3-Day Naadam Festival Group Tour

Excellent trip. Amazing culture and people. Our guide was excellent. Once in a life kind experience

I went with Discover Mongolia in July 2023. The trip covered south, central, north Mongolia, and Nadaam festival. Overall, I enjoyed visiting Mongolia. It is a pristine country and people are wonderful here. I was entirely in awe of how they incorporate modern inventions into their nomadic lives. I was impressed by the love and care they have for their families, animals and the land. My trip was a positive one. Impressed by the inherent qualities in Mongolia. But I was not impressed by the Discover Mongolia in many aspects of the trip. I will put in separate reviews for the different components of the tour. Here I will review the company as a whole. The positives: All of our reservations worked. All Ger camp were reasonable accommodations. We were given reasonable amounts of food and water. The drivers seem to know the route very well. The cars were comfortable. Day one we had a walkie talkie so we were able to tell the other car we wanted a short stop. After that the walkie talkies were out of battery. But we had a route that was their standard route and everything worked well. Also I met couple of people from the office. They acted as our tour guides on some city tours. They were very sweet. Here are my major criticisms: We were asked by Discover Mongolia to bring gifts from USA for our visits to the herder families. I brought 8 boomerangs and 8 lipsticks for the women and children. But our tour guide asked repeatedly to sequester our gifts because she said she knew the families and can decide better what they should receive. Sounds convincing so eventually we did as she asked and put our gifts into a bag and let her keep it. When we visited the first family she told us the family is well to do and we should give them money instead. When we got to the second family we were told that since we were planning to eat with them we were to bring some hard alcohol to bring as a gift along with other food items to supplement the meal. Ultimately, I did not see her give out my lipsticks and we gave the boomerangs to children we met in the fields. Others in my group also felt that their gifts disappeared. Another issue was food. Our tour included all meals. We found Mongolian meats are a little gamier that what we were used to. So at times we were served food that we couldn't eat. We did not complain because this is what happens when you travel. But our Discover Mongolia tour guide complained incessantly that we were wasting food and starting requesting that we share meals. We were even asked to share soup pots when we went to a hot pot place. I told her I don't eat lamb and can't share with someone who eats lamb. She went on and on about how I didn't want to share. It was unbearable. One person in our group, one day, was asked to pay a penalty for soiling the bedsheet. Apparently the camp called out tour guide, after we already left, to pay an additional fee because they thought one of the sheets was soiled too much and the person using it must have had diarrhea. The person who was asked to pay was embarrassed but said to us that she did not have diarrhea. She even pulled our her PJ showed us that it was perfectly clean. She also did not get up at night to go to the bathroom. After that we would inspect the sheets at every camp. FYI: they hand wash and lay out the items on grass to dry. For the Nadaam festival, this company really fell short. It was badly planned. No part of it felt like it was planned by someone who has been to Nadaam. First day, just getting to the horse racing venue, we were stuck in traffic for more than 2 hours. Our driver, our tour guide and anyone we talked to said that there is always a lot of traffic on this road especially for the Nadaam horse racing. I definitely felt that they should have taken this into account and planned our itinerary accordingly. Another short fall is advance planning of how we were to view the events. One can buy bleacher seats for horse racing for about $6. Our tour guide would ask us if we wanted to sit in the bleacher, or go into a special sectioned area for archery. The cost would usually be equivalent of $6. Each and every single time the tickets would have been sold out. There were many events where it's the only way to actually see something without fighting the crowd or having the police tell you to leave, move or sit down on the dirt, etc. It would only cost about $6. But it's too late to buy the tickets the day of. I would have gladly paid for it even if I don't get to use it. A big shortfall is the seating for the Nadaam opening ceremony. For bookings over a year prior to the events, we got seated in the last row. The highest and farthest row. On top of that, My seat was directly behind a column. I couldn't see directly in front of me. When I complained to the tour guide, she told to get up and stand. That was indeed what I had to do for the entire show. I had to find a spot where I could stand and see something. I am not sure if there are people out there who would fly from US to Mongolia to see Nadaam, and agree to sit at a spot where you couldn't see anything. But I am not one of them. I did attempt to contact Discover Mongolia to ask them about the details of planning this Nadaam tour. My idea was that I want to understand the price point and maybe difficulties in obtaining tickets. I wanted to communicate my disappointment and see what their reasoning was behind these shortfalls. Sadly to say, they did not answer my emails.