The bygone days of nomads and yurts

By request from our friend Judy (who just returned from east Africa and has her own blog of travel stories, among other things), we are posting a few photos of the house of our Mongolian friend who hosted us while we were working in the Dabaishan (Aoerban) area (see previous post).


Many Mongolians in Inner Mongolia no longer live in the traditional yurts of their ancestor's nomadic days. The grasslands are now divided up much like large ranches where their livestocks roam.


Our generous host Bai had a two-room brick house that he and his wife live in. One room composes of the kitchen / bedroom, as they prepare their meals on the bed. The other room is the dining / bedroom, as they eat on the bed as well.


Bai had a side house, which we were not introduced to, by the main house and the outdoor pen for the goats. He takes his goats out for grazing in the early morning, letting them wander over the gently rolling hills before bringing them into the pen in the evening.


The closest thing to yurts we encountered on our travels were the tents used by Tibetan nomads in western Tibet. These are often family-size tents where four, five, or even six people live in as they travel across the landscape.