This Luxurious Camp Lets You Uncover Mongolia’s Wild Facet — Here is What It is Like

A herd of horses thundered down a slope, by means of tall grass feathered with golden mild. The animals, together with the one I used to be using, charged throughout the large, unbroken steppe of central Mongolia, their tails fanning out and their manes flapping wildly. Within the lead was Dashaa Lkhagvajav, who sported the trilby hat generally worn by herders in Mongolia. He stood up straight in his metallic stirrups, his physique raised above the standard picket saddle, the reins in a single hand, using with ease. At first of our trip, he had warned me, “Mongolia’s horses are half-wild as a result of they spend most of their time roaming freely throughout the grasslands. We solely often deliver them in.” Having efficiently rounded the herd up, all of us cantered again towards camp. 

My husband, Mark, our two younger sons, Archie and Zac, and I have been on the southern fringe of Hustai Nationwide Park, about 60 miles west of the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. We have been there to expertise a brand new camp, Mandala Nomadic, by the journey firm Panoramic Journeys. The camp consists of a set of personal ger (felt-walled tents), every of which serves a special function: there’s the house of the nomadic host household, a kitchen, employees quarters, visitor quarters, and a tent for stress-free and socializing. The thought is to offer luxurious lodging (which is restricted in Mongolia) in spectacular areas, whereas educating guests about nomadic life and offering the host household with monetary help. Mandala’s first web site opened in southern Mongolia’s Semi-Gobi Desert in 2018. 

“The identify Mandala means ‘a sacred place,’ ” stated Temuulen Enkhbold, our information. “It’s represented in Buddhist paintings by colourful geometric symbols.” (Buddhism is Mongolia’s predominant faith.) 

Practically half the nation’s inhabitants stays nomadic, and through our summer time go to, we handed households as they migrated to their autumn pastures, some with camel caravans — although lately, most use vehicles. Mongolia has many camps that enable vacationers to expertise the transportable domed tents most individuals reside in, however they’re typically large and shared with different vacationers. At Mandala, it was simply us. 

As we returned to camp with the horses, we noticed Zukar Amankyeldi, the camp butler, who was sporting a turquoise deel, or overcoat, and on her outstretched arms she had draped a khadag — a silk scarf that’s a Mongolian signal of greeting. 

Spreading 1,486 miles from east to west, Mongolia is the world’s second most sparsely populated nation. It’s a spot the place steppe eagles sail the skies, swooping down so shut that you could virtually contact them, and waves of black and white yaks drift throughout the land, their lengthy fur swishing like curtains. It’s a spot the place mare’s milk is fermented right into a nutritious, alcoholic drink known as airag (it’s candy and bitter and barely fizzy) and morin khuurs — picket fiddles that curve up into the type of a horse’s head — are performed. 

Horses have a major function in Mongolia’s tradition. From these rippling steppes, Chinggis Khan (a.okay.a. Genghis Khan) rode out within the early thirteenth century to forge the world’s largest contiguous empire, reaching from the Sea of Japan to Vienna. To today, Mongolians stay fiercely pleased with Khan, and his picture seems in all places: the airport is called after him, as is the main model of vodka, and we noticed statues of him all through the capital.

Once we arrived at Mandala Nomadic, we have been proven to our sleeping ger. There have been trendy upgrades, like a double mattress wearing linen, and an adjoining toilet ger with a bathe and a composting rest room. It had typical décor, together with fairly felted-wool rugs and picket furnishings painted in shades of orange, all made by native craftspeople. Within the middle was a range, with the chimney rising by means of the roof. There was additionally a multipurpose “magic ger,” the place we ate our meals and relaxed. This tent contained a document participant, conventional video games (like shagai, performed with the ankle bones of sheep or goats), and an easel with paints and sketchbooks. Meals have been a mixture of European and Mongolian dishes. We had khuushuur (meat-filled pastries), served steaming sizzling, and khorkhog, a conventional type of barbecue during which goat is cooked with sizzling rocks in a sealed metallic urn till deliciously tender.

On our first day, we visited the ger of our husband-and-wife hosts, Batmunkh Tserenjav and Jargalzaya Enkhjargal. They laid out a feast for us: bowls of sweets, dried curd, parcels of fried dough, and wealthy, velvety cream from their cows, which we unfold onto hunks of bread. Like all of Mongolia’s nomads, the household migrates seasonally in the hunt for new pasture for his or her animals, so Mandala Nomadic operates solely from June to September. After that it’s taken down and stowed in Ulaanbaatar till the subsequent 12 months. The three kids had lately left to reside at college; most nomadic kids board, because the distances are too far to journey each day. “Schooling is altering nomadic life,” Enkhbold stated. “Many kids at the moment need jobs within the metropolis.” 

Local weather change can also be having an impression on the standard life-style. (Ulaanbaatar is likely one of the globe’s most polluted cities due to its continued reliance on coal.) “The grass is now drier, shorter, and never as inexperienced,” Enkhjargal stated. “And we have now harsher winters.” That is why a portion of the price of staying at Mandala goes into tasks that deal with the local weather emergency. One initiative helps younger Mongolian local weather campaigners, like Anu-Ujin, an 18-year-old who makes crafts from recycled items. 

At some point, we climbed a mountain behind the camp, strolling previous tortoiseshell butterflies as they looped over purple alpine asters. On the summit, we watched purple deer run up a going through mountainside and gazed down on the valley. The land was unplanted and untended; there have been no fences or hedges, barely any timber, and no signposts or street markings. I noticed a scattering of ger, which glowed an excellent white, like full moons.

After we descended, we discovered a shock lunch ready for us on the financial institution of the river Tuul. The camp chef, Tuvshinjargal Munkhtsetseg, was barbecuing skewers of beef, hen, and yellow peppers over sizzling coals. As we ate, a cascade of cows, goats, and sheep, led by a horseman, poured down over a distant hillside. 

Most vacationers to Mongolia do a “circuit tour,” throughout which they transfer to a special camp each night time. However we have been fortunate to spend 5 nights at Mandala Nomadic. Our boys flew colourful kites and practiced two of Mongolia’s hottest nationwide sports activities, archery and wrestling, with Enkhbold, who confirmed them how one can journey or carry their opponent. 

Hustai Nationwide Park, which surrounds the camp, was created in 1998 to protect Przewalski’s horse, Central Asia’s final surviving wild horse species, in addition to to guard different native animals, together with Argali sheep, Pallas’s cat, which is across the dimension of a home cat; and Mongolian gazelles. Throughout our go to, we spied Siberian marmots and heard whirring grasshoppers, and woke at daybreak to trace wolves.

A lot to the fun of our sons, we noticed a male wolf with the assistance of Tserenjav (who additionally works as a park ranger) and watched the animal skulking over a mountain ridge in entrance of us. “We consider that wolves are our ancestors,” he informed us. “These sacred creatures are our totem animals.”

On our final day, we kayaked alongside the fast-flowing Tuul. Two whooper swans, their necks held out like rods, floated above. Then, all of a sudden, a herd of not less than 30 horses dashed by means of the water in entrance of us, creating highly effective waves. 

All too quickly, it was time to depart. As we drove away from the camp, I glanced again and noticed Enkhjargal throw some milk into the sky — a gesture to bless our journey. 

The place to Keep

We spent an evening at Kempinski Lodge Khan Palace in Ulaanbaatar, the place most guests start their journey. Mandala Nomadic is a two-hour drive from the capital. A keep consists of unique use of the furnished ger, a chef, butler, English-speaking information, and airport transfers. Panoramic Journeys can manage different experiences all through the nation.

A model of this story first appeared within the July 2024 challenge of Journey + Leisure below the headline “The Nice Huge Open.”