Vietnamese girl lives with reindeer herding tribe in Mongolia

Pham Mai Huong visits the Tsaatan tribe in the far north of Mongolia, where temperatures sometimes drop to -50 degrees Celsius, "a remote place, but a special part of the world".

Pham Mai Huong was born in 1991 and graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at the University of Education (Da Nang University). But she gave up her office job to embark on a long and challenging journey.

The Tsaatan are the last nomadic reindeer herders in Mongolia. The land is a land of vast forests covered in ice and snow, wild wolf packs that howl at night, and bumpy, muddy roads and deserts that can only be crossed by horse.

Huong shared: “I love ancient cultures so I often learn about them. Especially after seeing a photo series about this tribe, I had an even greater desire to travel. After that, I planned to go to Mongolia and collected rare information from backpacking groups.”

Mai Huong and the Dukha girl, also known as Tsaatan.

She brought 20kg of luggage, and despite her lack of information and experience for the trip, she had not found any English articles written by foreigners about this place. Mai Huong's companion was Agata, a Polish girl she met through the website Couchsurfing. Agata was a backpacker, and had also traveled across Vietnam.

From Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, they traveled 18 hours in a cramped, overstuffed bus, covering 700 kilometers (430 miles) to Moroon. Then they took the only bus (which came every few days) to the village of Tsagaanuur—“the most terrifying bus ride” she had ever taken.

The minivan was a 10-seater, but was always crammed with 15-16 people, along with a bunch of cargo, making the seating extremely cramped and stuffy. The 300 km journey took 16 hours to get there because the road was bumpy and muddy. She vomited the entire journey, her limbs were numb because she couldn’t move.

Tsaatan baby riding a white reindeer.

Setting up a tent to sleep overnight in the snow in the taiga forest is Huong’s most memorable experience. She experienced the primitive things that seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Those things still exist in the icy mountains, the forests or along the rivers winding through the valleys.

“The nights in the taiga were so cold that I couldn’t sleep. For me, it was a terrible, haunting cold. It could penetrate all layers of fabric and soak into my body,” Mai Huong shared.

The Dukha people survive in -50 degrees Celsius weather in Mongolia.

The cold weather had left the two girls numb. They took a risk and decided to bring their blankets and pillows to a family’s tent, asking to sleep in a corner of their hut. “That night, I slept in an extremely warm space, and witnessed the nightlife of the Tsaatan family, gathered around the fire with them, eating pine nuts, listening to them sing and talk. That was truly one of the most beautiful memories I have ever had,” Mai Huong confided.

The Tsaatan tribe did not speak English. Huong and her companions communicated with them through quick drawings on paper, body language, and a few scattered words from a dictionary.

The white reindeer is considered a sacred animal to the Tsaatan tribe.

Before the trip, Mai Huong faced opposition from her family, and pressure from work, freedom, income... Frustrated and confused, but with a growing belief, with understanding, the 25-year-old girl accepted the arduous, adventurous journey to discover new things about people, ancient nomadic life, and discover her own strength.

She doesn’t know if she’s the first Vietnamese person to travel to the far north of Mongolia and live with the reindeer herders. What’s important to her is that she’s proud of her endurance. “I spent four days with them,” she says. “It’s a time I’ll never forget.”

Previously, Mai Huong has had many long trips, such as exploring the Gobi desert for 12 days, going to Phakding village in Nepal, the Himalayas, the trip from Mui Ne to Ca Mau...

She plans to register as an international volunteer, participating in non-governmental projects, to travel and explore local culture in the most economical and intimate way, experiencing the most. She also wants to make short films about culture and tourism in her own way.

According to Zing.vn