Explore Mongolia in luxury
It’s not an oxymoron, it’s a Silversea trek. Travel,
EAST TAIGA, Mongolia – The scene is like something out of a Western movie. More than a dozen teepees are spread out along a bubbling creek that winds through a wide, grassy valley. Men in traditional garb move between the simple structures, tending to animals. Women cook around an open fire.
But instead of Native Americans in feathered headdresses, the occupants of this encampment deep in the wilderness of northern Mongolia are deelwearing Tsaatan – a nearly extinct tribe of nomadic reindeer herders who still live off the land much like their forbears did centuries ago.
“Where the reindeer are going, that’s where we are going,” says Zaya Oldov, the only English-speaking member of the small community of 80 people and an impromptu tour guide for a group of representatives from Silversea, the luxury cruise line. “We move six or eight times a year.”
Over several hours, Oldov offers a rare glimpse at the community’s way of life, which revolves around a herd of more than 500 reindeer. She welcomes the group into the teepee of the tribal chief and his wife, who serve up reindeer cheese and warm bowls of suutei tsai – a traditional salty tea made with reindeer milk. Both are staples of the Tsaatan diet. She introduces the group to the village shaman, who describes her spiritual role, and to men making tools from reindeer antlers. The community also shows off its reindeer riding skills and sings traditional songs.
It is a scene that few people ever get to see. There are no roads into this area, and normally it would take days of trekking over undulating grasslands and through boreal forests to reach these little-visited people. But the Silversea group has arrived in just under an hour on a Russian-built Mi-17 military helicopter. Operated by the Mongolian air force, the 20-seat aircraft has been chartered by Silversea as part of a test run of a new, first-of-its-kind tour to some of the most off-the-beaten-path parts of Mongolia.
Welcome to the new era of luxury travel for the 1 percent. The new tour will be part of Silversea’s just-unveiled Couture Collection – a group of nine super-pricey, super-curated overland trips that incorporate private helicopters and private jets to get travelers to some of the world’s most inaccessible and untouched places.
Designed as add-ons to existing Silversea cruises, the Couture Collection tours are aimed at a growing segment of wealthy travelers whose idea of luxury is as much about getting one-of-akind experiences as it is about traditional pampering.
“Luxury (today) is about access,” Silversea executive Barbara Biffi tells USA TODAY after the visit to the Tsaa- tan. “Luxury (life) has evolved from the obsession with material possessions into a hunger for personal enrichment.”
The cost of the tours isn’t for the faint of heart. Silversea plans to charge more than $30,000 per person for the Mongolia trip, which will be seven days. Another Couture Collection tour, to the South Pole, is $78,000 per person. But the tours will offer experiences that are available nowhere else.
In addition to the visit to the Tsaatan, the Mongolia trip includes several days of exploring around Bayan-Olgii, the mountainous province on the extreme western edge of Mongolia. Populated mostly by ethnic Kazakhs (Kazakhstan is just 25 miles to the west), Bayan-Olgii is notable as one of last places on Earth where the locals hunt with eagles.
Arriving at Bayan-Olgii’s small provincial capital by commercial aircraft, the Silversea group transfers to rugged four-by-four vehicles for an off-road drive deep into the mountain region of Sagsai, where the eagle hunters live. They meet with one eagle-hunter family within its portable tent-like home, known as a ger (in the West, they’re often called yurts), and are given a dem- onstration of eagle-hunting skills.
The nearest town, also called Sagsai, is a dusty, dirt-road affair with no lodging or eateries of any kind, unless you want to barter a stay with a local Kazakh family. But Silversea is going to great lengths to make the area accessible.
Working with a Mongolia-based tour operator, Silversea has created a temporary luxury camp in an idyllic mountain valley near the eagle hunters that will be put up each time a Silversea group arrives and then taken down. Six elegant tents are filled with king-size beds, carpets and wooden chairs. Each comes with a separate, private bathroom tent featuring a sink, toilet and shower. A colorful ger on loan from an eagle-hunter family serves as a dining tent for gourmet meals.
Silversea also arranges a private version of Mongolia’s famed Naadam festival, which features Mongolia’s traditional “three games of men” – Mongolian wrestling, horse racing and archery. It takes place on the last day of the trip, after a night at one of Mongolia’s most luxurious ger camps, located near Ulaanbaatar.
It is an itinerary planned without compromise, with little concern for the cost, Biffi says. And that’s the point.
“These voyages are probably some of the most expensive land tours you can have,” she says. “But our guests don’t want to compromise. For them, it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”