Spent today at the Naadaam Festival in Ulaanbaator, Mongolia. Very interesting day. The train from Sainshand got us in around 8.30am. We then went and grabbed some breakfast in a local hotel before heading out to the opening ceremony. Was interesting to see the Mongolian Olympics team make an appearance.

Naadaam opening ceremony

On the way out of the main stadium whilst walking around to the archery, we were suddenly stuck in a large crowd. I saw a guy coming close to me and he had a jacket over his arm so I knew what he was up to. I had both hands on my camera and couldn’t get my hands down to my pocket fast enough so he managed to get my wallet out of my pocket but what he didn’t count on was the chain that had it attached to the inside of my trousers. Needless to say, the wanna be pickpocket failed. I was going to grab him but there was no point. I couldn’t prove it was him even though I knew it as there wouldn’t have been any witnesses.

One of our group wasn’t as fortunate and he had a strap stolen off his bag. Luckily it wasn’t holding anything on.

At the archery, we found the archers to be very accurate… With the exception of one who managed to hit a spectator in the leg with an arrow. Luckily the arrows weren’t sharp so the spectator should just have a nasty bruise tomorrow.

Knucklebones was a little less dangerous and we watched that for a while.

Finally we went to the horse racing where unfortunately one of the horses collapsed and died in front of us.

I have loads of photos and will post them when I get a chance.. In the meantime I have a Mongolian sim card and am posting off my phone.