Mongolia is a country that many people know very little about, aside from the historical association to the infamous conqueror, Ghenghis Khan. It’s a massive country—approximately 1.6 million square kilometers—with almost no one in it (just over three million, to be exact). With such a disparity, Mongolia’s population density is only two people per square kilometer. Compared to places like Macau and Mumbai (approximately 21,000 people per square kilometer), you can see just how sparsely inhabited Mongolia truly is.
However, in spite of its sprawling landscape, many people aren’t able to identify Mongolia on a map. It’s not what you’d call a tourist destination—and that’s exactly why we went there. There is an inherent draw for me to visit places like Mongolia; places that are so untouched, remote, and far removed from the hustle and bustle of modern life that they seem to be part of a completely different world.
After arriving in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, we flew to a small western town called Khovd. The three-hour flight there consisted of thousands of miles of desert completely devoid of roads, trees, or other signs of humanity. Upon landing, we could have sworn we landed on the moon. Once we retrieved our baggage, we met our guide Huandag and driver Takha that were supplied to us by Indy Guide, a local tour operator.
Mongolia reconfirmed to me that beauty of humanity lies in our differences. While we’re all the same deep down, it’s our inherent differences that make us so unique. Our differences define us; they earmark where we come from, they highlight our culture, and they underscore our way of life. They all blend together to make us who we are.
The Kahzakh people of Western Mongolia catch and train golden eagles to serve as hunting companions. These specialized birds hunt foxes, rabbits, and even wolves. To witness this unique and ancient partnership, we arranged for our guide to take us to an annual festival that showcased Mongolia’s famous eagle hunters. This was the main event of our trip and the reason we traveled thousands of miles over two days. The festival brings together all of the eagle hunters from the surrounding areas in the name of prestigious competition. With the assistance of our guide, we managed to arrange a stay with one of the hunters for the few days leading up to the festival.
After the eight-hour drive from, we arrived at the yurt where we’d be staying and met our host, Alpamys. Over the following three days, we lived with our host family and shared meals, slept, listened to traditional songs, participated in traditional dances, hunted on horseback, and truly immersed ourselves in the local culture. As is the case with many families in that region, our host family was nomadic. Four times during the year, they pack up everything they own and relocate to allow their animals access to fresh grazing territory every season.
After a few days with our host family, it was time to head out to the festival which was a 3 hour drive away near Lake Tolbo. We were there to witness eagle hunters from all over western Mongolia compete against one another. The process of the competition is very nuanced: the hunters call their eagles and are judged on the speed, precision, and elegance of the flight.
After the festival, we headed out to stay with our next host family . We lived with them for a few days and were stoked to join them for another hunt. After a couple hours on horseback, the hunter, Talop, suddenly launched his eagle and it took off into the valley below us. The eagle trapped a Pallas’s cat (a cousin of the snow leopard) inside a little hole in the rocks. When we finally caught up to the action and I saw the cat, I can easily say it was the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. After some struggle, Talop retrieved it from the hole and I was able to capture these photos.
Seeing such a beautiful animal stripped of life was pretty difficult to see, yet the feelings it elicited in me were very conflicting. The Mongolian people have been hunting in these mountains for thousands of years—what say did we have in what they did? What right did we have to question it? Even still, the Pallas’s cat is classified as Near Threatened and hunting is prohibited in all range countries except Mongolia. However, as is the case with all of their hunting practices, not a single part of the Pallas’s cat would go to waste; the meat would be eaten, the pelt made into clothing, and the fat used in medicine.
Watching this ancient hunt also made me ask myself why I felt so much empathy for this animal, yet I regularly eat meat like chicken, beef, and fish without any negative emotional feedback. (This is something that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about since I got home.) The capture of the Pallas’s cat was the first successful hunt of the year and the excitement on the faces of everyone in our group was so real and pure. It was amazing to be a part of the whole experience and I’ll be forever grateful to have had the rare opportunity to see it firsthand.
After the hunt, we headed back to the yurt, ready for some sleep and our journey back to the capital in the morning. Before we left, we had an interesting conversation with our guide, Huandag, about the effects of tourism on Mongolia. We asked her how the culture has been affected as more and more tourists venture into the country. It’s a commonly held belief that as tourism increases, “traditional culture makes its way to the door”. I’ve personally seen this happen in many places I’ve visited. Surprisingly, Huandag didn’t see it that way. On the contrary, her response was the opposite. She described the world as being in a state of change. Whether we like it or not, change is happening fast. The internet, cell phones, and limitless information at our fingertips is changing the entire fabric of our existence, and even the most remote places on earth feel that change. People who have traditionally been isolated herders and hunters, naturally subsisting off the land, now have access to this global network. For all the good and bad of this instant inter-connectedness, it’s happening. Even without the influx and influence of tourism, the industries and traditions that govern the wild lands of Mongolia are changing.
Huandag further explained that foreigners’ renewed interest in Mongolian traditions is actually reinvigorating cultural elements that have seemed to fade with the passing years. Practices her grandparents held were slowly vanishing, but thanks to people coming from all over the world to see them, a new passion to keep them alive was ignited.
Mongolia reconfirmed to me that beauty of humanity lies in our differences. While we’re all the same deep down, it’s our inherent differences that make us so unique. Our differences define us; they earmark where we come from, they highlight our culture, and they underscore our way of life. They all blend together to make us who we are.
In a world that can often channel us to fit a particular mold or way of being, now more so than ever we need to embrace our personal traditions and all of their nuanced history.
The Mongolian people know who they are and they don’t try to be anyone else. They may not have many material possessions, but they are rich in family, community, and culture—the aspects in life that matter most. Some places in this world evolve at a lightning pace, disconnected from tradition and a connection to the past. Others confidently maintain their way of life and all its cultural wisdom, even as the inevitability of technology and change seeps through their borders.
Mongolia is the latter.
And experiencing the country even for a short while, was an experience I won’t soon forget.
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