Planes, trains and automobiles. For weeks our bodies were in motion, constantly racing towards our next destination. At the halfway point of our 30-hour train ride to Ulaanbaatar, the customs inspector at the China/Mongolian border asked me to smile so she could see if the happy person in my passport photo really was me. My smile was met with a giggle, not a response I associate with law enforcement, but I would later learn that it was characteristic of the Mongolian people. I didn’t know it on the train, but I was about to enter the happiest place in the world.

Sitting down for our first stationary meal upon arrival, I noticed the first dish on our multi-course menu was called “patience”. This turned out to be three bites of amuse bouche, which our bodies slowed down to enjoy. After dinner, we strolled along the road listening to trees clapping in the wind. Stopping for a moment, we were grateful to be still while the rest of the world moved around us. Happiness is the sound of swaying trees.

On our drive to the Naadam Festival – the “ three games of men”: Mongolian wrestling, horse-racing and archery – I watched as men and women walked long stretches of country roads with nothing but a plastic bag filled with water, 1,000 miles to anywhere. “It must take them all day to get to their destination,” I mentioned to our tour guide, Segi. “Well, they could take the bus, or hitchhiking is common here. They choose to walk because it makes them happy.” With nothing but the horizon in sight, they can focus entirely on their thoughts. Happiness is a long walk.

At the Naadam Festival, I watched fathers ready sons as young as four years old for horse-racing. The young jockeys rode without saddles to keep weight to a minimum. Mental endurance is key and fathers would whisper wisdoms to their sons in preparation for the race. “Huchtei bolon naizarhag baigarai,” said one to his little boy. “Be friendly, be strong.” Happiness is a loving family.

Babies in Mongolia are considered gods. They believe when babies are born they are the purest forms of humans. As we age, we get disrupted by human maladies and move away from nature. It’s when we move away from nature that we are unhappy.

Our tour guide said she was the first person to hold a PhD in Mongolian Art. She giggled from her belly and it shook her all over. She studied in Russia where she said the locals had deep frown lines on their faces. She tried to make her face furrow as she said this but her facial muscles couldn’t manage it. The level of societal happiness is written on the citizens’ faces, she said.

Younger generations of Mongolians are swapping their traditional yurts, or gers, for city apartments and the city life. They throw themselves into the stresses of seven-day work weeks, 9pm conference calls and all that Hongkongers call normality; it’s a far cry from their simple backgrounds. “Everyone [in the city] likes to wear black," she said. “When you are happy you don’t wear black!”

Mongolians are some of the most patriotic people I’ve ever met, and though change is creeping into their country, they remain unaffected. They respect their lands, never stepping too far away from tradition. People here celebrate the terrains they come from and they don’t look down on their country past or try to distance themselves from their humble beginnings as they trade it in for modern life and all the amenities it has to offer. Happiness is keeping to your roots.

On my last day before leaving Ulaanbaatar, I walked for some time, my eyes taking in the endless green landscape. With a four-winged flying creature to accompany me, I thought about what I’d learned. Ulaanbaatar is a place where it doesn’t matter if it is Monday or Saturday. Life just happens. And the rules for happiness are very simple. Be honest with the trees, laugh from the belly and don’t wear black. Keep faith with your traditions and those who pass their wisdom on to you. Stay young like newborns and don’t frown like the Russians. Then walk 1,000 miles into the horizon.

Angie Wong