAMMEL!” when you see on, you just kinda get used to the idea. . Interestingly “camel” was one of the few words my crew understood.

Survived accidentally going to China, the Chinese Army, and a wicked dust storm that blotted out the sky. Bathed in a well, visited the ruins of a Buddhist temple and climbed onto the “energy center” which is a large rock next to the ruins that the Buddhists believed would cleanse you and give you energy. It is located next to another large rock formation that resembles a flaccid jimmy; I didn’t climb on that one.


We then slaughtered 2 more goats, and had a big feast in my honor, ate 2 goats and drank 7 bottles of vodka. Being the guest of honor I was given the first and largest cuts of goat fat (supposedly the best part).


We also drank copious amounts of irag (fermented mares milk) and “special irag” made from camel milk. Kinda hard to describe the taste of this but if I were to try, I’d say it tastes of sale barn flavored yogurt that is about a year out of date. If you can stomach enough of it, it will get you a slight buzz. I suppose it is better cold but that was a luxury I could not be afforded. I think if you were to try to get a good drunk put on from the stuff you should be seated firmly on a toilet. But all the vodka made up for the punch the irag was lacking.


Interesting way they do the slaughtering here, make a small cut below the sternum and reach in and pinch the aorta closed till the goat is dead, that way you don’t waste any blood. The blood and all the middles are then mashed up and funneled through the gut tract into the stomach (along with what was already in the stomach) and boiled…taste like liver and poop, very interesting.


Also I learned that Mongolian sniffing snuff is way stronger than anything I have ever known in my life, I went blind in my left eye for about 3 full minutes. They all thought that was very funny so I gave them some Copenhagen and had a good belly laugh my own self when two of them began to throw up.

I also believe I now have the official record for the worst flat tire.






I also got convulsive diarrhea and vomiting, sorry no pictures of that.