We knew Mongolians slept in gers and we kinda knew what they were, sort of how you’d know what it’s like to live in a tree house even though you’ve never done it. We were sure that we’d see the real Mongolian gers with Mongolians living in them but we would have some kind of upgraded fancy gers, with windows and certainly facilities (that means bathrooms). To our surprise, a ger is a ger is a ger and that’s all you get. This was our first ger with a horrendous thunderstorm about ready to hit.

This family is in the middle of the Gobi Desert. a 360 degree turn would show nothing except their camels and horses. They are unusual in that they have two gers, one for cooking.

As part of our education about gers we watched the staff at our ger camp take apart one of our gers (in 7 minutes) and get it ready to transport. Mongolians are nomads and move their homes with their herds. This reveals the “bones” of our home. It was a five lattice ger which is the most typical size we saw. It’s about 20′ in diameter.

To hold up the center is a circular topped post system. Adrienne is the muscle.

Doesn’t this group like they’ve had too much “fermented mares milk”? That’s the local booze and we got to test in some of the locals gers.