Naadam festival tour, Mongolia

Once a year, with or without tourists, each city, town and village in Mongolia hosts its own sporting festival. Nomadic people from the outlying valleys come to join the festivities and the competitors train for months beforehand. For the horse trainers, and to a lesser extent the young child jockeys, it is a great symbol of social standing to have won one of the 25km + horse races. The winning wrestlers are given respected titles such as “falcon”, “elephant” and “lion”, depending on how many rounds they have won. The skill of the archers, both men and women, is admired by all.

We always choose to see the Naadam Festival in one of the smaller towns and villages, where there are few foreigners and the celebrations are totally authentic. One can see from the market stalls surrounding the wrestling stadium that tourists are not expected – they sell Chinese household goods, brightly coloured children’s clothes and steamed dumplings in shared bowls.

It is a privilege to be part of this ancient custom, a summer festival which has been happening for centuries, even throughout the 20th Century Communist period in Mongolia. The local people are usually delighted to have foreign visitors at their tournaments and make us feel very welcome. It is an excellent opportunity to take great photographs, and most Mongolians like to have their picture taken.

The Naadam Festival is obviously the highlight of this tour, but it is a trip which includes many aspects of the Mongolian culture, as well as the chance to appreciate the beauty and variety of Mongolian geographical zones. We hope to show you how to milk a horse, how to turn mare’s milk into vodka, and we endeavour to make you understand how a nomadic culture has thrived in this harshest of environments. Before visiting Mongolia, many people would think of it as barren open steppe. Not so! In a few days we will show you amazing granite mountains bordering sandy desert, forested mountains enriched with hot mineral healing springs, vast horizons and natural “gardens” of wild flowers.

Buddhism has been the faith of the Mongolian people for several centuries. Like Tibet and Bhutan, before Buddhism arrived people practiced Shamanism. As we travel in Mongolia we will see the shrines in people’s homes, great Buddhist monasteries, “ovoo” worship sites on mountain passes as well as various traditions which have been inherited from their distant past and show the pattern of their religious history.

We travel with a Mongolian crew, use locally owned accommodation and hire the horses/camels/yaks of families who may have little other opportunity to earn money in this largely self-sufficient cash-less nomadic society. Our group sizes are small, normally not more than 12 people, to reduce the impact we have socially and environmentally. Yet the running of this tour can make a significant difference to the Mongolian people involved.

Accommodation during the tour is at ger camps, authentic ger tents set up for tourists and furnished with beds and a stove, with toilet and washing facilities on the site. The ger camps are owned, and have been developed by, local entrepreneurs and the staff are all people from the vicinity or students from town, who benefit greatly from the opportunity to get a modest cash income during the short tourist season. Some of the ger camps use solar power to heat water for hot showers, but at the Tsenkher hot springs the mineral water comes directly from the mountain. Each ger has a wood-burning stove which staff will light if requested. We discourage our clients from using this facility if it is not very cold because the fuel used is trees cut down in the nearby forests.

Visits to local families are spontaneous, not artificially created experiences packaged for tourism. This is a nomadic population and we do not know beforehand where families will be. If possible, earlier in the day before the group arrives, we send one of our staff ahead to check that the family is happy to receive foreign visitors and not too busy. For example, whilst the group are eating breakfast, the tour leader might go to one of the gers in the area to speak with the family. The tradition of hospitality and sharing of news by passing travellers is such that a visit like this is quite normal within the culture and not viewed by the hosts as an imposition. In fact it is quite likely that they would invite our group into their home anyway, without us asking.

We suggest to our clients that they bring photographs of their own homes to show and small gifts such as souvenirs from their own town. According to the situation, we may give a suitable amount of money to the host family. This would be done by the tour leader only and is taken to be a gift rather than payment for services given.

When passing through Tsetserleg town we visit a felt making project with demonstrations of how felt is made on a small scale and can buy felt products made for the tourist market. This project has been set up to create employment for local people, to educate tourists on this traditional craft, and to increase the income from tourism. The restaurant that we use in this town is the result of another successful project intended specifically to provide employment in a town where many people do not have jobs.

Some of the ger camps have a small shop where they sell paintings, traditional clothing, carvings and other crafts, made during the winter months by people in the area. Our tourists are encouraged to buy souvenirs in these places as they are genuine mementos of the holiday and will certainly help to support the families of the shop owner and the craftsman.

When passing through certain areas of Mongolia we are obliged to pay a “Protected Areas Service Fee” on behalf of each tourist (already included in price of tour). The fee contributes towards the following services: (i) introduction of the activities of the information centre and eco-ger and provision of information on legislation and security activities of the protected areas, (ii) regulation of camping places in these areas, (iii) to provide tourists with information, brochures, booklets and warnings, (iv) garbage disposal.

At Tsenkher Jiguur hot springs, a fee is paid (already included in the tour cost) to bathe in the outdoor hot mineral baths. This goes towards the cost of paying local staff to maintain the pools. Similarly, when we visit Erdene Zuu monastery at Kharkhorin, an entrance fee is paid (included in tour price) to go towards the cost of local staff.

The company is owned and run by Mongolians with small offices in Mongolia, UK and Germany. The itinerary for this trip, and indeed the whole brochure, can be downloaded from our website, reducing the need for printing in most cases. Upon booking a tour, clients are given a Tour Dossier which includes a section on attitudes and behaviour. We explain some of the most important issues so that tourists will not be embarrassed nor locals offended. During the tour, the leader or interpreter will educate the group on the more important points of Mongolian etiquette so that everyone feels more comfortable when we enter a local home or temple.