Mongolia
Milking our own cow milk
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Johan Kruseman
Updated on 13 September 2024
Updated on 13 September 2024
As night fell, we stopped at a family and asked if we could eat and sleep there, and it was a bullseye. Freshly picked blackberries, raspberries, and wild strawberries (in a country where I had started to think that vegetables and fruits hadn’t been invented yet), playing Mongolian durak, volleyball, soccer with goals so big that even I could score, milking cows, talking to the father in German (because he had worked in a porcelain factory in Germany for six months 28 years ago), reheating the previous day’s dinner by throwing it into boiling water, and ending the day with a big mug of freshly milked cow’s milk.
The next day, we walked together with the man to the next village to pick up yogurt, but unfortunately (or fortunately), it had to stay in the sun for another day. It’s quite remarkable how the man made a living. He collected cow dung, let it mold by having worms dig air channels, let it dry out for a few weeks, and then crushed it to sell to families who had come to the capital and were still growing their potatoes on a piece of land that was too small, so they needed extremely fertile soil. All cool, but it does sound like a niche market.
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Traveled route: Ulaanbaatar, Kharkhorin, Hatgal, Khorgo, Tstetserleg, Red Waterfall, Zamiin-Uud
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Mongolia
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