Law of the Jungle Episode 233

Law of the Jungle Episode 233: Law of the Jungle in Mongolia Part 5

So we open back at that shocking demand that the production asks of our tribe and this time we hear it in full: Because of the plan to cover all four areas of Mongolia, three members of the tribe will have to set off today.

What?! Why would you split our lovable tribe up now? And they won’t be able to meet again in Mongolia after that! PD tells them that the place they’ll be going to the Altai, the place with rugged terrain, high altitudes and perpetual snow. In other words, it’ll be very cold and they’ll need their strongest members to go, which he declares are Kim ByeongMan, ChunHee and Kim MinGyu. Pfft, MinKyo’s flabbergasted expression is so hilarious.

SunBin complains that it’s too much while the others feel that it’s such a pity that they have to separate now but ByungMan thinks of the viewers and explains that it’s to be able expose us to as much of Mongolia as they can. HAHHAHA, mid-talk, he gets choked up by the smoke from their campfire.

 

After some tearful goodbyes, the remaining four head into the Ger where InGuk gets asked by KangNam if he doesn’t mind the bugs in the Ger (due to the lights). InGuk replies that he’ll be okay, especially after he sleeps. And 5 minutes later, he’s screaming about them. HEE!

Pffft, JiWon asks him if he wants to sleep outside instead and InGuk hurries out immediately. Lol, he just went out to steal the cloth from the Ger’s roof to make a “bed”. Meanwhile, SunBin is sick and gets treatment. Aw.

HAHAHAH, and then it starts raining in the middle of the night. Seriously, they get no break.

The three healthy people wake up in the middle of the night thanks to the rain and worse, that means that more bugs enter their Ger.

Morning comes and it’s still raining. InGuk wonders that they’re going to do now, and KangNam suggests that they just rest. Hee!

Elsewhere, the other strong men have reached the Altai Mountains, after travelling 1,533km by plane and bus. The Altai region covers a span of 2000km, with an average altitude of 3000m above sea level. Its highest point reaches 4,362m (in comparison, Mount Everest is 8848m) and in winter, the temperatures can reach as low as -40^oC. And in the Altais live the Kazakh, who hunt using trained golden eagles.

 

ByungMan and his tribe are warmly welcomed by one such tribe and they coo over the little children there. The three guys get excited to hear about eagles and are even more excited to see an actual eagle. Pfft, MinKyo shivers in fear though.

The three men are lent some local warm wear, making them very much more comfortable. Lol, they play around, both MinKyo and ByungMan acting like they’re locals. And right after they’re made comfortable with the winter wear, they’re challenged to become comfortable with the eagles.

ByungMan shares in voiceover that even though he’s never been that close to an eagle before, the eagle was so much bigger than he thought and ChunHee notes the eagle’s claws. Pfft, the tribesman holds the eagle and stares at MinKyo who backs away.

So first to experience holding the eagle is Chief ByungMan. Ha, the eagle tries to fly away, so he fails, and the tribesman transfers the eagle onto ChunHee’s hands. He complains that it’s heavy and then reassures the eagle that he’s not edible. HAHHAHA. After a while, the eagle calms down and rests on his hand comfortably.

Last to give it a try is MinKyo. He doesn’t look like he’s interested at all though and in his pre-trip shoot, he shares that he doesn’t have many fears, except for birds. It’s related to a childhood trauma in which he’d once seen a chicken fly in from nowhere and attack his elder brother. So in the present, ByungMan has to cover his eyes while the tribesman puts the protective glove on for him. Oho, the eagle takes to him the best and the tribesman praises him. Hee, the eagle keeps looking at him and he orders the eagle not to look at him.

Next up is seeing just exactly what the eagle can do and for that, ByungMan volunteers one of them to be the tribesman’s assistant. They ask him who’d probably do the best and pfft, words are not needed as he stares in MinKyo’s direction. Hee.

 

They head off to somewhere higher.

Down on lower lands, the four decide to go catch ducks, regardless of the falling rain. InGuk and KangNam head off with slingshots in their hands but compared to yesterday, it’s a lot harder to find any duck now. They can’t even see into the water because of the reflection of the sky.

Finally, they spot one duck and KangNam tries his luck. Pfft, that duck flies off, as fast a as bullet train. KangNam tries again, aiming his slingshot at it but he misses. And misses. They keep their eyes on it and try yet again. Fail. Ha, poor duck.

They don’t give up on the duck and this is looking a little brutal, seeing four people go after one duck, hahaha.

They try over and over again, always failing though. In the end, they lose the duck and InGuk almost falls into the river, ha. They search around, through the bush and through the grass. HAHAHAH, InGuk goes back and fashions a spear to go poke into the river in search of the duck. JiWon wonders if maybe it went somewhere else.

 

Nope, it’s right in front of KangNam, though it remains underwater. KangNam runs along the bank to a little distance before the duck while JiWon keeps her eye on it. Whoa, KangNam actually jumps into the river to catch it! But he loses it and it U-turns back. Whaaa… this is terrifying, heh.

They’ve got the duck all cornered as InGuk joins KangNam in the water too. In the end, they corner it against the bank and KangNam catches it. Poor duck, aw. But… heh. We have a master hunter here. Does this mean that he gets to become a regular on this show? Because I would appreciate seeing KangNam on this show a lot.

The other members praise KangNam for a job well done and SunBin enthusiastically asks for food, ha.

At the same time, ByungMan gets news that KangNam caught the duck with his own hands and makes a case for KangNam becoming a fixed member of this show. So the production grants his wish. Eeeeee!!!!! Congratulations, KangNam!

But in the present, the eagle is more important.

They see the eagle fly from one tribesman’s hands to another tribesman’s and eat from his hand. They request to see that again, so the tribesman goes again… and the eagle totally flies past him. HAHAHAH! They’re so flabbergasted and ask what they’re going to do. The tribesman just runs after his eagle and gets him back. That failure is just because the poor eagle is intimidated  by the strangers.

They go once more, with MinKyo holding the eagle first… and once the blindfolds come off, the eagle flies past his master. HAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!

They try once more with a more familiar predator, pulling out a whole wolf’s (?) carcass and sends the eagle after it. Success!

Our three guys take over and try to do the same but the eagle doesn’t cooperate with them. Aw. But by now, MinKyo is at home with the eagle.

 

They try over and over again, both ByungMan and ChunHee calling for the eagle to come get their piece of carcass and their hard work pays off as the eagle comes now, over and over and over again.

Training over, our tribe walks all over the place. ChunHee sees a chained wolf and treats it like a dog. The wolf growls in retaliation, hahah! Pfft, ByungMan puts his hands together like he’s in the presence of someone highly respectable while ChunHee just imitates the growling wolf.

Down with the ducks, the other members make InGuk their head chef, piling on the responsibility and the burden on him, hee. He decides to make duck soup with half of the duck and grill the other half.

He sends SunBin and KangNam off to wash the duck and SunBin washes the duck like she’s washing clothes while KangNam shivers in disgust. Pfft, KangNam doesn’t stop nagging for her to go already and SunBin sprays him with duck water and then hugs him cutely to defuse his anger.

It’s up to SunBin to portion the duck now and she does it without any hesitance or fear at all. InGuk grills the duck over the naked flame and KangNam laughs at the delicious smell.

 

They give JiWon the honour of eating the grilled duck first but she just pulls out a leg and gives that to KangNam, calling the duck his. InGuk has a bite too and while chewing all their faces fall. Hee, they reel in shock at the fishy taste, with KangNam having the biggest reaction. JiWon suggests that they just eat the elderberries she and MinKyo picked the other time while Grandma SunBin just chows down on the fishy duck, ha. It’s delicious to her.

KangNam then spits the berries out, ha. JiWon and KangNam can’t get used to the taste and she suggests fishing but SunBin is like, this is good! Ha, InGuk complains that it feels like when he exhales, that fishy comes up and SunBin doesn’t care whatsoever. She stuffs a piece of duck in his mouth to stop him from insulting her duck and continues eating because she’s so hungry.

They try out the duck broth and SunBin has first dibs. She says that it’s milder than the rabbit broth but it’s delicious. With that reassurance, InGuk takes that broth from her and offers it to JiWon first. She’s fine with that, and so is KangNam, luckily. The boiled duck is also a hit with the two and the four finally have a filling and delicious meal.

Up in the Altai, ChunHee, ByungMan and MinKyo sit in their hosts’ Ger (that they note are very much better than the one they put up themselves) and are treated to some meat soup courtesy of their hosts. It’s not mutton or beef or anything else but marmot meat in that soup.

ChunHee is given a bowl first while ByungMan has first bite and that’s enough for them to understand why the locals eat so much of it. It’s soft, there no (funny) smell to it as ByungMan declares. But MinKyo disagrees and says that there’s a bit of mutton smell to it. LOL, the production shows us how ByungMan has this habit of declaring that “there’s no smell at all” with just about anything and now ByungMan is in total agreement with MinKyo’s description, ha.

Their host is not nervous about their eagle-competition tomorrow because he believes in his eagle. He just tells ByungMan and ChunHee to make the same sound he taught them.

 

Morning comes and in a nomadic tribe, that means that wolves are happily basking in the sun and yaks get milked. Morning also means that ByungMan pets the tribe’s the domestic wolf and even kisses him. Whoa, that’s so different from yesterday, ha. ChunHee comes along with a piece of raw meat and the wolf reveals his wild insticts, getting protective over it, hee.

The wolf buries it under the ground and when ByungMan comes along to pet him, he warily guards his meat. Next on zookeeper ByungMan’s itinenary is getting close to the eagle. He plays around the eagle with his glove alone and then pets him with his gloved hands. He even feeds the eagle some meat and lets the eagle bite his sleeve, since the eagle doesn’t bite hard anyway.

He walks around the place and finds a lonesome wall out in the middle of nowhere. Ha, that’s the tribe’s outhouse and ByungMan sits in there to admire the view.

MinKyo is last to wake and he comes out all puffy faced.

 

It’s the day of their competition (with the eagles) but before that, they’re told to head off to the “nearby” lake to bathe. Ha. ChunHee mutters that he doesn’t want to wash up but ByungMan chides them with their ancestor’s words: “If your skin is clean, your heart will be clean” and MinKyo is persuaded.

They head off to the lake, Har Nuur, and it’s like a whole new world up there. It’s so big and wide that ChunHee calls it the sea. The water’s so clear… but it’s 13^oC. Pfft, so ByungMan suggests scissors paper stone to decide who the poor guy who’ll have to endure the cold is. HA, ByungMan collapses in relief to see that it’s not him while MinKyo does a little dance of victory. The poor guy who has to go in alone (and he’s handed a sport-cam by the VJ who resolutely doesn’t want to enter at all, ha!) is Chunderella!

He goes in and dives, then pops up to says that it’s warm! MinKyo takes him for his word and strips to his innerwear and enters the water. Pfft, he only walks to where the water is up to his knees and screams that it’s cooooold!!!! ByungMan does a few push ups then goes swimming too.

The time for the eagle competition comes and our three guys are not the only ones having their eagle-commanding skills tested. The younger tribesmen are put to the test too. MinKyo gets a little nervous to see that their eagle is affected by the large number of strangers surrounding it.

They clap as their competitors successfully get their eagles to come to come to them and their carcass.

They all do so well that our tribe’s host and MinKyo get a little nervous.

A wee little kid is one of the competitors too and though she’s no more than10 years old, she gets the eagle to come successfully too! But there are a few failures too as some eagles fly off somewhere far away and one even rolls as he lands, hee.

 

It’s time for our three men’s eagle to be put to the test and MinKyo prepares his eagle. ChunHee and ByungMan throw the carcass out and call for the eagle… but it doesn’t move. Eh…

They try once more, getting the carcass closer and closer to the eagle each time until they’re sticking the fox carcass in right in its face, HAHAHA. And the eagle flies off.

Their host comes to help them, running to the carcass and calling for his eagle and now, the eagle flies. It lands right on the carcass! Whee! Hee, ByungMan is so delighted that he sits on the ground and claps and kicks around like a kid.

The next part of the test is for the eagle to catch a live prey (a running hare). The other competitors show them what their eagles can do while our guys just watch. Heh, seeing the eagle catch the hare has ByungMan really, really happy.

 

One by one, each member in Mongolia gives his and her final speeches. MinKyo is happiest to have overcome his bird-related trauma and ChunHee likes that he could overcome challenges. InGuk goes, “It was fun. Isn’t it fun? This is the jungle” ha. JiWon says that everything was beyond her expectations while KangNam admits that though it was really hard, he likes the members this time round and SunBin has to hold back tears.

InGuk agrees to comeback whenever they call him. He loves the Jungle, because you can do anything you want (there’s freedom).

 

Next Week!

Some of our members are replaced by BTOB’s ChangSub, Park SeYoung, Julien Kang, Ryu SeungSoo and Eric Nam, the latter of whom acts like a total nutcase, hee.

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And now I pose the all-important question of whether you guys will continue reading if I recap the rest of the Mongolia trip because to be very honest, I came for Seo InGuk, Lee SunBin and Yeh JiWon and they’re all going after this episode… so… 😦