Some final thoughts on Mongolia (Andrew)

I think grocery stores are one of the best ways to really get a sense of a place. In UB there are plastic bags of horse milk "sealed" with twist ties or a knot in the plastic. Fruits and vegetables are definitely a luxury. The dairy section in the state grocery store dwarfs the produce section by at least 3 times and there isn't much in the way of variety-I didn't see anything other than potatoes, onions, apples, cabbages and tomatoes. To make up for this vitamin drinks are all the rage. One of the most popular is 'seabuckthorn' juice made from some sort of nettle. 90% of seabuckthorn farming is in China but we didn't encounter any juice there. In the dairy section there were at least a dozen different flavours of yoghurt drink in 3 or 4 different fat contents and 3 or 4 different sizes and with the choice three different animal sources and sometimes even combinations, (you do the math) (after doing the math I realize this number is unreasonable large, pending translation horse yoghurt may or may not exist. For the sake of the post lets just say it does.)

Interestingly, restaurants in UB have more exotic things like squash at the vegan restaurant and bock choy in a Vietnamese restaurant. This fits with impression of modern Mongolia we got; there is evidence of progress all around, but so far the benefits seem to have settled disproportionately on a privileged few (who are at the restaurants), while for the masses life has changed little so far.

On our trip through the Gobi we visited a number of very small grocers in small towns. Generally the store would be a room in someone's house and it took me the entire trip to figure out that the next room was not a casual carpet store filled with knick knacks. Commonly several houses in a row would have almost identical stores. Almost everything in these stores was packaged and the offerings were not very exciting-peanuts, old potatoes, chips-the same stuff you might find in a corner store in Canada. Some things were interesting though. By volume, beer was more expensive than vodka and was probably not far from the price you would expect in Canada. I never figured out who was buying beer (apart from foreigners who don't know how to use their money..) Also, prices are often not listed, so that you had to ask the store owner, but I never saw bargaining..

some other thoughts:

Forget your foui gra and fancy free range mennonite chicken. When in Russia get the 'oppressed chicken with baked tomatoes'. Delicious.

I think Cam might be in vegetarianism withdrawal. Yesterday he calculated how many days he was vegetarian for. Between the duck hearts in China, the mystery gristle in Mongolia and the 'oppressed chicken' here in Russia it might be time to move on Cam. Just sayin'.

Mongolian's have very smart haircuts. Is anyone else wondering if anyone ever goes into the salon and says, "Modern forward thinking western business culture in the front please. Genghhis Khan in the back." Here's hoping.

The Mongolian language sounds like when Gandalf catches the moth in Lord of the Rings and talks to it in moth language. I'm well aware this comment will be understood by a total of one reader.. unless...! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnidHtNzK-0 Thanks Youtube. (Cameron adds: it also sounds like Parseltongue, if that does the trick for you.) I'd say we're at a conversational level at this point. (Unfortunately I'll probably regress over my time in the UK, expect 'hello', 'thank you', 'delicious' and 'cheers!' when you see me next). Scratch that, I've forgotten 'delicious'.