April 5, 2009
Nothing clears one’s head like the fresh desert air. I feel fit as a fiddle, thanks to my journeys in Mongolia! Thank you all for your prayers and support. :-)
What an adventure I’ve had!
When we arrived, our plane was absolutely packed with returning Mongolians. They were so excited to get home, that they all clapped when the plane landed. (This was slightly alarming at first, since I thought they were proud of the fact that we landed at all.) Then, as soon as the wheels touched the ground, ALL of them leapt to their feet, even though we still had to taxi for another 15 minutes, and the “fasten seatbelt sign” was still on! The stewardesses tried to make people sit down, but there were just too many excited Mongolians, so they let it slide. I’ve never seen anything like it. I felt this was a good way to sum up Mongolians as a whole; a really friendly, energetic people that were all super excited about their homeland.
After successfully landing, and collecting bags, and heading out of the “Chingiss Khan Airport,” I got my second shock of the day; Mongolia looks like Wyoming!!!! The mountains, the dry air, even the brownish hue of the grass are just like home! It blew me away, even though in theory I knew that it was a sparsely populated, mountainous desert-like place. That was probably the best part of the whole trip for me, being in Big Sky country again; drinking in that air, feeling the wind in my hair, and seeing the sun everyday.
But whenever I started thinking thoughts along that line, something would always happen to remind me of where I really was. For example, we would pass a roadside stupa (Buddhist shrine), or a herd of horses would wander across the road, or our driver would start chattering in Mongolian. (This is a very tricky language, an unintelligible mix of Chinese-sounding words and Cyrillic letters. The most confusing was being able to READ the words, but having not a clue what they MEANT.)
But I digress. Back to the matter at hand! Our first real day in Ulaanbaatar, we toured the city. This is not nearly as old as I was expecting, since every conquering army that has come through Mongolia has razed the capital to the ground (first the Manchurians “Ming dynasty”, then the Russians, and the Chinese again. I can’t remember if the Japanese did any razing or not; probably.) Still, it was pretty cool. We saw the crazy palace of the “Bogd Khan” (leader of government and religion before communism), and the largest Buddhist monastery in Mongolia. It was really interesting, seeing Buddhism up close and in person as opposed to reading about it in a book. Books cannot portray the smells of incense, or the brilliant colors of the flags and hangings in the temple, nor the gentle drone of the monks chanting. The most surprising were the statues and paintings. All my life, I have been under the impression that Buddhism is an atheistic religion. I suppose, in theory, this is true, but all the temples we saw were chock full of the representations of various gods and spirits; which are in turn different from the gods worshipped in other Buddhist countries. These are all in addition to the Buddha, and all the other Enlightened persons that are worshipped as well.
The next day, we set of on our trek (via car). This trip (and subsequent days) felt like we covered a lot of ground, and saw lots of the neat things Mongolia has to offer, but in reality we covered a teeny portion of that vast country. I am not complaining though! We stayed in a different “ger” (yurt) every night, rode camels through the sand dunes, haggled in black markets, hiked up lots of interesting rock formations, and visited the ruins of Karakorum (ancient capital of the Mongols, founded by the great Chingiss himself). One day we even had tea with a family of nomads. That was very interesting, and also awkward. These people, while very generous and hospitable, simply do not understand the concept of leisure. They work from sunup to sundown, caring for animals, setting up gers, and other aspects of life. There was a twelve year old girl in the family, and when we asked her about her hobbies, via our translator, she informed us that she didn’t have time to play. A bit later, they showed us their herds, and we got to play with their baby goats, which was awesome. They also offered us some milk tea, cookies, and dried yogurt curds. I didn’t know a third of the things you can do with yogurt that nomads take as a matter of course. They even distill it to make vodka! I tried it, and it was the nastiest thing I’ve ever tasted. Even as vodka goes, this stuff takes the cake. *Shudder* At least the curds were tasty, albeit hard enough to break your teeth.
Another day, our travels took us to the Hustai National park, where we got to see some wild horses. (They are the last descendants of the prehistoric horse Eohippus, there are only 200 left in the wild.) Later, we even got to ride (different) horses across the steppe! That was glorious; I had a ton of fun, even got up to a canter. Unfortunately, I was the only person of our group that had any riding experience, so my cantering was a source of some alarm to my fellow travelers. (Our horses were very much fans of the “follow the leader” game) So I am not sure if they enjoyed it quite as much as I did, but there were lots of smiles nonetheless.
I am not sure if I can truly convey how breathtakingly beautiful this countryside was with the pictures I was able to take. At one point, we hiked up a mountain to watch the sun set. Never in my life have I seen a more brilliant ending to a day. The mountains blazed like fire, and then faded away into misty grayness. The icy rivers burned like molten gold, and their light reflected on the grazing herds across the steppe. My camera captured none of those nuances. No camera could. I feel that in some ways digital photography has ruined views like that. People spend so much time trying to get the perfect picture, that they don’t take time to actually enjoy the beauty around them. Still, I promise to show you some of the pictures that I did take, in hopes of at least giving you an idea.
What else? The food of course!!!!!!! What would a post on this blog be without mention of that?? I could easily have gained 20 pounds, (I am refusing to even look at a scale at the moment just in case) but it was oh so worth it. We had different traditional dishes every night, with mutton, beef, homemade noodles, and tasty vegetables. In the mornings, we had fresh butter for our bread- and creamier butter you have never tasted. One night we went to a “BD’s Mongolian Barbeque” (Which turns out to be an American chain, go figure.) Yum! I won’t torment you with all the other tasty things; it will just make your mouth water all over your keyboard. Suffice it to say that I highly approve of Mongolian cooking. And milk tea, although that takes a bit of getting used to.
This trip was just exactly what I needed, in so many ways. I feel recharged, and ready to tackle the rest of the semester. It helps that now all the ice has melted in Yaroslavl, and the days are already getting warmer. When the rough times come, as I am sure they will, I will look back on this vacation with deep satisfaction.
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