Rygsækrejsen 2015-2016: Nadaam stop in Tsetserleg

Left the camp this morning on foot. The truck was not leaving until 9 am, but we were ready to leave at 8 am to enjoy a nice morning walk on our own in the sunshine through the valley. Just the two of us walking so it was quiet – and beautiful. Occasionally passing yak's, horses or goats as we walked.

The truck caught up with us around 9:30 and then it was around one more hour off road until we reached the road.

First stop was the town of Tsetserleg to shop for our bush camping tonight – and to stay for a few hours to enjoy the local Nadaam festival. Since it was Saturday and a relatively large town it was expected that it would be slightly bigger than the last time we caught up with Nadaam,

We waited for the shopping groups to be done and then had lunch at a local cafe with western food before heading for the Nadaam area. Unfortunately we arrived only a few minutes before the wrestling was about to finish so we only got the see two guys in the field walking around each other a bit before one of them managed to tilt the other. Then the crowd cheered and the wrestling was over for this time. A shame we didn't go there before lunch.

We walked around the Nadaam grounds for a while, sat and looked at some ceremony for some of the young horse racers being presented in the middle of the field one by one.

Mikkel left to go back to the cafe while Malene stayed with Kate at the Nadaam fair to see if there was more wrestling or archery taking place. We heard it wouldn't be more than a 40 minute break before some more wrestling, in fact it ended up being 2,5 hours.

Just before we were supposed to go back to the truck the wrestling started again. Taking forever to start though but Malene, Kate and some of the others did get to see a few minutes of wrestling before they had to leave.

At first it can seem at little bit disorganised with things happening here and there – without any official timetable. Nadaam seems to be just as much a social event where you can meet your friends, neighbours, friends-friends, family and all other people in and around town as it's about the competitions.

We left around 5.30 pm to go to our bush camp. Mikkel was cooking dinner with Danielle and Katie. Ginger and garlic chicken with vegetables and rice. Great meal.

Since we had come a bit down from the mountains tonight was definitely warmer so it was nice just to hang out at the camp and have a glass of wine. We've enjoyed more than a week with sunshine, temperatures around 25-30 degrees during the day but the forecast is for cold weather, rain and lots of wind. Sucking in the warm weather as long as it lasts.