Mongolia

So as I’m sitting on the Trans-Mongolian train in the middle of nowhere, I’m trying to digest my days in Mongolia. I look out the window and realize once again that I’m a long way away from home. In the distance I can see the contours of the mountains and every now a then a small house passes by. I feel like jumping off the train and go knock on the door to figure out who lives out here in the middle of the desert. Apart for these few glimpses of life, I have the joy of watching numerous flocks of wild horses running and playing as the train passes by. What a sight!

The first word that popped into my mind when we arrived in Mongolia was “chaos”. We arrived late at night by train to a small city. We got off the train and rushed into the waiting room due to the lack of degrees above zero. Needless to say, we stood quite out as we stumbled shivering into the small area which already was crowded as it was. A Canadian travelling with us, being 1,90 m had Mongolians walking past him deliberately, only to look up at him and his enormous height (Mongolians average at barely 1,60 m). We then huddled up to find the closest store to get some piv (Mongolian for beer). We found a small house with piv, vodka, water and cookies and had our needs fulfilled. This place was also extremely crowded and waiting ones turn didn’t seem like something they were familiar with. We – aka the happy campers – got our piv, returned to the train and had ourselves a “hurray-we’re-in-Mongolia-vodka-and-piv-party”.  The happy campers had strangely enough turned into tired campers when we woke up bright and early the next day at our final destination Ulaanbaatar.

I’ve been asking myself what there is to say about Ulaanbaatar (UB), and I haven’t come to a conclusion yet. It’s a surprisingly metropolitan city, but the distance between the urban and rural, rich and poor is disturbing. We went for a walk to see a temple with a 25 m high Buddha statue in it which was a few blocks away from the main square. As we passed a densely trafficked road (which btw is dangerous since red light apparently means “go” and so does green!), we came to realize that we had taken a step into the part of UB that had not yet encountered the globalized touch other parts had. It was as if we had walked off one stage and on to another, without knowing there’d be a difference, but in reality the road separated two world; where the earthly soil was a trashcan, asphalt had turned into dust and solid brick houses was replaced by a shed barely staying upright with the help of a few nails and in a few cases, ropes. Several times we turned around more or less to double check that this was reality and that we were still in the same city we’d been in a few minutes ago. All in all, UB It’s a city filled with many random smells, exhaust and layers of dust, not to mention the random hazardous holes in on the street that kept popping up around the corners every now and then. I soon came to call it little India.  To be fare thou, I hardly saw anyone begging on the street. My impressions adds up to conclude that it’s a city preparing for tourism, doing its best to become what the west wants it to be so they’ll make the effort of visiting Mongolia. In many ways I’ve come to feel it’s a city trying to run before it can walk.

The reason I’ve always wanted to go to Mongolia was to go horseback riding, and I did. We went up to a Ger camp inside the Mongolian national park, which is absolutely one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve ever had. We lived and slept in a jert which is a very basic tent/cabin with a couple of beds, an oven and a table; no electricity and no heating except for the oven. The jert has the form of a circle held up by several wooden sticks connected in the center of the ceiling and the outer walls. The walls are made out of lattice covered with layers of felt and plastic to keep it dry and warm. I actually find it an amazing lifestyle when one keeps in mind that ppl live in these small houses all winter with degrees creeping to below 40 degrees. Apart for eating wonderful homemade Mongolian food – which is some of the best food I’ve ever had – we went horseback riding in a landscape as mesmerizing as I’ve ever seen. The scenery is rocky and dramatic, but at the same time smoothly outlined and covered in a non-typical mountainous dust-like color. What surprised me the most is how I expected the mountains to be bare, which was not the case. Turns out the ground is covered by nothing except for weeds and a small bush here and there, and the trees are located up in the rocky mountainsides. At a point we all stopped taking pictures, agreeing that a picture would be a disgrace to the wonderful sight, since there is no way a photo could capture what we were experiencing.  So far, this is the most wonderful experiences I’ve had and one of the most spectacular sights my eyes have ever seen.

The sun is setting in the Gobi desert, and I’m grateful for my front row seat to this magnificent sight onboard the Trans-Mongolian railway. I only hope that my journey thru life will bring me back here one day.