Ulaanbaatar has the best traffic. I once witnessed a car stall in the middle of a busy street. While the cars stuck behind it mercilessly honked their horns, like that would help the car start, a young girl hopped out of the car and began pushing the car to pop the clutch. Meanwhile crowds of disgruntled pedestrians  gave her irritated looks and walked around.

Buuz, an oily mutton dumpling. Pronounced boats or boots, i'm not sure, but it sounds remarkably similar to the Mongolian word for sheep manure. So, for the last 9 days i've ingested almost nothing but buuz, dried curdled milk (Aaruul) and vodka. My taste buds love the buuz! But my stomach has fought me the whole way. So if buuz don't kill me, then nothing will.

Back to the sweet sound of car horns and the smoggiest smog around... But anyway, here's a taste of Mongolia from our perspective. 

Change of plans for Tsagaan Sar! Anji, a friend of mine, is working on a documentary following the life of a Mongolian man working in Ulaanbaatar. For Tsagaan Sar he is returning home and we are staying with his family in Rashaant. Rashaant is in Khovsgol Province, the northern most part of the country and is quite remote. There are many wolves here, so I will interview some herding family's about livestock deprivation and bankhars.

Baavgai (Pronounced Bah Gwah and translated to bear), our adult male Bankhar, escaped the other day making for a long, cold, unproductive day. He is incredibly nice and relaxed dog with a menacing bark, and is too smart for his own good. He returned, as he usually does, because he knows home is where the food is. Anyway, we left Gachuurt, and like always, we are fighting the most illogical, stupid, and obnoxious drivers during our commute back to UB. I can't express how frustrating the drivers are here. Some suspect that their habits stem from the fact that many people grew up in the country and the city life, and driving, is entirely new to them. Now like always, Doug and I are feeling genuinely hungry, so we jump in some random mystery Mongel food joint and order who knows what because I can't  read Mongolian. That's my own fault. Well I got some tasty noodles and potato salad. Then, as we are eating, Mr. Drunken Fat Guy strolls in and loiters around our table and begins to watch us eat. Then he walks away... Then comes back and stares at everything again. And at this point Doug had finished his Ramen noodles but had some tasty orange broth leftover. So this guy, without saying a word, helps himself to Doug's broth. I'm trying seriously hard to stifle laughter and end up giving him my potatoes. After that he tried to sell us bus tickets so we left.

This week was great, but also shitty. So, I suppose, that's why, in the end it was great. A frustrating week for sure but not boring in the least. Today we tried to introduce the next mother and her pups to sheep but of course mom decided she wanted to eat the sheep and began chasing them. She managed to chomp down on the sheep's lard tail and I had to wrestle her off the thing. So, that was a big failure because her puppies need to love and caress the sheep. Most likely  this mother never grew up around livestock, like we suspect our other mother dogs did. On the bright side the other "drunk" caretaker bought Doug a Redbull, showed us some Tibetan mastiffs, and has been a genuinely cool guy this past week.

The mighty Baavgai...

Red Scarf (mother) and half her litter. Pups are around 7 weeks old here.

Annnnnnd this kid, who shows up now and again. Still don't know his name but he's the man.

This mountain is in our backyard, right across the river from our enclosures. We will be back at the top for Tsagaan San, the Mongolian Lunar New Year, in about two weeks or so. Working together, I pulled Arslon up the mountain and he pulled me down.