Elstei Ger Lodge

Just like the Ger Camp at Sainshand, Elstei Ger Lodge feels like it is in the middle of nowhere. Only this nowhere is green and verdant pastures with hills rolling off into the distance and semi-wild Mongolian horses galloping all over the shop. This is Ghenghis Khan’s backyard, and you wonder why he’d want to leave to rape and pillage the known world. There are twenty or so gers which are larger than the ones at Sainshand and more ornate in their furniture and paintings. The food is good and comes thick and fast, but I’ll write about that in another post.

We go riding on the horses, only these ones are more semi-retired than semi-wild, but it is a lovely way to pass a couple of hours and Harry and Maisie are thrilled. We also go and visit an old Grandma nomad, a twenty minute walk across the steppe. She has prepared omelettes in curd, sheeps cheese and yoghurt and ‘airag’ the traditional fermented mare’s milk. It is unpasteurised and has been covered and left to it’s own devices for four days. It tastes like a cross between vinegar and sick and for some bizarre reason, I ask for seconds. I won’t try it again. Harry spends ages on the way back capturing grasshoppers that click and buzz as they fly through the air.

On one of the afternoons there is a summer storm and everyone has to run round and batten down the hatches. The horses are driven from their corral and I rush back to the ger to cover the roof ‘window’. Daytime lightning cuts the sky and I can see why I am being asked to take down the steel chimney in my ger. After the storm a couple of calfs wander round the gers and get inside one belonging to our neighbours, a couple of Mongolian holiday makers. I try to communicate to them what has happened using sign language but they laugh at my attempts. Later, me and Maisie see them cleaning out their ger, their belongings well and truly ‘fertilized’...