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25 May 2010 | Deluun Sum, Mongolia (47.9828, 90.6611)
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The reason we came to this remote corner of Mongolia was to visit the eagle-hunter. But before playing with the giant bird we had to take care of some household chores and drink vast quantities of salty milk tea.
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Arriving at the nomadic eagle-hunter’s home, we noticed the satellite dish and solar panel. It powered his portable TV and mobile phone so I guess that is keeping with his namesake.
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As honored guests, the mother fetched us some fresh milk. She just mixes the goat, sheep and yak milk together for extra flavor.
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We also needed some water so we drove down to the local creek and scooped some up, careful to keep the floating bits of sheep dung out of it.
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Finally, we were ready to make some salty milk tea. We each drank about eight glasses of the stuff that day.
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Our guide had to make a phone call so we walked up to the top of the hill to get one bar of reception.
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You might have noticed there are no trees around to use for firewood. This is why there are piles of dried dung (behind the goats), which gives everything a nice smoky flavor.
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As the Mongolians say, I am taking pleasure in the great outdoors toilet. Cannot imagine doing this when it is -40°F out,
you might lose a vital appendage.
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Spending a day helping out with chores has again reaffirmed our respect for these people who live through the harsh winters here (if you wanted to see for yourself, check out Kelin, a great movie depicting Kazakh culture that has not changed for centuries). Now that we have partaken in the ritual tea drinking, we are ready to meet the last feathered family member.
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