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Like most days, today was another interesting one.

We went to Naadam with Fatine & her daughter, Sophia (9) whom we met on our trip & are now staying at Kongor Guest House, the same as us & grossly underestimated how long it would take to get to the stadium for Naadam.

By the time that we found our gate, it was 11am, the time that the ceremony started & we discovered that it was going to be bit of a task to get in & find a seat. They oversell the seats, so it’s more of a first come first serve basis, we should have arrived an hour earlier. When we thought that we might not even see much of the ceremony we didn’t really understood how persistent Mongolians can be at a Naadam. We were caught in a crush to get in, which was ok, when we were being pushed up the stairs, it was the stairs leading downwards at the top that were the ultimate problem. I ended up falling down the stairs (which was a bit of a tumble), but a few people helped me up, which was nice (them helping me, not the fall). Oh well, all part of the experience.

When we bought the tickets we asked for undercover & ended up seated in the open with the locals, unfortunately behind the stage, so lots of pictures feature backs of heads, but we did get a good view of a couple of bloopers that happened through the opening ceremony. One funny moment was a sky diver, who landed & took out a few of the dancers in the field & caused a bit of a commotion. There were a few really cool things, like the archers on horseback, shooting targets inside a stadium, with spectators close by & those doing tricks on horseback jumping on & off whilst galloping along. My favorite was the heavy rock song about Chinggis Khan.

After the opening ceremony we watched the wrestling, it was the first of 6 rounds (maybe more?) - it was a pitiful event to watch. There are no weight divisions, so mostly it was fat guys falling on/ flinging skinny guys to the ground & some of them were almost sumo size. It actually seemed to be mostly professional wrestlers who were fat & the skinny guys were from the army. At least it gave me a chance to eat some food & we found an awesome nestea pear drink - yum!

After that we went over to the Archery stadium & watched a bit of the mens & womens competition. The men shoot from a a slightly farther distance than the woman, who shoot from (roughly about) 5 metres in front of them, at the same time - it’s a little weird to see. There are spectators that can view the competition from the side (not more than 1-2 metres away) and the judges stand near the target (which are little round leather and ….) that sit on the ground, the object is to hit them & knock them down. It’s a little weird to be able to watch an archery competition so close to the action & yet no-one seems to get hurt. The arrow heads are not sharp, they look like a rubber tip, but I am sure that it would still hurt if you were shot by one.

We left the archery as it started to rain & went in search of shelter, which we never really found. WE also didn’t find the anklebone tent either, but such is life. We actually came across a small Naadam whilst traveling around the countryside, so we have seen some of the events already, like the Wrestling, Archery (which we took part in) and Anklebone Competition, which was quite cool. At least we had more of an idea of what to expect and some of the rules of the games when we went to the Naadam today.

Tomorrow we head off to see the horse racing, we need to leave by 8am to drive into the countryside, then after the race, we will come back for some more wrestling & the closing ceremony - I think that we will try to get there a lot earlier to ensure that we have seats.

Well, we are back in UB again. Tomorrow we head to the biggest festival in Mongolia, the Naadam Festival. Wow, what a difference it makes to be back in UB with Naadam happening. There are so many tourists, you can’t walk more than a few metres up the street or anywhere else & you come across another tourist here for the festival. When we first arrived in UB there were still a few tourists about, but nothing like this - it’s kinda weird now. I think that it was good that we saw a few things before we went on our tour, as parts of UB have been re-decorated - lots of traditional Mongolian souvenirs and the like about the place. A great example of that happening, was when we went to the State Department Store to get some money (had to pay the remainder owed for our tour + our train ticket to Beijing & Naadam tickets) & noticed that the car they had displayed in the perfume/ jewelery section had been removed & there was now a display of Mongolian tradition clothing. In fact the store had been cleaned up a bit & reorganised (there are 5 floors) in general, - the changes were quite noticeable.

The vibe at the guest house is a little different too, lots of newbies (we are the old hands, which is a little weird), perhaps it is because there are a few older people here too, but it’s just not quite as happening as it was when we first arrived (we were here for a couple of days, before heading out into the countryside).

Apparently most things close down over the next couple of days (including the Black Market) - it’s a 3 day holiday. There are 2 days for the Naadam & the 3rd day is for the locals to get over their hangovers. I think that the State Department Store will remain open, but from what we can gather from the locals, not too much more as far as shops go.

FYI - The State Department Store is kinda the one stop shop, it’s a bit like a Sears (for the Canadians) or a really weird ass Myers (for the Aussies, but a bit more dodgy) + a grocery store + liquor shop + gym + bank ++++. It’s not the cheapest place to shop in UB, but it is convenient (it’s 2 blocks from our guest house, Kongor)