May 17-29, 2008
We arrived in Mongolia in a stranger’s van. This was not our plan—when we reached the Russian border town of Naushki, there were not tickets left for the border-crossing leg of our journey. We luckily saw a rusty old bus out the station window, jumped on in faith of the driver who told us he was going “closer” to the border, and were then corralled from his bus into a stranger’s van, standing in line at the border gates. This van was one of many in a caravan crossing the border—carrying foreigners, cigarettes, and other such small-profit goods. After a good 2-3 hour wait, we made it out of Russia (the hard part) and into Mongolia. Here we transferred to another stranger’s car, who drove us to Sukh Baatar, where we got on the same train we’d been on earlier. After a short night’s sleep, we arrived in Ulaanbaatar.
We didn’t plan to come to Mongolia in a stranger’s van, though both the van and the unexpectedness of this border crossing were indicative of what was to come of our time in Mongolia more generally. We came to Mongolia to get to China—in order to get visas, and as the most direct route from Irkutsk to Beijing. After a morning running between ticket booths and consulates, however, we have unexpectedly found ourselves in a stranger’s van once again, on a roadtrip of sorts through the Gobi. Our van mates are also an unexpectedly mixed crew: our Mongolian guide and driver, a 31-year old American teacher from Colorado, a 36-year old tour guide/kickbox/belly-dancing instructor from New Jersey, and a 35-year old German pilot. And it is with this group of people that this unexpected travel turned into a week of wonderful memories, and the van transformed from that of a stranger’s to that of a friend.
In the few hours that remain before we board a train to Beijing, I don’t have time to even scratch the surface of the adventures of the past week. Instead, I offer a potpourri of unexpected Mongolian discoveries, images, and memories, and will let the pictures speak for themselves.
* While “Gobi” simply means “desert” in Mongolian, Mongolians differentiate between 33 types of desert. Indeed, we have never spent more than 3 hours driving before the landscape changes—from green mountains to wind blown rocks, to sand dunes, gravel fields, purple-flower spotted hills, to wide open plains, the Gobi is anything but uniform.
* A ger, the traditional transportable Mongolian dwelling, can be constructed in about an hour, and makes for quite a cozy, homey place to live
* It is possible that modern technology has reached every possible place on earth.
* For a nation that once controlled a significant portion of the planet, Mongolians today number very few—there are only 6 million Mongols worldwide, and only 2.5 million living in Mongolia. Their nomadic lifestyle, however, requires vast, seemingly uninhabited stretches of land in which to roam as herds graze and move from place to place.
* The camel is a truly practical, if quirky, means of transit, especially in a country of almost no paved roads.
* Sand dunes are simply a miracle.
* Vegetarianism is even more of a foregone impossibility in Mongolia than it is in Russia. Horse and camel are among the favourite foods of Mongols, as well as airag (fermented mare’s milk). Contrary to certain vegetarian sentiments, however, Mongols probably respect animals more than any other people I know—from cashmere and camel-hair sweaters and the felt that lines
their gers, to meat, dairy products and transportation, as herders, the livelihood of many Mongols cannot be separated from the lives of their animals
* 5 foreigners + 2 Mongolians + a couple of bottles of Chinggis vodka + a plastic bag + a night on the flour of a canteen-ger = hours of endless entertainment
* From moonrises to sunsets, ice gorges to sand dunes, strangers’ vans and back again, Mongolia is one beautiful place.
1 comment:
Good words.
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