The promise of a hot shower

Day 6, 8th August, Friday.

Ulan Uul, on the way to Tsagaannuur

I've been having condensed milk in my tea in the morning - it's white and sweet and with no means of refrigeration I have found it to make a passable tasty cup of tea. The tents were wet this morning, but the rain had stopped, and we packed up camp to head further north to Tsagaannuur village where I registered with the Border Police. The trip will take me to within 30km of the Russian border. While I wait for the forms to be completed, one of the police men is leaning under the raised bonnet of his car. Bayaraa joins him, and they both lean and twiddle, but without any luck. Looks like he'll be stuck there a while. Fortunately, my paperwork passes smoothly and it is time to head further north, this time to Khogorog - a collection of ger families sparsely spread around the Khosogog river.

Preparing our shower

There is the promise of a hot shower when we arrive, and I am glad of it. My hair is matted and dry and my fingernails are filthy. To take a shower here requires some preparation. First the water is to be fetched from the river and carried up wooden steps to two containers above the shower - one for cold, one for hot. This takes several journeys. After that a fire is lit under the hot water tank and kept stoked for and hour until the water is hot. The shower is gravity fed, and it took some practise to get the right temperature mix. It was more of a dripple than a shower, but it was warm and I felt very clean again.

The open land around Khogorog

The river levels are very low. 'Last time the river was so high,' said Namuul. 'It was at the bonnet of the car. Now there is nothing.' It is very warm for a Mongolian summer, and very dry as it always is here. At night the temperature drops and there is a stove in the ger for warmth.

Children play bareback on horses and across the grass lands. People more from ger to ger. There is such freedom here. 

A Shamanic Encounter

Day 5 : A Shamanic Encounter, 7^th August, Thursday

Bayaraa, Namuul, Lhagwa and me in Moron

I left the town of Moron today in the Land Ranger. The rooftops of the handmade wooden houses shone brightly coloured in reds, blues, pinks and browns like a toy town. In a way they mimic the colours of the wild flower meadows, only much bolder and more garish. The town ends suddenly, and I am back in the open countryside again of open Steppe and hillside. I much prefer this to the town – it feels so much freerer and I have my own romantic fondness for the simple, natural way of life.

Black vulture

There were yak here, with a wise and steady gaze; every movement is slow as though they have all the time in the world. Perhaps they do.

The further north we went, the boggier the land became. The track was now strewn with rocks and dozing in the car is more difficult. Bayaraa, the driver, stops and points out some birds on the near horizon. They are black vultures, 15 of them playing in the wind, and I watch, fascinated. The route is climbing and a mist is descending. At the top of a hill (I assume it’s the top – the mizzle is heavy now and the view obscured) there is a Shamanic memorial. There has been a memorial on this site for 500 years, although not these particular wooden structures. There are stone carvings representing different aspects of the Shamanic culture, and 13 wooden stupas strewn with blue scarves to the sky gods. The twelve stupas each belong to one animal, and as I was born in the year of the chicken, it is this stupa that I head to. Bayaraa gives me some grain and rice from a container he’s brought with him and I walk round three times clockwise throwing the offering onto the stupa as I go.

Inside each one is something, and in some there are horse head skulls. These skulls are from race horses, not just any old horse, to speed people on their journey. It is raining now. ‘This will be snow in the Taiga,’ comments Namuul. Hard to believe in August that I will be in snow, and in fact we pass a patch of icy snow on the road just a short distance later.

Ulan Uul is the next town on the track. It appears out of the woods, a collection of wooden huts with colourful roofs and a stadium for the annual Nadeem festival. The streets are wide and made of dirt. Just 10km further on we set up camp on a hillside looking across to mountains. I hear the familiar sound of foraging on the larch trees. Water is collected from the river, and, despite the rain, we have our first camp fire to toast marshmallows. In my tent I fall asleep to a vast silence punctuate occasionally by distant echoes of dogs barking.

I spy Chenggis Khan

Day 1: Arriving Sunday 3rd August. 

Ulan Bataar

Ulan Bataar is the capital city of Outer Mongolia. Nestled between hills in four directions, this city became a permanent capital when the wandering, nomadic capital settled down in one place. I find myself fascinated with the image of a nomadic capital city. The Mongolians are, by nature, a nomadic people, and a gentle people. Five years since my last visit, I am once again welcomed by their warmth and sincerity. Truly it is a pleasure to return.

From my hotel window I look over the city towards Bhod Khan hill side. It is the same hotel I stayed in five years previously. I look out across the increasing growth of high rise buildings and apartments that support the one million people living here; one third of the country's population. In the evening I watch traditional folk music and dancing, followed by a meal with yet more music. The musicians play horse head fiddles, and instruments I don't recognise.

Wild flowers of the Steppes

Day 2: Heading north Monday 4th August. I have trouble sleeping the first night. The air is warmer and more humid that I imagined, and I am relieved to use the hotel's air conditioning. After a night in UB (as travellers call it), my driver and guide take me north to a 300 year old monastery in the Steppes. We pass through the copper mining town of Erdenet populated mostly by Russians in communist-style concrete apartment blocks built around the city. Further on and away from the city, the drive takes us on unmade roads through wild flowers and grassland, wheat fields, and oil seed rape flower. Eagles fly above my head.

Eagle over the Steppes

I teach them to play 'I Spy' and we play in a mixture of Mongolian and English. I don't know what they are guessing when it's in Mongolian, but we are having a good time. 

Drying cheese on the ger roof

The first night camping is close to Amarbayasgalan monastery beside a couple of Gers (Mongolian yurts). The nomadic life appears happy and romantic, although I am told there is much hard work with drying out and moving the heavy felt of the Ger every season. The people are friendly and invite us in for tea and a supper of dried meat noodle soup. The tea is weak and milky, freshly taken from the cow with a little salt added. 

Days 3 - 4: Moron Tuesday 5th – Wednesday 6th August. From Amarbayasgalan I am driven west to Moron. Although warm here, I find my clothes lacking for the temperatures ahead, not realising that there may be snow high in the Taiga. My luggage is light and contains only summer clothing.

Ger furniture

Felted sheep wool for the Ger

In Moron (pronounced Muruun) I go to the market, accompanied by Xlauga, a friend of my guide's. Her name starts with a guttural sound and I am unsure how to write it, so I’ve plumped for the X. It isn’t said ‘X’ at all, but I have no way of writing it in English. Alot of the words are guttural, and the word 'yes' seems to be abbreviated to a short throat-clearing noise. Our voices in conversation are at times gentle and quiet, which suits my ways, and other time we laugh and like a family. At my age now, I feel like the mother. Stalls in the market are simple wooden affairs and cargo containers, and the streets between them are dusty. There is a blue sky overhead and it is a warm day. I am interested in all the stalls on a market - daily life on display - and the meat sections fascinate me. I'm not really sure why the meat sections are so engaging; they reminds me of Smithfield Market in London. In one an incense burner is kept alight in the middle surrounded by sheep heads, goat heads, cow heads, carcasses and innards. As I look, the boss lady comes and she looks strict, so I carry on to buy long wool socks and leather boots for the cold horse riding ahead.  I spy a man in a del on his motorbike - the 'noisy horse' of the Steppes as they call them, since they have taken over where horses were once regularly used  - and he poses for a photo. And in another section, the makings for a Ger are laid out. Sheep's wool felted together for the walls of the Gers is for sale elsewhere, as are traditional wooden horse riding saddles.

One man and his bike

As I finish typing this I am told that my border permission has been granted and tomorrow we are heading north towards the Taiga.

Can I carry it?

Tonight is my last night here. I have been three months in the monastery, teaching at the school and meeting local monks and lay people. A few good people have become friends. The school children captured my heart with their sincerity and honesty, a raw quality that I hope I can carry with me when I leave.

I spend the evening in one Geshe's home inside the monastery complex. We were three in total - Geshe la, Ani Rinzin and me. A 'Geshe' is a monk who has trained for years and passed his Geshe exams; it is like attaining a doctorate in Philosophy and takes 12 or more years to achieve. After this the Geshe can take in students of his own and guide them through their steps. The word 'la' is respect word that is added to the end of a name. An 'Ani' is a nun, and Ani Rinzin is a nun from Taiwan who takes a room in the Guest House where I am staying. Our conversations switch between English, Tibetan and Chinese. Geshe la and Ani are able to use all three. I feel quite lazy with my English, and only a smattering of Tibetan.

We eat potato momo and drink mushroom and egg soup.

Geshe's small home is on the edge of the ever-expanding monastic complex and is home to the Geshe and his three students. It was sponsored by one Ani from Scotland who has been visiting this place for 12 years and spends much of her time here. While we are talking (or more precisely Geshe la and Ani Rinzin are talking through a problem Ani Rinzin has) one of the students arrives home. I would estimate this young monk to be around his very early twenties, and he speaks good English as we talk about the Ani in Scotland.

'When I miss her I give her a missed call,' he tells me, 'and she calls me back. I tell her "Ani la, you are like my second mother", and she tells me "You are like my son". When she leaves I feel an emptiness inside without her. I cannot carry that feeling,' he tells me.

His face is young and honest. 'This is attachment,' I reply, looking at this monk who so obviously cares for his Scottish Ani like a son cares for his mother.
'Mmmm. Yes,' he agrees, 'attachment.'

Attachment is something that is much talked about in Buddhism, and generally it is not seen as a positive thing; but it is natural, and this young man is acknowledging the reality of his feelings.
I think of the school students that I am leaving behind and of how much I will miss them and this place. This too is attachment, and there will be an emptiness inside me when I go. It will be a difficult feeling, and I wonder how well I will carry it.