As you might have guessed by now, I am an avid animal lover. So, a few days before I was scheduled to go to Mongolia, I began thinking about what kind of exotic animal I could possibly meet in Genghis Khan’s homeland. Mongolia is famous for its horses, but I’ve met hundreds of horses (in fact, I’ve been thrown off the back of a few!) and I was looking for something more unusual. And then I remembered reading that Mongolia has the second largest population of yaks in the world, next to Tibet. Now you can’t get more exotic than a yak! I don’t think I had ever even seen a yak in a zoo. So, with yaks on my mind, I boarded the plane to Ulaan Bataar and, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, the idea came to me. I had been practicing for the sack racing mile record – why not race a mile in a sack against a yak? The plan seemed ludicrous so I knew it must be good!
Full of excitement, I mentioned the yak sack race to some friends who were traveling with me on the plane and I got a lot of feedback. One well-meaning friend responded, “That’s crazy, how are you going to find a sack big enough for a yak?” I had to patiently explain that I would be in the sack, not the yak! Another buddy said, “Bad idea, you’ll never get a yak to cooperate. Yaks are dangerous. I’ve heard that on mountain passes you should never pass a yak on the outside because they will bump into you and try to deliberately push you off the mountain! In a sack you’ll be a sitting duck.”
As you might have guessed by now, I am an avid animal lover. So, a few days before I was scheduled to go to Mongolia, I began thinking about what kind of exotic animal I could possibly meet in Genghis Khan’s homeland. Mongolia is famous for its horses, but I’ve met hundreds of horses (in fact, I’ve been thrown off the back of a few!) and I was looking for something more unusual. And then I remembered reading that Mongolia has the second largest population of yaks in the world, next to Tibet. Now you can’t get more exotic than a yak! I don’t think I had ever even seen a yak in a zoo. So, with yaks on my mind, I boarded the plane to Ulaan Bataar and, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, the idea came to me. I had been practicing for the sack racing mile record – why not race a mile in a sack against a yak? The plan seemed ludicrous so I knew it must be good!
Full of excitement, I mentioned the yak sack race to some friends who were traveling with me on the plane and I got a lot of feedback. One well-meaning friend responded, “That’s crazy, how are you going to find a sack big enough for a yak?” I had to patiently explain that I would be in the sack, not the yak! Another buddy said, “Bad idea, you’ll never get a yak to cooperate. Yaks are dangerous. I’ve heard that on mountain passes you should never pass a yak on the outside because they will bump into you and try to deliberately push you off the mountain! In a sack you’ll be a sitting duck.”
Well, there was only one way to find out the truth about these unusual grazers. Mongolia is like Iceland where everyone seems to know everyone else. I put out the word and within hours I was talking to Zaya, who runs a youth hostel, and speaks fluent English. It turned out that her husband’s family were yak herders and lived just an hour outside the city! Zaya called a taxi driver she knew and it wasn’t long before he was ready to take me to meet my first yak. But there was only one problem : the taxi driver was having a hard time understanding what sack racing was. Zaya, an incredibly dynamic person, gave up on trying to explain and rushed over to her large cloth handbag, poured the contents out on the table, put her feet into her handbag and started hopping around the apartment!
From that moment on, I was sure that I was going to like the Mongolian people! After a ride through the exquisite countryside, I met Zaya’s inlaws. They couldn’t have been nicer and it was exciting discussing the upcoming sack race over yak milk and yak cheese! They selected a patient-looking yak for me who was unusual in that he had one horn pointing up and one horn pointing down. I could tell that yaks were good creatures, but they were the strong, silent type (not yakkers!). We set the race date for May 19th and I was pretty confident that, with a little luck, I could beat the shaggy old fellow.
However, on race day my confidence instantly vanished! Zaya’s inlaws decided to make the race more interesting and they switched contestants on me. I found myself face to face with a frisky, young yak who was just raring to go! He would be led by a powerful Mongolian driver. At the start, I hopped out ahead, but before long I was huffing and puffing like a madman due to the mile-high altitude. I kept expecting to see the yak pass me, but that never happened. It seems the adolescent yak had a stubborn streak in him and, on the turn around, he was replaced by my old funny-horned friend. Despite having a rider on his back, the old guy still gave me a run for my money and, in the end, I was able to just barely beat him by a nose!
After the sack race, I had planned to make an attempt on the record for the fastest mile running on homemade stilts made out of pots and rope. I had so much fun with the yak that I decided to make the attempt while racing against a camel who had been brought along from a nearby farm for the occasion. I knew that I didn’t stand a chance against a camel but, halfway through the race, the ornery animal sat down and refused to get back up! In any case, I had a blast and I figured it would be a long time before I could top this meeting with a real live yak and a rare Bactrian (two-humped) camel.
I was mistaken. Two weeks after returning to New York from Mongolia, I heard that my teacher, Sri Chinmoy, was going to meet a horse at our tennis court in Jamaica, Queens. But this wasn’t just any horse : this was Thumbelina, the world’s smallest living horse! My teacher honored Thumbelina and her owner who travel raising money for charity. Afterwards, I was fortunate enough to meet the miniature four-legged celebrity. The 57-pound horse was so sweet and had a heart of gold. I couldn’t help being astounded that, after traveling halfway across the globe, I met the most exotic creature of all in my own backyard and it turned out to be a horse!
