Khövsgöl Nuur: Ice Festival

On Tuesday last week I travelled to Khovsgol Nuur in the north-west of Mongolia. Lake Khovsgol is the largest lake in Mongolia in terms of volume - being 136km long and some 262m deep! Over the Winter the lake freezes to a depth of 1.5 metres, which allows for vehicles to cross it on their way to Russia (although oil trucks are prohibited). For the past few years, the local community has been holding an annual Ice Festival, so this gave us a great chance to visit the region.

Scenes from the drive (just one flat tire, which must be record for such a long trip on the Mongolian off-road tracks)

Driving on the lake to the ger camp

We stayed beside the lake at a Mongolian family's ger camp. During the days before the festival, we spent our time horse sledding on the frozen lake, horse riding and hiking in the forrest and hills, and in the evenings listening to the sounds of the ice cracking and water gushing against the ice on the lake.

The festival was a two-day event with lots of traditional activities including horse sledding, ice skating and Russian van races, as well as sumo wrestling, tug-a-war, curling, bowling, fashions on the field (children, men and women categories) and even karaoke! One particular highlight of the festival was the fish khuushuur (a deep fried dumpling filled with fish), which we enjoyed with some milk tea in a ger. I also loved admiring the colourful deels and animal-fur headwear worn by the locals.

On the first day of festival I had my first experience on the ice slide (shown above). On my second attempt, I reached the bottom and was in the progress of standing up (in my large and heavy felt boots) when a Mongolian man standing on his feet slid down the slide towards me. Before I could get out of the way, he had knocked right into me, taking my legs out from underneath me, which resulted in me falling awkwardly on to the ice. Luckily I was with people skilled in first aid and had locals to take me to the closest hospital in the village of Khatgal, about 10 minutes drive from the festival. The local doctor did a great job fixing up my wound with 3 stitches; the international doctor back here in UB was quite impressed. Apparently the staff at that rural clinic are used to treating such types of injuries as they are often experienced by locals as the result of drunken brawls and horse falls.

With one of the kids from the family we stayed with on the lake

I didn't want to leave Lake Khovsgol, but the experience has made me even more eager to get out into the Mongolian countryside as much as possible. It is such a beautiful and unique country. While at Lake Khovsgol we were told of a proposal in the 1980s to mine the rich phosphorus around the lake. The Mongolian people at the time resisted this heavily due to the great environmental risks to the area, so it was rejected. Unfortunately, a similar idea has been proposed in the past year, but hopefully the Mongolian people will continue to fight against this for the sake of the beauty and purity of the lake.

On the drive home to UB

Tsagaan Sar

This Wednesday was Mongolian Lunar New Year - Tsagaan Sar, which literally means White Moon. It's different to the Chinese Lunar New Year as it is celebrated two months after the first full moon following the winter solstice.

Both Wednesday and Thursday were official public holidays, and today (Friday) became another as the Government changed the official working day to last Saturday. My workplace told me that I didn't have to work Tuesday, as was the case for all the women in the office, apparently because we had a great deal of cooking and cleaning to do before the Lunar New Year celebrations. I then found out that the Director had given women permission to take the Saturday, and also the Monday off also. So I've ended up having a week of holidays.

The event is celebrated at home and usually involves just close family members. This has meant that the streets of UB have been very quiet the past couple of days. Moreover, the sun has been shining and to my amazement, the weather has been warming up (to about -15!). I've even been waking up the sound of birds chirping outside. For me, it's hard to imagine this place not in Winter, but now there are actual signs of Spring! I'm not putting my hopes up too much though. It's supposed to remain at sub-zero temperatures until at least the start of May.

With the streets nice and quiet and the 'warmer' weather, I thought it was a good chance to get out and take some pictures of the streets, buildings and interesting designs of the city.

As you can see from these selected photos below, I really love the different types of patterns that can be found in the designs of window security bars, fences, planter boxes and even the footpaths.

Life in -30 degrees

Many of you would never have believed this but I'm actually pretty used to the Mongolian winter. As someone who feels the cold in Melbourne more than anyone, the thought of living in -30 was a frightful one. But I've adapted. I factor in at least 10 minutes before leaving the house to apply my many layers of clothing (some days recently this has required three pairs of thermal leggings, plus my yak wool knee warmers and camel hair socks), then once outside I bury my face into my pollution mask and neck warmer so as to keep my entire face warm (my eyes remaining the only thing visible), and finally when I manage to get inside again (usually in an overheated building) I instinctively wipe away the ice and water that forms on my eyelashes and eyebrows after being outside for just 10 minutes.

So when the weather congregates somewhere around -15 to -40 (which it's predicted to reach in the next few days) on a daily basis, what do you do? Here's a summary of some of the things I've been up to the past month.

Going ice skating at Children's Park. This was great fun, although I could only manage to stay out in the cold for 40 minutes or so.

Watching Mongolian Wrestling. I did't really understand all the rules and procedures of the national sport, but just the outfits and various shapes and sizes of the wrestlers kept me entertained.

Eating. We've (me and the other volunteers based in UB) been having lots of dinner parties since I've arrived. Held at our homes or out at our favourite local restaurants, it's a great way to catch up and to also keep warm. Some meals include (shown below) hot pot, my housemate's home-made caesar salad, Brazilian, and vegan food.

Engrossing myself in work. I've been pretty designing new brochures, organising seminars, and holding training sessions, for the Agency this month, along with the couple of road trips to which I was invited along.