Naddam Festival in Mongolia

Naddam in Mongolia is term as a joyful and happy occasion. 11^th to 13^th July 2005 is the Naddam Festival - national holiday for Mongolia, it is the big happy day for all the Mongolian. We were fortunate to be in Mongolia to join in the fun and we were very excited when we got our ticket from our guesthouse host to the opening and closing ceremony, as we were about to witness this big event of the year for the Mongolians.

Early morning on 11^th July, after we had our breakfast, together with some other travelers staying in the LG guesthouse, we strolled to the Stadium (about 30 mins walk). When we reached there, we saw many sets up stalls from food and drinks seller to games and souvenirs vendors selling all kinds of things. The stadium is not very big or well equipped with enough rooms, so many of the parade performers were waiting in their costumes outside of the stadium door, under the burning hot sun.

At about 9.45am, 15mins after the schedule time, the announcer started the program. We stood up as we sang the national anthem. I find whole parade performance very amusing. There was not a need for perfection; you can see the performers were not so strict in having the prefect timing, nor in their positioning; all they were interested was to havea fun time of celebration together. As a Singaporean who had attended big events like this type on our national day, I was very much amused to see the performer waiting for their turn by the side of the field or even gather around anywhere they can find a space in groups to chit chat till their turn come. This is a very different mindset from Singaporean style:(to be perfect and excellent). The floats were also interesting; all you can see is plain advertisement (with just a banner over the truck). Both Shaz and myself kept looking at each other in amusement. Of course, needless to say there were oversell of ticket, so at about 10am, the stadium was jam-packed with people at the entrances trying to push their way in to get into an empty seat. We were forewarned to be careful with our belongings, as pickpockets were very common during this festive season.

After the opening ceremony, the crowd began to disperse away to the various locations; to watch the Archery, Wrestling, knucker bone throw, and horse racing competition (to be held in the countryside about 1 hrs drive out of city).

It was very interesting to see the horseracing event, when we finally reached (having written down the wrong Mongolian wordings on “horse racing”) thus had taken the wrong bus to the airport, instead of the horse racing arena, it was funny though at least for me (what a blunder).

I enjoyed the horseracing event so much that I went back the next morning again for the 2^nd day match. Am sure glad that I went back because I got to see another side of the Mongolian culture. We came in time to see the first few horses that came in the finishing line. It was interesting to see that when the horses came in, the crowd would break loose the barrier set up by the police and ran towards the horse (hoping to be at least the first to touch the winning horse – so that they will have good luck for the whole year). Well, I can tell you that it was really amusing to see so many people running everywhere trying to touch the horses that came in the finishing line. Kids who ride the horses were from age 3 to 6 years and they have to ride fro 30 km, the first 10 km they will walk, next 10km – trot and the final 10km they will gallop. It was a very tiring competition for the kids, but yet you can see the pride and joy on their faces when they reached the finishing line, thinking to themselves “thank God, I finished the race.”

After the horseracing, we went back to the Stadium to watch the final wrestling match and closing ceremony. Half way through the competition, suddenly hailstorm hit and the whole stadium went chaos, my Dutch friend Marlene got stampeded by the crowd rushing down to get shelter. It was real scarily when I saw her came down to the shelter looking shattered. I was not feeling too well, got food poisoning from the food I bought at the food stall earlier on, and vomited very badly. Despite the some of the unforeseen incidents at the Naddam , we had our fair bit of fun and enjoyment.

my email: joydive@gmail.com