Thursday, July 20 Mongolian Drinking

(Written two weeks later)

I woke up around 5am – it was bright outside already. My head was hammered from last night's drinking; the cold wind was pleasantly blowing from the window at my bed. I had about 200ml of local liquor called bai-jiu ("white alcohol": bai 白 "white" jiu 酒 alcohol) of 45% alcohol content, which is about the maximum okay amount I can drink and not suffer from the consequences, but then, as Mongolian drinking culture goes here, we drank beers. I never drink beer after liquor, and I declined to do so this time, but there we go – I had not resisted enough and gave in. Bad, bad, bad thing to do –  drink light alcohol after liquor. 

A few days before we drank bai-jiu with food, and then finished with another light alcoholic drink that they call "chug" here, also known as "kumys" or "ääryg" – which is somehow fermented horse milk with alcohol content. It was very sour, and supposedly helps with digestion and beneficial for health, as they say here. That time drinking chug after baijiu turned out fine, so perhaps that was why I gave in and tried what they do here.

I slept on and off, waking up for water and thinking how heavy drinking is a thing of the past, and that I should stick to my habits of drinking or not drinking instead of trying what locals do here. And so I slept until the afternoon. 

In the evening we went to a Buddhist temple. It was surrounded by many crafts shops and streed food places – the kind of Asia I'd imagine, a night market. Crowds of people, smoke from fried food, loud speakers advertising something, etc. Then it rained; we went back home.