Mongolia in pictures.

 

Genghis Kearl

We left Ulaanbaatar the day after we arrived to get out into the ‘real’ Mongolia.  The country is about the size of Alaska and is home to 3.5 million people, half of whom live in UB.  The city is a mess, full of bustle and commerce…and pollution and traffic, but within the first 5 minutes out of the city I began to realize that Mongolia is a big, empty place.

 We set out in an old Russian military van from the early 80’s with our driver and our guide/chef.  The road began as a neatly paved affair, but soon we were bounding through the open desert following a weave of tracks over hills and through little ditches while swerving to avoid rocks and livestock.  I have done some offroading in my life, but never at 60 miles per hour.  There were no seat belts in the van, or ‘oh shit’ handles, so we bounced and slid and were tossed about for hours. 

Our first destination was a little ger (or yert) on the fringes of the Gobi Desert owned by a couple of senior citizens.  I hope when I reach 70 that I am still able to ride out into the desert to bring back a herd of wandering sheep and goats (but I also hope that I won’t have to).  Life of the people out in the countryside of Mongolia is full of work.  There is always something that needs to be done to keep life going; whether it is fetching water from the well or gathering dried dung for the fire, there is much to be done.

Spring is slowly creeping in again and the first unmistakable sign of the year was the one-day-old little goat that was keeping warm by the stove.  This was one of the first of the season and three more were born overnight.  The family would have to routinely go out and check for new ones to bring them in from their dangerous and cold new world. The nights are still too cold for little lambs.

Once we had settled in a little bit and I’d had my first cup of milk tea (sheep milk, water, salt, tea) I began to study the layout of the ger I was in.  These easily mobile structures have stuck around in most of Mongolia despite the fact that many of the occupants are no longer nomadic.  As I appreciated the simple and elegant efficiency of common room living, I began to relive some of my architectural ambitions which so consumed my visions of my future back in high school.  The whole family lives within the confines of a single room which is a living room, kitchen, dining room, and bedroom at various times of the day.  And it is so cozy against the hard winds whipping through the valley that you can’t help feeling at home.

We decided to do a little rock climbing in the early evening and I found myself again in awe of my surroundings as I had been in Tibet.  Before me was an enormous field stretching for lord knows how many miles before being interrupted by another little rocky outcrop like the one I had mounted.  I could see the herd out in the distance moving as an amorphous mess, eating what little grass was still clinging to the ground.  Overhead some vultures were circling and I realized I had been sitting motionless for over an hour.  These were massive nasty looking creatures with wingspans easily over 6 feet and as they briefly eclipsed the sun again and again I thought back to the Tibetan sky burials and quickly began a “life dance” (read spastic flailing of the limbs) to prove that I was not yet carrion.

The night was spent basking in the warmth of the dung fueled fire and the next morning we learned that we would be taking a horse ride.  I’m not much of a horse person, which is to say that aside from a couple controlled follow the leader exercises, I’ve never ridden.  Mongolian horses are war horses by their breeding, and history will tell us they’re not very shabby ones, so when we started out I was a bit nervous.  Somehow I managed to get stuck with the stubborn horse again, the one generally reserved for the hapless and usually white American, that serves to make him look a fool kicking and yelling commands while turning in circles or walking backwards.  Or maybe I just cannot ride a horse.

I’d like to say that I was charging across the plains, battle lance poised for a kill, but that would be a lie.  For much of the trip I was in tow behind the 70 year old man or the younger horseman that was our official guide.  My horse would trip over rocks and bob his head like Stevie Wonder and neigh and whinny; he would not go a single step without pitching a fit.  About two-thirds of the way through the trip I got it stuck in my head that this horse had it in for me and would wait for his chance to buck me off and trample me for the vultures to collect.  I took to walking and watched as Jacob and company trotted up to me and passed me at relatively great speed.  It would be suicide to try to live out here in times of war without a horse and the necessary skills for riding it.  My dreams of Khan roots came to an end.

After the horse ride, we had a lunch (all the food on the trip was prepared by our guide and was delicious, I even managed to put on a few pounds) and set out for the next destination: another ger, but this time in the steppes.  We were greeted by one of the happiest looking men I’ve seen in Mongolia and a pack of kids eager to play.  As the sun set and the evening set in, we built ourselves a campfire under the starry night and sang and laughed and drank with the family and our guide and our driver.  We went around in a circle singing song after song and convincing the shy kids to perform for us.  It was a magical evening and I though about all the wonderful times I’ve had around a camp fire. 

The sky was ablaze with stars like I hadn’t seen since Everest and I figured that this was probably as remote a place as I’d ever been. At the time I had no idea exactly where we were.  If someone handed me a map I could probably guess to within a few hundred miles, but by and large I was in the dark.  I have never in my life not known where I was except when in transit and even then I knew the starting point and ending point of the journey.  I realized that for the next 3 days I would be lost in the world and I embraced it with glee.  And then I sang a song.

The next day was my return to nature.  In the morning we hiked over to the ice waterfall, a lingering reminder of how cold it really gets in Mongolia, and I spent several hours reading, writing, drawing and thinking.  I wandered off a little later andclimbed down into a canyon where another river was still flowing along.  I hopped across the rocks and cautiously walked across little ice bridges.  I found a rock that looked like a chaise lounge and proceeded to lay myself out and bask in the sun, each hand dangling in the cold flow making little ripples that found each other a few yards downstream.

Being around a river always makes me thing two things these days.  The first is fly-fishing in Colorado and the bliss that goes along with that annual family pilgrimage, and the second is my aborted thesis project on the Philosophy of Time for which I spent many a day meditating on the metaphor of a river while trying to make sense of the fourth dimension.  I went through the rest of the day in a pleasant transcendence and while watching the sunset behind the mountains I thought fondly of Texas.

The next day we drove to the ancient capital of Karakorum where Genghis Khan presided over most of the known world (when he wasn’t out conquering it), though nothing of the former city is left after it was leveled by the Chinese in the 14th century.  We visited a monastery that has been destroyed and rebuilt and destroyed and rebuilt again over and over throughout it’s history before we drove into town and found our ger for the night.  The town is a very strange place and feels kind of like a maze for mice with high wooden fences lining every inch of the road.  It also reminded me of what I would expect to find in an old American colony town, except that it is located in a dusty desert.  Our expedition out across the place revealed no exciting epicenter of culture, only more gers and dozens of convenience stores with beer and candy. 

We made it back to our place and entered the fence.  All the gers in town were surrounded by these fort-like walls and I wondered why there was a need for protection.  Mongolia is a safe place I’ve heard aside from the pickpockets in Ulaanbaatar, but this place is built like the post-apocalyptic old west.  When night fell the reason became clear: dogs.  The whole place has become plagued by packs of stray dogs that have no fear of man.  Throughout the whole night hundreds of dogs could be heard barking from every direction with a maniacal abandon. 

We made it back to Ulaanbaatar the next day after a long drive and settled back into life in square rooms.  Then we set about the task of getting yet another visa for China.  They seem to enjoy making travel tough, bureaucratic, and expensive for American travellers.  I am amazed that I have little over three weeks left in Asia.  As they say, time flies.