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As well as hiking and
trekking vacations, we also organize mountain
biking, motorcycling and horse riding tours in Mongolia.
Even the trips than we call "cultural"
all include optional activities of walking
and riding horses, camels, and even
yaks. Conversely, our activity tours also include
cultural aspects. The most fascinating aspect of
Mongolian culture for many foreigners is their nomadic
lifestyle. Mongolian people are very hospitable
and in travelling around the country you are sure
to be invited into the homes of local families who
will offer you tea, airag (fermented
mare's milk), clotted cream, yoghurt,
and whatever other milk products they have to hand.
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2008 Group
Mountain Biking Holidays
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| For many years we have been running
mountain biking and cycling tours in Mongolia. Several
of our staff are former professional cyclists, so
good technical advice and an expert bike maintenance
service are available on our biking trips. We have
good front suspension hard-tail specialized bikes
for hire. The MTB tours in Central and Northern
Mongolia all run with support vehicles to carry
equipment, staff and food. The cycling routes are
graded according to the daily distance covered,
the gradient and technical sections, but since there
are support vehicles available, the grade of tour
is not a cause for concern because anyone is welcome
to put their bike on top and ride in the vehicle
for a while at any time. |
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2008 Group
Horse Riding Holidays
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Mongolia is a nation of horsemen and
for many visitors this is the best way to see the
country. To ride across the hills and open steppe
together with the local people is a wonderful experience.
On our horse riding tours and treks we work with
local families, hiring their horses, and the owners
themselves travel with us to look after the animals
and saddle them up each day. Mongolian saddles are
made of wood, often highly decorated with big silver
engraved studs, which are most uncomfortable for
Western riders. We therefore use Russian style saddles
made of leather on a metal frame, which are much
more acceptable. The ability of group members usually
varies from the novice to the experienced rider,
so we would normally divide the group into two so
that everyone can ride at their own pace.
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In
many of the regions where we organize treks in
Mongolia, there are some superb examples of the
ancient sculpture of the Central Asian nomads.
As you travel around Mongolia, your guide may
show you some of these cultural monuments, which
are often located in the middle of nowhere, and
quite unprotected. Deer
stones date from the bronze age (4th
to 3rd centuries BC) and show stylized deer in
flying gallop. Mongolians say their 
nation
sprang from the union of a fallow doe with a male
wolf. Stone men
mark the graves of local chieftans and date from
the Turkic and Uighur periods of the 6th - 10th
centuries AD. The stone men wear a tunic with
a knife in the belt, and hold a drinking cup.
