High in the Khangai, where the summer pasture is green and the yaks outnumber the people, the herders hold a festival for the animal that keeps them alive. Yak racing, which is slower and funnier than horse racing until it is not, yak polo, a yak beauty contest judged on horns and coat, and a lasso competition that shows why these families do not need fences.
It is a small provincial festival, a few hundred people, most of them related. Nobody is performing for you. We come as guests of a family who compete, camp with them in the valley, and spend the days around the festival riding the high pastures and swimming in a very cold river.
It pairs naturally with the Orkhon Valley, the waterfall and Kharkhorin, so we build it as a week through the heart of the country.
