As I mentioned there are three drivers, we mainly sit in van 3 with the youngest driver called Tavner (sp?). He doesn’t speak much English at all, but it is fine, we get on. He has taught us how to say “lets get going” which sounds like “yowie”, and “hurry up” which sounds like “hordung”. Therefore once we finish at a place there are chorus’ of “yowie, yowie, hordung” from the group - although apparently there isn't meant to be responded to, so we might sound simple?! When we were at the Nadaam festival we yowie’d and some locals found it very amusing and queried one of the other drivers we were with.

Anyway, back to it.

We were off to the Nadaam Festival in Mandelgovi in the Central Gobi. It is a local festival and consists of a 28km horse race, where the age of the jockeys is between about 5 and 14 (although I swear, we saw some younger ones racing), archery and wrestling. Apparently these three things are the “manly” arts in Mongolia and every man should know how to do them.

I had read that the end of the horse racing could be dramatic with the child jockey’s in tears, and horses dropping dead. Thankfully, there were no visible tears, and definitely no horses dropping anywhere. We did however see one little tyke fail to get collected at the end of the horse race, and wander round on his horse looking for mum/dad for a bit. It is just amazing how comfortable all the children (and adults) were on their horses.

During a pee break, Luke tried wrestling with Tavner (our 20-odd year old driver) and held his own for a bit, but in the end he touched a knee to the ground and was declared the loser (much to the delight of the Mongolian’s present).

Mandelgovi is the provincial capital of the central Gobi region, and a rather charmless town. It did have public showers however (as a lot of the houses aren’t connected to water), and they were hot, which was amazing.

The weather wasn’t brilliant driving into town, but thankfully the day started clear for the Nadaam.

We went and watched the archers warming up, and even though we didn’t quite know what to look for, we chose our favourites. The archers were both male and female, and they shot blunt arrows at what looked like blocks on the ground (rather than a round target). We didn’t see the outcome of the archery contest.

The opening ceremony consisted of more dancing, singing (but this time it was a mixture of modern “pop” music and traditional stuff). Strange, but nobody seemed to really clap. It was one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself, i.e. there you watching the opening ceremony with a load of local Mongolians, some of whom are on their horses, with a view overlooking the Central Mongolian steppe.

Then there was the wrestling, which has no weight divisions, so you had massive (and sometimes massively fat) guys against little wiry ones. The big guys always won. The outfits of the wrestlers were interesting – either blue of red panties and a blue or red bolero. Apparently the tops have to be open at the front to stop females entering. The origin story goes that one year a “particularly burly” female entered and beat all the men, when it was discovered she was in fact female, the tops were changed to prevent it happening again!

On the whole the Nadaam festival was like any local or county fair, it was a chance for people to see each other and catch up. There was also a fair-ground for the kids. Luke tried his hand at knocking down some cans (and drew a very big crowd) and then made a teenage girl’s day by consenting to get a temporary tattoo of Mongolia on his cheek. She verily pushed all the other girls selling the tattoos out of the way to put a tattoo on him!

There is a tradition of greetings where a snuff bottle is exchanged and a certain ritual that goes with it. It was lucky that Luke had been trained in the etiquette as he was offered a snuff bottle a couple of times during the day. I got offered some airag (fermented mare’s milk – slightly alcoholic) by an old couple I was sharing some shade with… I think I am still trying to get the smell out of my water bottle, it was pungent to say the least.

After thoroughly partaking of the Nadaam, we left for the southern Gobi.

A few hours (and a rather compressed spine from the off-roading) later, we crossed into a valley and with an escarpment which reminded me of what I imagined in “Lost World” (although a lot more arid and less chance of finding dinosaurs).

The scenery continues to be ever changing and constantly spectacular (although sometimes very flat). The further south we go, it is more barren and I feel really sorry for the livestock as they generally have no shade, however in other places it is like a sea of faded green/brown stretching as far as the eye can see.

Our Ger camp for the night was very nice, and we weathered a spectacular storm. We are now definitely in tourist country again with many other tour groups.