After 2 weeks of traveling we have finally made it to the Nadaan festival in Ulaanbaatar !!

Nadaan festival is part family reunion, part nomad Olympics, and part national holiday which celebrates their independence. Held this year between 11-13 July it is the culmination of smaller Nadaan festivals held throughout country in the week before. It also celebrates the peoples revolution of Mongolia (92nd), as well as the anniversary of Mongolian statehood (its number 2222, this year).

We had an early start to get to the national stadium for the opening ceremony, our seats reserved by our awesome local tour guide; front row! It was a great festival atmosphere, massive food stalls and shops, with the archery and knuckle shooting stadiums close by.
The opening ceremony was a very colourful affair, everyone in national costume, with massive choreographed traditional dancing. The most impressive was the arrival of the ‘9 banners of peace’; large horse hair tipped standards which were made over 60 years ago. The presidential guards rode specially bread blond horses in full royal armour – an amazing sight riding at full stride past us.
Then came 512 wrestlers who received a blessing in front of the banners of peace (ironic as that was), an impressive sight as traditional music blared around the stadium. They performed a dance mimicking an eagle as a testimant to their strength – a rather peaceful moment after an intense wrestling match.
A hilarious aspect of our seats was the keen bean photographers lying prone in front of us , attempting to capture smiling faces and running horses with thousands of dollars of camera gear. At times it was very heated as people clambered over each other, elbowing others in the back as if National geographic was going to call later that day.

The open ceremony was an amazing spectacle – something that should be on people’s bucket list.
We then spent sometime in the stadium , watching the lower rounds of the wrestling – small wrestlers in even smaller tights and wrestling tops getting thrown to the ground easily. The big heavies would wrestle in the later rounds the following day.

Watching the archery was brilliant, a complete spectrum of men and women of all ages, beautifully dressed is traditional costume. Using traditional bows made of layered horn, bark and wood, they aimed to hit targets on the ground – the soft tipped arrows (made of willow branches) arched over 60m to a collection of judges, whose hand signals and songs indicated the score. A photographers dream sitting up in the stands. The last main event was Knukle boning, essentially a sport of flicking a domino sized piece of bone, in an arch to hit 2 goat knuckles some 10 metres away. The ceremony and ritual involved was a true spectacle.
After a full day in the sun, we headed to a local mongolian restaurant for some sustenance and a quick look around Sukhbaatar square; the main centre of town housing the huge government building. It was interesting to return here after 12 yrs – the buildings around now modern and all high rise.