Mongolia Travel Blog & News

Tsagaan sar, the Mongolia’s Lunar new year is the biggest long-awaited holiday in Mongolia. It is widely celebrated throughout the country around January or February according to the combination of Solar-Lunar calendar that Mongolians use. It is a celebration of passing long harsh winter and welcoming a spring as well as welcoming new year. Furthermore, Tsagaan Sar is a family celebration as all relatives gather at the elders’ home to greet and wish all the best to each other for the following year. The festival lasts for 3-14 days depending on the region. It is non-working national holidays in Mongolia for 3 days.

According to the gender gap report written by WEF, Mongolia has ranked 70th out of the 146 countries that have been studied.   In 2006, we were ranked 46th. What has happened over the decade that has worsened the country’s ranking by whole 24 places?

Ulaanbaatar is a cool city. There’s so much to do – nightclubs to go to, museums to see, hushuur to eat, and even more. Sometimes though, you might need a break from the traffic and crowded streets. If you’re looking for a trip outside of UB and are a fan of nature, art, or Buddhism, this monastery is right up your alley. The pine trees, river, and hills that protect the monastery are an easy hour drive from urban Ulaanbaatar, and offers a nice place to recuperate after the bustle of the city.

It’s the beginning of the end of Mongolia’s short summer season. Today is a big day for our young monk. Let’s call him Davaa, a good Tibetan name. His name means Monday, and his parents may have chosen his name because he was born on a Monday. The name also honors Tibetan Buddhism, which is practiced in Mongolia. He has only been at the monastery for a year, and he’s going to participate in his first Tsam ceremony. The tsam dances, are morality plays. Their purpose is to remove evil from the area and pass along traditional stories and morals. There can be hundreds of participants, usually monks. Davaa is lucky to participate because he’s still a young monk.

Khoomei or Throat singing is one of the most representative traditional arts of Mongolia. Khoomei was originated when people started imitating the voice of nature and animals many thousand years ago, and around 19th century, Khoomei was first developed as an art. Mongolian throat singing was registered in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, as an art native to Mongolia in 2010. At its meeting in Nairobi, the UNESCO Council inscribed Mongolian Khoomii in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of mankind.

If you have ever heard people conversing in Mongolian, and thought that it’s unlike any other language you’ve ever heard- don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Mongolian language is an Altaic language which means that only Turkic and Tungusic languages are in one group with it. Some studies have added Japanese and Korean language in the group too, but most of the authors disagree on this one.

One of the most exciting aspects of visiting a new place is trying the food. In Mongolia, there are really only two types of food: countryside food and city food. Countryside food consists of traditional Mongolian food. Traditionally, Mongolians have been herdsmen and dairy producers. Agriculture has never been a large part of Mongolia’s history, mostly because of the country’s harsh climate. In the wintertime, most of the country drops to temperatures averaging around -30 degrees Fahrenheit, thus, meat and dairy have been the main aspects of Mongolian cuisine.

Surviving two destructions and centuries of rejection, Erdene Zuu is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Mongolia, probably in East Asia. The building of the temple was ordered by the Abtai Sain Khan- grandfather of Zanabazar the Great when the Tibetan Buddhism was declared as the main religion of Mongolia in 1586. For Mongolians, who employed nomadic lifestyle, this kind of building or generally anything that stays in one place was not that common. So, the temple has naturally become the religious center, thus the heart of the Mongolia. The geographical situation was carefully thought out too, it’s built in Kharkhorin- near the old city of Karakorum.

We tried to travel to the Orkhon waterfall that first summer I visited Mongolia. It seemed a short distance from Karakorum and we asked about swapping out the customary visit to the Erdene Zuu Monastery for a day trip to the waterfall. However, our guide and driver were quick to say that this was not a possibility as the road to the waterfall was, in their words, “a very bad road.”

Before human beings came to Eurasia, many varieties of horses roamed in herds over the vast steppes of the continent. In vast herds, with complex societies and feeding on the seas of grass, they lived and died for centuries. Eventually, mankind roamed in and developed a relationship with one particular species. Humans started to domesticate equus ferus around 4000 BCE.   After another thousand years, this species, equus ferus, started to become more widespread. They outcompeted the other wild horse species, and one by one, they went extinct. The domesticated horse was the last horse standing. Except for one species. A hardy, little black and tan horse called Przewalski’s horse, or the takhi, managed to survive in what is now Mongolia.