Chinggis Khan here, there and everywhere

26/Jul/2018. Chinggis Khan here, there and everywhere. 

Somewhere in Omnogovi province, about 60 km out of Dalanzadgad.

Mongolia has so far been way more than I expected. Not so much because of the things I've done and the places I've visited, but rather because of the people I've met and the way they live.

About the things I've done and the places I've visited (the people I've met and the way they live will have to wait):

We landed yesterday around noon. Ogi, the tour operator, picked me up, and she and Tamir, her husband, drove me up north to the relatively new and very impressive 40-meter Chinggis Khan statue. We stopped by some local shop to have some traditional milk tea and lunch, consisting of battered beef+vegetables patties and a dumpling soup (dumplings filled with dried goat meat), and then continued to Terelj National Park. The place was some sort of mountain resort, very green with some interesting rock formations, like some allegedly famous turtle rock, that looks like a turtle (after the hike in the Yol Valley, I realize that these Mongols love to find animal shapes in rocks... today we saw camel rocks, snake rocks, among others). We visited a Buddhist temple where the Dalai Lama has apparently been at least once, and I learned that the Mongols, being such devout Buddhists, are very proud that the DL has visited their country three times. 

We went back to Ulaanbaatar (also known as UB City in Mongolia). I have never been to Russia or any of the former Soviet republics (not sure if Estonia counts) but the city is undoubtedly very Soviet-looking: lots of very utilitarian, colorless multistory buildings. There clearly is a lot of space to build, not precisely in the form of parks or man-made green areas, but in the form of the natural landscape around some isolated 12-story building. This actually seems to be the only greenery around the city as the streets are also there just to serve their purpose, without any trees, flowers or ornaments of any kind decorating them. We finally reached my hotel, and I chose to do nothing but take a hot shower, have a beer, and lie down. I kind of regretted not walking around Chinggis Khan square, which is only about a street away. In these latitudes the sun sets kind of late, past 9pm, so in theory I did have plenty of time. But between the time it took me to answer a few messages, post some photos, and repack my suitcase in a more compact way, the clock chimed 12 times and I realized it was way past my bedtime, as I had to wake up at 4:45am to go to the airport and catch a 6:50am flight.

Chinggis Khan airport (by now it should be clear that everything that's somewhat important is called after the one and only great Mongol leader) looks like a Soviet-era bus station. There are four huge portraits hung in the main hall where you check in for your flight. Like in a bus terminal, there's lots of chairs in the main hall, which I think is unusual for an airport. The security line was relatively short, between 10-15 people, yet it took me about half an hour to get past it. The waiting hall is downstairs, and there's nothing but more chairs and a very western-looking coffee stand, which made great espressos out of this barista-style machine and had the best banana bread. We were only 9 people on the Hunnu Air flight to Dalanzadgad, so it literally took us about 5 minutes to board, and another 5 to take off. I initially thought it was going to take longer as I saw some guy manually turning the propeller helixes, which didn't look very promising, but somehow we did take off.

We reached Dalanzadgad about 1h30 later. My guide and driver for the next several days, Gaana and Bataa, were waiting for me when I landed. We drove through a very small town, which supposedly has about 20,000 people, but that number seems way too high given what I saw: a few houses and shops randomly put together amidst crooked streets and a few lampposts. We drove on a concrete road for about 20-30 minutes, and then at some point Bataa simply veered off road and drove for about another 30 minutes on dirt. Most of the time there were no tracks on the dirt to follow. Sometimes there were tracks together with other 3 sets of tracks that crossed over and intertwined. I couldn't understand how Bataa knew where we were going because for the most part there were no reference points in the horizon, no mountains to follow, no rivers, and no buildings of course. It was only us, a flat landscape, and probably the sun as our only guide... but since it was close to midday, even the sun couldn't be completely trusted. Or so I thought. 

We arrived in our first base camp around 2pm. The camp is nothing but a collection of gers and a few randomly placed items (a latrine and a bunch of loose bricks laid on top of each other where they keep tools and other things. A ger (pronounced "gyr") is the typical Mongolian tent where nomadic families live, round in shape, usually white, with a pointy roof, no windows and just a tiny door. The family welcomed us in their ger, we sat around, and they gave us some milk tea and a bowl of biscuits and sugar cubes. I had asked Ogi the day before how to say a few random things in Mongolian, such as hello (sain ban oo), thank you (bayarlaa), good bye (bayarltee), and you're welcome (zugeree), and I got many brownie points for displaying my basic Mongolian skills. Gaana took me to my ger and I took a nap. 

When I woke up, I inspected the ger. I am so impressed with this mobile construction. Gaana says it takes families about 1 hour to put up a ger, which seems to me like an impressive feat. The construction itself is nothing but two pillars (they call it the mother and the father, since they both hold the whole dwelling together, and apparently every detail of the construction has some symbolic meaning like that) that hold a ring, some curved wooden walls that surround the pillars (Gaana says gers come mainly in 3 different sizes: 3, 4, and 5 walls), and then dozens of cylindrical sticks that link the ring atop the pillars with the walls. Then, on the outside, they put tons of animal fur all around the walls, and on top of the sticks that form the ceiling they put some sort of round-shaped blanket and more fur. Then they put yet more blankets or plastic on top of everything and all around, and they tie everything around the ger with three strings that symbolize the three generations that typically live inside a ger: the grandparents, the parents, and the children. The covers on the rooftop are folded so that they don't cover the ring, and so the inside of the ger is incredibly airy and cool even though it's about 30 Celsius outside. But what's most impressive is the inside: this is no Soviet-looking utilitarian building. Each of the wooden sticks between the top ring and the walls is decorated with some beautiful shapes that seemed to have been burnt on the wood in some way. There are some blankets with some flowery design that cover the wooden walls, so the actual structure that holds the ger standing doesn't show. There's a sink and a metal stove with a metal tube that serves as chimney. There's an empty basket next to the stove that's used to hold whatever they use to light their fire (from what I saw in the main ger, it's manure). There's a little table in the middle of the two pillars and four small chairs. But most impressive to me was the floor: a round-shaped, perfectly-cut-to-fit-the-whole-surface-of-the-ger piece of plastic, whose design mimics wooden planks. All very cute and useful and cozy and practical (to clean for example) at the same time.

We then drove for about 20-30 minutes to the Yol (Vulture) Valley. The place was beautiful, both very green and rocky. Before our hike, we picnicked. Gaana made some pasta with potatoes, carrots, and beef. Everything with soy sauce, of course. Then we started walking. After about 25 minutes, we reached a place that Gaana calls "the no-corner place", and which has some massive pieces of ice on the ground, even in the 30-plus-degree weather. This place gets so cold in the winter and so much snow that the ice never completely melts, even in the middle of the summer. Back at camp, I couldn't help but think about how beautifully simple this life must be (not necessarily here in rural Mongolia, but in this country in general... and this is something that I'll definitely write about later). For example, some Mongolian tourists are staying in one of the other 5 gers here, and their kids--probably 4 and 6--were playing outside by themselves for at least an hour, and I think their mom must have come out to check on them only about once. They fell and stood up by themselves. They didn't throw tantrums. They had no phones or iPads. They were just running and jumping and throwing rocks and playing in the dirt. I watched all that while I washed some clothes by hand in a metal bucket, sitting on a small bench that was definitely not the most comfortable for my back, but I can say I never enjoyed washing clothes more than today.

After dinner, Gaana and I had a couple of beers, and then I went for a walk. Night had fallen but there was so much light outside thanks to the full moon that lights up the sky  tonight. I honestly don't remember ever seeing such a bright moon--probably because of the full moon and because of how isolated this place is. I went up a nearby hill and there were two girls at the top, Emily and Lynn (US-Australia, I think), who invited me to sit down with them. They're now living in Korea and Thailand as teachers in international schools, living as expats, roaming around Asia, living the life. Whenever I meet these kinds of people, I get so jealous and can't help but think of the what-ifs. But as a friend said, they probably don't have stable friendships or a pension plan. Neither did Chinggis Khan and look how well he did. Ha.