Khovd (Ховд) is a small town. It has about 30,000 inhabitants. On its edge, a shanty town of gers (yurts) grows from people who sold tjheir cattle and left their pastures to seek their fortune elsewhere. We drove via Bayan-Enger on the road to Ölgii in the Tsambagarav Uul National Park. This national park covers about 1,110 square kilometers including Tsambagarav mountain, which is giving the park its name and stands 4,192 m tall. The park has a notable population of snow leopards; of course we didn't see one. We drove over rough terrain up to about 2,600 / 2700 m altitude and pitched our tents there.
The "busdriver"
The next day we wanted to visit a nomad family. As we started walking, a middle-aged man approached us with a steering wheel. We misunderstood at first because we assumed he was drunk, but he wasn't. The man had fallen from a horse when he was four years old and suffered a serious head injury. Now he thought he was going to drive a bus. And with this bus we drove to the ger of an elderly couple who were not related to him. He also got stuck with his bus at a difficult spot, drove back and forth until he drove us safely to the ger. The elderly couple spoke particularly freely about their situation. For example, she suffered from high blood pressure. And since I'm a doctor, I measured her blood pressure, which was too high. So I adjusted the medication. Then she mentioned that one of their sons is a doctor and a granddaughter is also studying medicine. However they hoped that one of their sons would take over the animals and resume life as a nomad. We hoped that her wish will come true. They don't want to live in a city. They want to grow old as nomads. The woman's brothers are in the neighborhood, but they were already over 60 years old. Last winter had been particularly tough, but they had hay so they got the animals through. Summer took a long time coming, which also explains why they only set up the ger here a few days ago. The winter pasture is about 150 km away. You can cover this distancet quite well in a day with a pickup truck, but the animals had to be driven all the way.
They reported that for a kilogram of beef costs 20,000 Tukri. But the middleman only pays about one million tukri for one cow. That's actually not enough for the work that was put into it. Wool hardly contributes to their income. A sheep costs about 100,000 tukri.
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| Dughter in law and grandson |
We wished the couple good luck and this time we didn't take the bus back to our tents.
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