← All articles · Mongolia · 5 May 2024

Mongolian Steppe: Sleeping under painted roof poles after the evening goat round-up

A night with a herder family on the Mongolian steppe: baby goats at golden hour, the evening round-up, and a ger with painted roof poles to sleep in.

Halfway between Ulaanbaatar and Kharkhorin, we stopped for the night with a herder family out on the open steppe. From outside a ger is a white felt dome; around it's a whole working farm, and in May 2024 we got to be part of it for an evening.

Walking out into nothing

First order of business: put the bags down and walk straight out into the grass. The scale out here does something to your head. There are no fences until the livestock pens, no roads, just a bare hill deciding where the horizon goes.

Inga crouching on green steppe grass with a camera raised, photographing a bare brown hill under a clear blue sky — Inga and the hill behind camp, having a long conversation through a zoom lens.

Inga standing in a sun hat with a camera in hand on open steppe grassland, low evening sun and dark hills on the horizon — Late-afternoon walk, no destination. The grass was just waking up from winter, green underfoot and gold everywhere else.

The family

Our hosts live here year round with their kids, their herd, a satellite dish and a couple of solar panels. No shared language beyond hello, which turned out to be plenty.

Inga chatting with a Mongolian woman and a young girl between two white gers, a satellite dish and solar panel beside them in evening light — Introductions between the gers. Felt walls, satellite dish, solar panel: the steppe runs on an interesting mix of centuries.

Inga with her arm around a young Mongolian girl in a red patterned deel, standing between two gers as the sun sets over the steppe — The daughter of the family in her red deel, entirely unbothered by the tourists, entirely in charge of the goats.

Bringing the herd home

At dusk the whole family turned out to bring the goats into the pens, and we were handed the newborns. This is apparently a chore for them. For us it was the highlight of the entire country.

A Mongolian family herding goats into wooden pens at dusk, a girl in a red deel walking beside a black kid goat in the foreground — The evening round-up. Everyone has a job, including the kid goat in the foreground, whose job is escaping.

Inga in a varsity jacket cradling a white baby goat beside a wooden livestock pen, golden sunset light on the steppe behind — Inga and a white kid, both lit up by the last of the sun. Handing it back took negotiation.

Dileep in a blue shirt and patterned hat holding a black baby goat in front of a ger, with a truck and satellite dish in the background — Dileep with the black one. It stopped wriggling roughly two seconds before this photo and resumed roughly two seconds after.

A shaggy brown cow standing on bare steppe ground at sunset with her young calf sheltering between her legs — Not everything wanted to be held. This calf picked the safest spot on the steppe and stayed there.

Inga making a heart shape with her hands in front of a ger, the sun setting into the grassland behind her — Sunset verdict, delivered in the international sign language.

Inside the ger

Then the door closed on all of it and we were inside the dome: stove in the middle, beds around the edge, tea on the table.

Inside a Mongolian ger: painted orange roof poles radiating from the crown, a central stove and chimney, cupboards and an ornately painted door — The classic ger layout: stove dead centre, painted roof poles overhead, and a door you will absolutely bump your head on.

Inga lying on a wooden bed along the wall of the ger, with a dresser, mirror and low table with snacks and a thermos nearby — Settled in for the night. Beds around the edge, snacks and a thermos of tea on the table, wind doing its thing outside the felt.

No plumbing, no city glow, just the stove ticking as it cooled. We slept better there than in most hotels, and we have been recalibrating our definition of comfort ever since.