After no time at all a car pulls up and in you get. It's not an official taxi nor is it some dodgy private taxi firm but just someone driving by who has the opportunity to make some money. Everyone knows the price - approximately 25 pence per km - and the 'taxi meter' is the odometer.
I can't quite see it taking on the monopoly of black cabs in London but it really does seem to work - you see people doing it all the time. However it did make me laugh this morning when I sat having breakfast in the hotel. Looking out the window I saw a girl stick her arm out and promptly a car pulled up. After the door swung open and she saw two boy-racer types in the car she waved them on and turned away. The boys could barely hide the look of rejection that covered their faces!
It seems to me that Mongolians are a very hospitable people - in the city people stop to give others a lift (all be it for a bit of money) and in the country it's traditional to let strangers drop in on your home and offer them a drink.
We were driving through the country the other day and our hosts wanted us to try a particular drink - mares milk (or horse milk to you and me!). So there in the middle of the countryside surrounded by nothing but grassy plains we stopped at a small round traditional ger that belonged to a herding family.
The scene could have been set at any point in the last 500 years - a few horses grazing nearby and a large flock of sheep, goats and cows doing likewise not to far from the herders home. The only thing that gave away that we were in the 21st Century were the solar panel outside the front door alongside the small satellite dish! As we ducked through the small door I felt strangely disappointed to find they had a TV inside - it just seemed so out of place alongside the heating stove that was in the middle of the ger that the lady of the house was fuelling with dried out cow pats from a bucket.
As we stepped inside the lady's husband moved from his stool where he was drinking and sat on the bed on the edge of the round ger. Felt a bit awkward as I took his place on the short stool but I was assured that it was absolutely fine. Apparently it's traditional to offer drinks to passing strangers - I just couldn't quite see myself being so hospitable to random people who happened to be passing down my street!
It turned out that they had no more mares milk. I felt a mixture of relief but disappointment as they explained that it was really on the menu only in summer. I knew it would taste bad but for some obscure reason still wanted to try it - it is after all meant to be a bit of a delicacy out in the country!
So we had normal milk tea instead. I say normal, but it's not quite the milk tea we are used to back home in the UK. Green tea is boiled in hot water and milk added before the essential ingredient of salt is included. As you might imagine it's an acquired taste - maybe if I practice enough back home, by the time I come again next year, I'll be enjoying it as much as everyone else!
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