What Time is it In Mongolia?

Today we turned our clocks back an hour. Returning to Standard Time always makes me think of Mongolia. No, I'm not that weird, there's really a very good reason.

In the Fall of 2002, John, Sabine and I had a wonderful adventure in China and Mongolia.  When we arrived in the Gobi at the end of the tourist season, we discovered we were the only guests at the lodge: I had a yurt*, John and Sabine had one, and the rest were occupied by the staff. (*Mongolians call yurts gers.)

It didn't take the crew long to discover we wanted to spend time hanging out with them. So, after a day of adventure, we'd come back and have dinner with them (Sabine and me good naturedly teased about being vegetarians), and spend the rest of the evening playing Flick the Bones - a game sort of like marbles but played with sheep knuckles!

One night after Mongol our driver had kicked our butts for the umpteenth time - no matter how badly he threw a match, we just couldn't beat him - our guide, Badma, told us that the next day's destination was quite a drive, so we needed to wake up by 6:00 a.m. Oh, she added, tonight was when Mongolia set its clocks to Standard Time, and instructed us to move our clocks ahead an hour. Ahead? Mongolia falls forward? Yes, forward.

After barely closing my eyes to go to sleep, I heard Sabine's voice outside my door gently calling me awake. As I stumbled out of my ger, I saw John and Sabine standing in the pitch black. The only light to be seen were the zillions of stars shining down on the desert - the Milky Way looking like the headlights of a traffic jam on some Los Angeles freeway.

We were alone. Not one of the crew was yet awake. I guess our discussion about what to do began to wake them, because soon, one by one, the Mongolians staggered out of their respective gers, muttering away to each other and rubbing their eyes. Badma asked us why we were up in the middle of the night. We reminded her that we had switched our watches an hour ahead as instructed.

That was it, the voices became more animated and various Mongolian watches were consulted. Finally, someone popped back into her ger returning a few seconds later with a cell phone, which had an automatic "summer time" and "winter time" setting. Guess what? Like the rest of the world, Mongolia falls back. Not only was it not 6:00 a.m., it wasn't even 5:00 a.m. It was 4:00 in the morning.

Ever the good hosts, they asked if we wanted breakfast. At 4:00 a.m. We declined and sent them back to their beds. John, Sabine and I huddled around the fire John built in their ger talking and giggling. At some point, Sabine and I went outside again just in time to watch the sun magnificently rise over the desert. It was spectacular, one of the many amazing moments we've shared together.

When the crew finally woke up, and we sat down to breakfast, Badma asked how we had spent those wee hours of the morning. Sabine mentioned that she and I had seen the sunrise and how beautiful it was. Badma laughed, translated what Sabine had said to the crew, and they all started laughing. It turns out that there's an old Mongolian superstition: to see the sunrise over the Gobi means you're having a baby. We laughed along with the crew.

Only thing: 8 1/2 months later Gus was born.