Breaking a Horse

This morning we went to see the collection of paintings, carvings and sculptures from Mongolian artists at the Zanabazar fine arts museum. 

From there, we went to the Tibetan-style Gandan Monastery where over 150 monks reside. We listened to monks chanting prayers in their sacred place, and the monks ranged from little kids to elders. Although we couldn't understand anything, the sound of the chanting was so beautiful and spiritual. 

Inside the Gandan Monastery, we saw the tallest indoor Buddha in the world. You can't get an idea of how big it was from the picture below, but it was probably at least 5 stories high. 

After having lunch at the Gobi cashmere factory (one of Mongolia's key exports) we flew off to the Gobi Desert. "Gobi" means desert, though, so when Westerners say "Gobi Desert" they're basically saying "desert desert". The picture below is a picture of the Mongolian traditional gers that we stayed in. It took a 90 minute plane ride and an hour car ride just to get to the camp. 

This was our ger, the dragon ger. 

We proceeded to see traditional demonstrations of the three Mongolian sports. First, we saw Mongolian wrestling where there's no weight limit for the wrestlers. All the wrestlers have to do is flip their opponent over. They wore boots with curled up toes, which is ideal for tripping their opponent. 

We then saw an archery demonstration. The female archer pictured below has won many medals for her extraordinary talent. Some of her female students also performed archery with her. 

The last demonstration was a horse demonstration that had several components. First, the horses were wrangled. Then, we watched the guy below break this horse which has never been ridden before. He was bucking up a storm but eventually settled down. Finally we watched the nomads pick items off the ground while riding a horse. 

After the demonstration, I went horseback riding in the Gobi with a father son duo. The saddle was a Russian saddle with metal loop in the front and back. It was much more narrow than a traditional western saddle and the stirrups were way too short so I didn't ride for long. It was cool to say that I did it though! 

In the evening, there was a sandstorm approaching so the staff quickly ran around to all the gers saying to shut our doors. We survived though!