A Day at the Races

TSETSERLEG, Mongolia – How do you set your watch to Mongolian Time?

If you are familiar with the temporal concept known variously as "French Time," "Black People Time," "Island Time" and "College Freshman Time," your watch will need no adjustment. Mongolians, too, are constantly late.

As with any culture not known for punctuality, it's not that people here are so busy they cannot keep appointments. It's just that there's not a high priority placed on getting there exactly at the specified time. Mongolians dawdle, loaf and mosey; rarely do they run.

So when Bobby informed us last night that we would attend the Tsetserleg New Year's Horse Race at 8 a.m. the next morning, we probably should not have set our alarms for seven.

After a protracted farewell to our warm sleeping bags, Myriam the Frontierswoman tries to revive the fire, and I head for the loo. Outside in the dawn light, I am able to take stock of our accommodations. We are staying in a ger, but out the door, instead of the endless steppe, there is a wooden picket fence. This is the backyard of our hosts, who are sleeping, along with Battir and bobby, inside their two bedroom house.The arrangement is an elaborate visual joke. The Mongolians packed up and moved into a warm toasty house with central heat, while white folks travel hundreds of miles to stay in some pieces of canvas thrown up on top of some dead grass. They also pay for the privilege.

Half an hour later, our host's daughter appears with some hot water, Mongolian milk tea, and fried doughnuts. We nosh on the food as we stuff and zipper our overstuffed packs back together. Then we switch to cards, and play a couple of rounds of hearts. Eight comes and goes, and soon it's almost nine.

"Where are they?" I say.

"Uh." Caleb says, exasperated. "It's always like this."

Battir pokes his rosy cheeks into the ger soon after, hunting for our belongings. The van is packed in 10 minutes, but Bobby continues conversing indoors about the price of yak cheese, or whatever. Soon the host family's two sons amble out of the house, apparently bored silly by the grownups' conversation. They bring a basketball with them, and we alternate taking shots against a square piece of wood that's been nailed to the top of a metal pole to form a makeshift hoop.

Bobby finally appears, smiling and apparently free of worry. She informs us that there is a small problem with the van, and that Battir needs to change a part of the tire. We will leave soon, she assures her slightly perturbed clients. Then she goes back inside, leaving us to dribble. We don't pull out of the gravel driveway for another 45 minutes, or just before 11 a.m.

Tseterleg is a small town, but with 15,000 people, it ranks as Mongolia's seventh largest population center. Most people live in small fenced pieces of property, in grey-and-white homes of poured concrete. If there is any beauty in the place, it is in spite of the town's design, which imposes a drab Soviet grid on the golden hills of the steppe. The town is built on the banks of two hills, with the administrative buildings situated in the bottom of the narrow valley. Our host lived high on the east-facing hill, so Battir must take a looping road down to the center.

I doubt there's one traffic cop in Tseterleg or the surrounding state, but Battir drives as if he's under constant threat of citation. Not helping matters is the fact that he does not appear to know our destination. Bobby is constantly chatting and pointing in different directions at each intersection. We eventually reach the base of the hill, and Battir turns off the engine. Bobby darts out of the van, but not without first telling everyone to stay inside. I peer out the window to discover we've stopped not at the race course, but at Mongolia's strangest restaurant.

Although it is well advertised in the guidebooks, I found it impossible to believe the Fairview Restaurant existed until I saw the building, smack in the middle of Tsetserleg. Here in a town where a three window concrete block building functions as a hospital, is an ex-pat run restaurant that serves lasagna, chili con carne, burgers and pies. An oasis in a desert of fatty mutton, the Lonely Planet claims this restaurant is the best in the entire country.

The previous evening, a rumor had spread through the van that we would stop at the Fairview for dinner, but that turned out to be false. I thought we'd get a burger for lunch, but Bobby returned to the van after 15 minutes with just a business card. As the van continued its crawl around town, she explained that she wanted to talk with the owners about forming a partnership. Satisfied with the place, Bobby will start recommending guests at the UB Guesthouse eat the Fairview. As for us, unfortunately, the place was closed for the New Year.

We continued driving down the gravel streets, until Battir made a left and suddenly we were in a long, narrow field. Scattered throughout were locals with their horses, motorcycles and ramshackle cars. This was the race course.

There is no admission fee for the race, nor any refreshments or announcer shouting the proceedings in staccato voice. Instead people just stood around, chatting. Battir drove the van right through the middle, and at an arbitrary place, stopped. I no sooner put on my scarf and stepped out when people started to scream and point far in the distance. The horses! After running a lap around the entire valley -- about 15 miles, the leading riders were sprinting toward the finish line. The brown mares galloped at an incredible speed, so quickly that shortly after I first their dust trail, I saw the leading horse itself, and only seconds before it crossed the finish line.

The winning rider, a diminutive boy not more than 10 years old, finished not three minutes after we arrived. We came at precisely the correct moment.

In this case, Mongolian Time meant right on time.