early next morning, I am awoken by my urge to take a long, hot shower- a luxury I will be denied for the few weeks in the countryside. I pack my bags while my guesthouse owner reminisces about his few months in san francisco years ago. I hand over the San Francisco calendar i have been carrying and leave him gazing pensively at the Golden Gate Bridge.
the russian van, we call it Dorj, is loaded with all the camping equipment, and groceries, bought yesterday at a supermarket for the trip. soon, we add ourselves to the load and am face to face with 6 people we will be sharing the mongolian countryside with for the next 19 days- cosy and fragrant, as a friend later put it ;)
twenty minutes out of ulan bataar and we are out in the middle of nowhere already.
if there's a 'nowhere', it has to be in mongolia and it's everywhere.
the silence in the countryside is boundless, empty yet so full. It takes a moment for us to register it and takes many more to embrace it. every day in the desert, we pass herds of two-humped camels, their humps flapping about as they run, and in the mountains, stoopy shouldered yaks desultory gnawing the sparse, coarse carpet of dry grass. horses roam wild on grasslands, massive sand dunes as the backdrop, framed by black hills in the distant horizon and land baked into a lunar crust. its spectacular..
every few hours, an overloaded van or truck passes by the driver wrestling with the wheel. apart from that, we feel human presence with the far away gers, smoke bellowing from their chimney or an isolated nomad, who chaperons his herd towards greener pastures.
some days in the countryside are hot, mercilessly so, but the nights are always cold, and windy. the country has a harsh, unforgiving climate, nature unleashing its fury everyday, but there's a certain peace and comfort to the people's existence, which cannot be discounted.
the blazing sun, the howling wings a part of their daily life, they go about doing their chores, milking mares, yaks, goats -all with a tough, calm demeanor, which constantly amazes us. their laughter is pure, rich- just like the yak cream they serve with fried dough. every time we enter a ger, we are served airag- fermented mare's milk, which invites an initial wince from all of us, or salty mongolian tea.
an indigo sky spills light into the room and images from ulan bataar linger on TVs powered by solar panels, while a cup of vodka is passed around. there's always a lone, bare bulb hanging from the center of the ger, an iron cooking stove and enough vodka to drown sorrows and the cold. outside a guard dog, sheep, goats, horses, yaks brave the weather along with a motorcycle or two, seats adorned with a mongolian seat and gloves, attached to the handle bars.
every other day, we pass a spiritless, desolate town and stop long enough to stock up on vegetables, beer, bread. schoolgirls, their cheeks unnaturally rosy, sunburnt perhaps, in white frilly dresses and a big pink bow in their straight black hair, saunter through the uneven streets, giggle and wave at us.
some days are relatively uneventful, with the usual stopping at the forked roads before us and trying to agree on the one to take, instant lunches and refilling our water container.
but most others are more social and memorable - staying at a random ger, milking goats early in the morning, taking a hot shower in a public bathhouse after days, watching a sheep being skinned, dancing to mongolian rock music in a night club in a small town, eating stone-grilled yak meat topped with cheese slices, staying at a wrestler's house, giving ibuprofen to a woman we meet for her toothache, stopping at a stream for an afternoon to do our laundry, taking a dip in the frigid lake water or just drinking beer and learning dutch songs about a cute puppy who grows up to be a bad dog!
our second day in the countryside, we get a chance to watch wild rams fight from a distance.
some mornings we wake up to yaks, sheep and goats invading our campsite- goats munching on tent cords.
sometimes DC stops the van, gets out and mutters something in Mongolian- points to the map. smokes a cigarette, comes back and starts driving again. but most times, its us who shout 'zogs'(stop)- there are all different kinds of zogs- is pee zogs, lunch zogs, oi (wood) zogs, camping zogs, and once- zogs zogs - to take a photo by the zogs sign!
morning comes easy- a cup of tea, sometimes with a hint of onions or tomatoes from the night before, is always welcome on a crisp morning. breakfast is normally stale bread with jelly, butter and mongolian cookies- the size of biscottis but harder.
lunch happens on the road, surrounded by the mostly barren, treeless lands enclosed in habitual tranquility, overlooking a herd of camels or horses.
barring a few days, when we consume leftovers from the previous night or stop for freshly-cooked dumplings or rice in a local restaurant, lunch is sandwiches- bread with tomatoes, butter, cucumbers. occasionally, on special days, carefully rationed cheese slices make an appearance.
dinner is an elaborate affair complete with a campfire. dinner is pasta, noodles or rice with vegetables- stir-friend or boiled.
every evening we set up camp in remote corners of the country- on level ground, whipped by persistent winds, three tents clinging resolutely to a forlorn patch of land. on stopping for the night, tents are hastily put up, water is boiled in the back of the van for pasta/rice/veggies, while the fireman/woman for the evening goes looking for wood, before night falls.
every night, warm in my personal silence and the grey silk sleepsheet, i curl up in fetal position, wearing all the woolen clothes I have, the sleeping bag half-open- i feel claustrophobic in the mummy bags. i think about the millions of stars above me, and savor the infinite silence.
one day all of us sleep under the stars, out in the open. the night buckles around us, a fire crackle breaking that deafening silence and its echoes. it is just the desert and us.
another night we stop at DC elder sisters ger. as it is established that we are spending the night here, we chop vegetables that we have been carrying around, while DCs sister makes noodles, for the noodle-meat soup that will be dinner.
a healthy, heartful dinner later, the men smoke home-made cigarettes while we work on our mongolian and try a conversation. and just like that, amidst this exchange, a boy in the ger starts singing, a song passed on through generations perhaps. on our part, each of us sings a song from our native country. that night, we sleep in their ger, six people huddled on the floor, while our hosts mind their herds through the night.
In ulastaiy, DCs hometown, we decide to sample the city life of restaurants and karaoke bars. Alex, with his dreadlocks and a nose piercing, is mistaken to be a woman, so a mongolian man asks him for a dance. Another steps in to ask Astrid for a dance, then decides she's not quite right for him- she's too tall. The one who asks Mayo for a dance, however, doesn't have height as a criterion!
At midnight, after our share of dancing and beautiful renditions of "Wonderwall", "Eight Days a Week", "Bohemian Rhapsody" (and a very bad one of "California Dreaming" ), and unsuccessful attempts of breaking the door of another bar open, we make our way back home.
Two days in the rattling russian van, and we gingerly make our way back to the capital, trying to soak in as much silence as we possibly can. our last night is in a ger, after an hour of being lost in the wilderness, DC stopping and reversing every five minutes as he encounters dried stream beds. on reaching UB, after a quick hour at the black market to buy mongolian VCDs, we find ourselves in cafe Amsterdam chowing down on their cheese and ham paninis.
as i sit and write at 16mm, a cafe in a popular hutong in Beijing, I am taken back in time to the mongolian countryside, its glorious landscapes, the reverberating silence and nothingness, which seemed to fill everything there and then, suddenly, it hits me that tomorrow i fly to one of Asia's most densely populated country- India- after more than three very eventful years.
i think, i am ready- to make peace, to exercise patience, to be home again.
Showing posts with label mongolia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mongolia. Show all posts
Friday, October 3, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
bohemian rhapsody- part 1
I am not sure anymore when Mongolia crept into my itinerary.
my reasons for visiting Mongolia, besides pure fascination with a country with the lowest per capita population density, almost seem too logical now- I don’t need a visa, I don’t need a guide (Tibet does), Its close to China and so, very approachable. Nepal and India can be visited anytime (ironically the very reason why I haven’t traveled in India yet)
so, amidst the Olympics thrills and chills, I make an impulse decision and go looking for the ticket counter for the trans-Siberian in Beijing. Its not one of the trains you just show up for ;)
the morning after the closing ceremony, I wake up with a very upset tummy. I spend the entire day in bed, while contemplating if I can make it through a 30 hour train journey to Mongolia. There’s nothing some good old khichdi (rice and lentils) won’t fix. So I hail a taxi to the closest Indian restaurant and on special request, and enjoy two servings of some fine khichdi.
sure enough I am off to Mongolia early next morning. I even grab an egg McMuffin on my way there!
It’s my first brush with Americans- I share my cabin with Keith, an American journalist who will be cycling in Mongolia for 2.5 months and with David and Josh, father and son, Americans but living in China for the last 10 years. David runs an orphanage close to Beijing.
after about 12 hours of customary introductions and an engaging, interesting accompanying dialogue, we reach the Chinese border town- Erlian. We are all told to disembark from the train while it is taken off the platform to change the gauge for Mongolian tracks.
meanwhile, at the only store in the immigration building at Erlian, fellow travelers are busy loading up on pounds and pounds of groceries. later I would understand why. Everything in Mongolia is exported from China, almost no vegetables are grown there. In our 19 day countryside tour, we saw one vegetable patch (and DC drove over it!!).
we reach Ulan Bataar, the capital, in the afternoon. A poor country landlocked by two massive empires is nothing like what I imagined it to be. There are Land Rovers, Mercedes, Toyotas on the roads with an abundance of jay-walkers. In the center of it all, there is five stories of the State Department Store, a monument in its league, with cosmetic and sports counters, just like at Macys, only with more cashmere.
a stop at the English bookstore gives me a better picture of the city, an LP Mongolia and the Mongolian phrasebook. At another stop at a popular guesthouse scouting for travel partners, I see a vague notice by a dreamer who wants to go on a long trip to the countryside- north, south, west.. Exactly what I wanted—so I mail Alex and wait for a reply.
that evening, I watch a traditional Mongolian folk song and dance performance after a very commercial Mongolian barbecue. I try the horse meat, cow intestines, salty tea, sheep fat tail and have a grand finale of my experimenting with a healthy (and super-sized) serving of tofu and veggies. Mongolian barbecue, after all, isn’t really all that Mongolian.
things begin to look up the following morning as we decide to meet in a café along with two other interested people. Unfortunately, four isn’t enough to make the trip economical (Contrary to my expectations, Mongolia is an expensive country) Just when we almost give up, two girls, who had been pestered by Alex earlier, walk in and ask sheepishly if we still have space in our group—and just like that, the trip is on.
its 3 PM. We leave at 9 AM tomorrow.
my reasons for visiting Mongolia, besides pure fascination with a country with the lowest per capita population density, almost seem too logical now- I don’t need a visa, I don’t need a guide (Tibet does), Its close to China and so, very approachable. Nepal and India can be visited anytime (ironically the very reason why I haven’t traveled in India yet)
so, amidst the Olympics thrills and chills, I make an impulse decision and go looking for the ticket counter for the trans-Siberian in Beijing. Its not one of the trains you just show up for ;)
the morning after the closing ceremony, I wake up with a very upset tummy. I spend the entire day in bed, while contemplating if I can make it through a 30 hour train journey to Mongolia. There’s nothing some good old khichdi (rice and lentils) won’t fix. So I hail a taxi to the closest Indian restaurant and on special request, and enjoy two servings of some fine khichdi.
sure enough I am off to Mongolia early next morning. I even grab an egg McMuffin on my way there!
It’s my first brush with Americans- I share my cabin with Keith, an American journalist who will be cycling in Mongolia for 2.5 months and with David and Josh, father and son, Americans but living in China for the last 10 years. David runs an orphanage close to Beijing.
after about 12 hours of customary introductions and an engaging, interesting accompanying dialogue, we reach the Chinese border town- Erlian. We are all told to disembark from the train while it is taken off the platform to change the gauge for Mongolian tracks.
meanwhile, at the only store in the immigration building at Erlian, fellow travelers are busy loading up on pounds and pounds of groceries. later I would understand why. Everything in Mongolia is exported from China, almost no vegetables are grown there. In our 19 day countryside tour, we saw one vegetable patch (and DC drove over it!!).
we reach Ulan Bataar, the capital, in the afternoon. A poor country landlocked by two massive empires is nothing like what I imagined it to be. There are Land Rovers, Mercedes, Toyotas on the roads with an abundance of jay-walkers. In the center of it all, there is five stories of the State Department Store, a monument in its league, with cosmetic and sports counters, just like at Macys, only with more cashmere.
a stop at the English bookstore gives me a better picture of the city, an LP Mongolia and the Mongolian phrasebook. At another stop at a popular guesthouse scouting for travel partners, I see a vague notice by a dreamer who wants to go on a long trip to the countryside- north, south, west.. Exactly what I wanted—so I mail Alex and wait for a reply.
that evening, I watch a traditional Mongolian folk song and dance performance after a very commercial Mongolian barbecue. I try the horse meat, cow intestines, salty tea, sheep fat tail and have a grand finale of my experimenting with a healthy (and super-sized) serving of tofu and veggies. Mongolian barbecue, after all, isn’t really all that Mongolian.
things begin to look up the following morning as we decide to meet in a café along with two other interested people. Unfortunately, four isn’t enough to make the trip economical (Contrary to my expectations, Mongolia is an expensive country) Just when we almost give up, two girls, who had been pestered by Alex earlier, walk in and ask sheepishly if we still have space in our group—and just like that, the trip is on.
its 3 PM. We leave at 9 AM tomorrow.
Friday, August 29, 2008
take a walk on the wild side..
some writing is long overdue..
my excuse is the Olympics were really tiring, and of course, awesome!
I am in Mongolia now, got here 2 days ago via the trans-mongolian and am headed to the countryside tomorrow morning for 19 days with five people I met today, a big map of Mongolia, a rented car, driver, lots of food, camping gear, mosquito repellent, new warm clothes and a keen sense of adventure!!
stay tuned...
my excuse is the Olympics were really tiring, and of course, awesome!
I am in Mongolia now, got here 2 days ago via the trans-mongolian and am headed to the countryside tomorrow morning for 19 days with five people I met today, a big map of Mongolia, a rented car, driver, lots of food, camping gear, mosquito repellent, new warm clothes and a keen sense of adventure!!
stay tuned...
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