The remoteness of Khar Balgas is well-illustrated by the fact that we get lost trying to find it. We wind up hemmed in by a river that the driver is clearly not certain we can successfully cross. To get even here we had to make a water crossing and negotiate the perils of three very bad tempered dogs which chased the car, barking aggressively at it. Eventually, having got out and looked around a bit, the driver decides we can’t cross here, and so we go back the way we came, giving the hounds another chance to demonstrate how much they would like to devour us all. When we’ve gone a bit further, he decides this isn’t right either, and takes us back towards the river again. For the slavering dogs, who we are now passing a third time, this must be like Christmas – they probably haven’t had this much fun chasing cars for weeks. It’s beginning to feel like we will never see Khar Balgas, but finally the driver finds a place to ford the waters, and not long afterwards, the ruins appear on a wide, empty plain.
Built in 751, and flourishing until 840, the city originally covered 25 square kilometres, although there is now little left of Khar Balgas, save the crumbling remains of the central walls, and a hillock of mud brick in the middle of the complex. Still, it’s an awesome place if only for its isolated remoteness; the fact that it stands here in a place where 1300 year old ruins can gently crumble away in the wind, with no admission fees, or ticket booths, or postcard sellers, or indeed infrastructure of any kind whatsoever. It’s how you would expect to see an historical site that no-one had discovered yet. While we explore (incidentally coming across more animal skeletons in the grass – ‘Mongolia, where animals come to die.’), Hishte prepares lunch. The veggie spaghetti Bolognese and salad arrives at about 4.30pm, and as we eat, I ask her if she’s ever had vegetarian tourists before. She smiles a little conspiratorially, before admitting that this is the first time she’s ever done this job. Apparently she’s on vacation from her regular work at a power plant, and the LG called her (she’s the sister of one of the cooks there) because they had no idea how they were going to cook for two vegetarians! If she wasn’t so nice, and seemingly knowledgeable about culture, if not history (she gets a lot of information from the driver), and if she wasn’t such a good cook, I might object to the fact that we paid $30 a day for a professional guide and got a rank amateur. As it is, I’d never have known if she hadn’t said anything, so I’m not going to complain; guide or no guide, she’s worth it for the food!
About 5.30pm, we set off in the direction of Tsetserleg, the capital of Arkhangai Province. We’re told it’s a three hour journey, so it may well be after dark when we arrive. Stopping in a tiny settlement en route, we find a small grocery shop, which bizarrely, sells Korean beer, Korean noodles, and Korean soybean paste. We buy wine. Back on the road the usual display of jaw-dropping scenery sees us to an improbably lovely sunset, which illuminates a small river, and casts a romantic glow over the herd of yaks grazing next to its banks. Dusk is nearing its end when Tsetserleg comes into view, a collection of modest houses and ger compounds, perched on rolling hills beneath low, craggy cliffs. The journey here was pleasantly brief. For once, something has taken less time than anticipated.
We try three hotels before securing rooms at a place with a Russian name, and of Russian quality. Our room is big, and comes with a small swarm of bluebottles, kitsch wallpaper, a fridge that is also wired into a lamp (the whole setup looks as though the merest touch would prove fatal), a window propped open by a stool, and no hot water for the first two hours. Still, there’s another socket at least, which means we can charge cameras without having to mess with the fridge/lamp hazard, and we have a bottle of Bordeaux, so all is not lost. I fashion two glasses from a water bottle (a la Varanasi) and we open it up. It’s…drinkable. Some time is then spent killing flies. Following a very welcome shower once the hot water comes on, it’s an early night. Hishte told us we’ll be leaving early tomorrow, although she said that yesterday.
Wednesday 22nd September
I’m up at 7am, to more flies. They seem to be materializing out of thin air. However many one kills, there are always more. Around 8 o’clock, there’s a knock on the door, which we assume to be breakfast. Unfortunately, we are totally unable to unlock the damn thing due to fact that the key refuses to do anything useful in the lock. By the time we figure out that it must be turned no less than three times, towards the door frame, whoever was outside, has gone. Moments later, as I’m standing in the corridor fiddling with the key, a Mongolian man in a baseball cap appears. I take him at a glance to be the driver, so smile, and give him a wave and a thumbs up to indicate that we know they knocked. It transpires not to be the driver at all, and the random Mongolian gentleman greets my gestures with a look of abject bewilderment. Breakfast finally arrives about 8.30am, so the identity of our early morning caller will forever remain a mystery. By the time we get underway, leaving the strange, semi-functional Russianness of the hotel, it’s close to ten o’clock. Leaving early today are we?
It’s another sunny day on the steppe, and I am thoroughly enjoying being driven through this stunning country. My only responsibility is to get comfortable, and gaze out of the windows. I’ll confess it makes a pleasant change to the usual crowded stations, uncomfortable buses, and general hassle of trying to get around a place. I wouldn’t want to travel this way all the time, but right now, it’s a nice treat. Our first stop today is Taikhur Rock, a large natural monolith standing incongruously in the middle of flat, featureless grassland. Local legend tells that a hero placed the rock there to trap a giant snake that had been devouring people. It’s easy to see why a story like that would arise, so bizarrely out of place does the thing seem. Up close, Taikhur is covered in graffiti, some in seemingly unreachable places. People have obviously somehow climbed all the way to the top, some fifty to sixty feet or so, just to paint their names. I suppose this shows dedication, if not a particular attachment to life and limb.
Having passed through a couple of hours of predictably rugged scenery, we arrive at a river gorge. The name of the river itself apparently translates to Rocky River, and one hopes the reasons for it being called so, do not require explanation. The gorge meanwhile plunges about two hundred feet to the river below, and is quite stunning. Yaks are grazing the less precipitous slopes, and it turns out that sustenance is also why we are here; this is where we are to take lunch. While Hishte makes herself busy with her usual industriousness, we explore. There are few clambering or rock hopping opportunities that don’t come with the promise of almost certain death, so I spend time simply enjoying the view and the surroundings. It’s as I’m relaxing, and soaking up some sun on a flat, comfortable rock, that I hear a loud pop, followed by laughter, coming from the direction of the car. I make a note to enquire later. There’s also a sighting of what for a few brief and tantalising moments, looks like a bear. It’s making its way along the top of the gorge on the opposite side, but soon emerges from behind a collection of rocks and proves to be, rather disappointingly, a yak. Austin, some distance away, apparently thought exactly the same thing when he saw it. When we are called over for lunch (salad, and pasta in sauce) I discover that the aforementioned pop was a can of meat the driver had placed on the stove unopened, exploding. Apparently it showered Hishte, and the inside of the car, with lardy projectiles. He may be a very good driver, but he clearly hasn’t spent much time in a kitchen.
Back on the ‘road’ we make for Khorgo Terkin Tsagaan Nuur National Park. I settle in with the Mongolia playlist on the MP3, and my mind drifts happily as dramatic mountains, reminiscent of the Red Sea Coast in Egypt, pass by under vast, cloudless skies. Sometime later, I realise we are nearing the national park, when the landscape changes and we find ourselves driving through a huge field of black volcanic rock, studded with thousands of pine trees. As we progress, stark formations appear, and then the volcano itself - Khorgo Uul. It’s a modest dome of black rock rising from the plain, and we’ll be seeing more of it a little later. The Landcruiser (and indeed the driver) are forced to prove their worth as we negotiate some testing terrain, but once through we get our first glimpse of the Great White Lake, for which the national park gets its name. In another geographical parallel, it bears an immediate and obvious resemblance to Lake Titicaca. It has the same rich blue colour, and the bright, piercing sunlight that glints on its surface has a quality much like that in the High Andes. When we stop at our ger camp, we are quite close to its shores. Almost immediately, indeed before we’ve even had a chance to check out the ger, horses are organized to take us up to the volcano. Apparently it’s a three hour round trip, but it’s already 5pm, so we ask if there’s a shorter route we can take. The guide says we can do it in two hours, so we agree. Austin, myself, and a local horseman will head off to the volcano, while Hishte and the driver stay at camp to organize the gers and dinner.
Once mounted up and away, it becomes painfully obvious (and I don’t mean that figuratively) that three hours has been reduced to two by the simple expedient of riding a lot faster. These diminutive Mongolian horses come with tiny saddles that rise steeply to the front and back, and which have the regrettable effect of impacting either one’s genitals, or one’s coccyx, with a heavy and apparently unavoidable thump every time the horse completes a stride. We’re told that uttering a forceful, “Chu!” will make the beasts go faster, but I’m not entirely sure that I want mine to, as speed and discomfort seem to be directly proportional. Sadly, I’m left with little choice, since anytime I’m caught ‘chu’-ing with less than regulation frequency or zeal, the horseman rides up behind me, strikes my horse in the flanks with a rope, and shouts it anyway. There are a few alarming moments when I am actually galloping, which considering I’ve only ever ridden a horse once before, and that it did nothing more dynamic than amble lazily, is somewhat disconcerting. Most of the ride is taken at a fast canter, although I am sure even this is enough to ensure a bruised arse and almost certain infertility. Arriving at the start of the walking trail up to the crater, we tether the horses next to the car park (I suspect I’d be in less pain had we simply driven here) and continue on foot. It’s a brief walk up to the large and impressive crater of Khorgo Uul, although this is an extinct volcano, so nothing dramatic is going on within. Perhaps more striking, is the view back from the crater rim to the lake, and the immense lava field stretching away for mile after mile. We don’t linger for long, as the sun is beginning to think about setting, and we should be back before it gets dark. Back at ground level, I mount up with a feeling of mild foreboding, and sure enough, the levels of discomfort are even more pronounced than before, particularly as we are riding even faster on the way back, a good chunk of which is done at a gallop, with more, “Chu!” than ever. If I want to avoid being battered about the nether regions, I have to basically stand in the saddle, but this causes my thigh muscles to burn after a while, and also means that my calves are bitten into by the rough rope of the stirrups. In short, I am completely unable to avoid pain of some manner, whatever I do. Despite this, and the fact that I could very happily not be on this horse, there is still a thrill and a pleasure to be had, partly from the realization that I’m galloping, but mostly from the realization that I’m galloping across the Mongolian steppe. If one were able to achieve this comfortably (by whatever arcane skill that is actually possible) it would be nothing short of magnificent. To add to the thrill, our approach to the camp is greeted by the start of a beautiful sunset over the lake, which itself is millpond calm such that the surrounding mountains are reflected mirror-like on its waters. Back at the camp, I dismount with no reluctance whatsoever, and am comforted to learn that Austin is in almost as much pain as I am. I’m not sure that sitting down will be an option for some time to come.
Our ger, now that we actually have a chance to see inside it, is lovely. It’s wonderfully warm with the stove going, and has painted beds, wall hangings, carpets, and even electricity. Somewhere en route to the lake, Austin picked up a bottle of Mongolian merlot, and it’s with this, and lingering memories of all the “Chu!” that we see out the evening and await dinner. As per usual there are a number of dogs around, two of which linger near our open door. Once of them is clearly only interested in one thing, while the other spends her time trying, ever so casually, to get inside. She sits by the door, trying to edge in a body part at a time. She seems a friendly old thing actually, and I’m sure I’d want a nice warm ger if I was in her position, as there’s a distinct chill in the air outside. When dinner arrives, Hishte stays to have a bowl of soup with us, and confesses that her parents don’t understand the veggie thing at all. I can’t say I’m surprised. Moments later I look round to find the two dogs shagging vigorously on our doorstep.
Thursday 23rd September
It’s going to be a long day of driving today (well, a long day of being driven to be more accurate), and for once, breakfast does actually arrive early. Afterwards I step outside into another perfect morning, to see a man preparing horses nearby. I wonder which poor souls have committed themselves to hours of pain and torment today. It’s probably the Koreans who arrived last night to occupy the ger next door. They came in a Russian mini-van, so they must be well-accustomed to discomfort by now. For ourselves, once the driver has apparently obtained directions, scratched into the dirt by the Koreans’ driver (that’s comforting) we leave the Great White Lake behind and head out on the same road we came in on yesterday. I was expecting to go a different way, since the lake was the western extreme of our circuit, and we should be heading north from here, but Hishte explains that the direct road to Ogii Lake, where we’ll spend tonight, has a bridge down, and thus we have to return to Tsetserleg and make our way north from there. I suspect this is what the drivers were discussing before we left.
We are, fortuitously, very close to a small assemblage of gers sometime later, when the Landcruiser gets a puncture in the rear, right side. While the driver changes the tyre, Hishte manages to get some dried milk biscuits from the nomads. The sensation is one of eating solidified Greek yoghurt. They are not perhaps, something I’d actively search out, but are interesting to try as another product derived from horse milk. It would seem in fact, that the Mongolian nomad diet consists largely of nothing but mutton and a variety of things derived from milk (predominantly airag by all accounts). Having said that, I haven’t seen a single sheep anywhere, so where the mutton comes from is anyone’s guess.
We’ve been on the move for another hour or so, on ‘natural road’ when suddenly we are passed by three cars in the space of about a minute. I remark to Austin, “Where has all this bloody traffic come from?” and it’s not until a few minutes later that I begin to think about what I have just said. One has clearly been in Mongolia for a while when three cars constitute “…all this bloody traffic…” I doze for a while and wake up in a tiny, dust-blown town. Actually, town is probably misleading – it’s more a collection of shacks really. We’re about thirty kilometres from Tsetserleg, and we’re stopping here for lunch while the driver gets the tyre fixed. There’s very little activity, other than the flies that buzz over and around everything, but curiously there are a number of young, attractive women who keep poking their heads out of a nearby building, so I suppose it’s conceivable that this is some kind of house of ill-repute; vices are vices after all, even in the middle of nowhere. I discover, while swatting away the flies and waiting for lunch, that my mobile phone has a signal, and so take the opportunity to call my friend Steve in Korea, who is looking after my cat while I’m gone. All is well, although apparently two typhoons have hit the peninsula while we’ve been gone! I look up at the cloudless blue sky with renewed satisfaction. Very soon after we get going following lunch, I’m asleep again.
I wake up in Tsetserleg. Hishte wants to buy a plastic container, so asks us if we’d like to accompany her to the market. We would. It proves to be a fairly standard backwater street market – rows of stalls and small, more permanent shops, set up along dusty streets. There’s the usual assortment of clothes, house wares, and random oddments, although here in the land of horsemen, there are also a large number of places selling lassos, bridles, stirrups, boots, and other horse-related paraphernalia. Austin purchases a long red nomad robe, with orange sash belt, and then we head to the indoor area for the plastic container. Here, row upon row of stalls sell vegetables and an array of milk products – biscuits, clotted cream, cheese, and so on, which come variously from cows, horses, or yaks. We buy wine.
Having left Tsetserleg behind, and with late afternoon giving way to the first glimmers of early evening, we pass through an area of classic grassland. At this time of year, the grasses have dried and yellowed, and the effect is one of transporting me right back to the African plains. I have to remind myself that this is not the Serengeti; a herd of zebra or wildebeest would not look in the least out of place here. Zebra we may not have, but there are eagles everywhere. I believe they are steppe eagles, but whatever they are, they’re large, quite majestic, and have a penchant for sitting in the grass right next to the road. We send at least six of them flapping their huge wings skywards in about five minutes of driving. Sadly, if somewhat predictably, they all head aloft at the merest hint of a camera being readied. Even one that sits there nonchalantly while the driver stops next to it, and while I wind down the electric window, and while I turn the camera on, makes for the sky as soon as I point the thing at it. We’ve passed nothing more than even less gers than usual for hours when, just before the approach of sunset, we pull up to a single-pump petrol station on the edge of a small wind-swept settlement. The driver beeps the horn, and then beeps it again, before getting out to look around. There’s nobody here, and as soon becomes clear, there’s no power either. It’s at this point that he turns to us and says, “Gas low, water low.” Short of the Sahara desert, one could scarcely think of a less opportune place in which to find oneself low on petrol and water, but still. About forty five minutes later, still moving despite the low fuel, and at the tail end of a truly glorious sunset, we reach Ogii Lake. We have a place to sleep, even if we may have no way of getting anywhere tomorrow!
Ogii Lake is considerably smaller than the Great White Lake, but is, in the dusk light, extremely peaceful and serene. We stop, some way round the lakeshore, at a small camp consisting of a little house and two gers. There are about six other circles of concrete, where in busier times other gers must’ve stood; we are clearly at the end of the season. Once settled, there’s just enough time for some nice sunset photography to the west, and some moon on the water photos to the east, before it gets too dark. The only appropriate course of action now is to open the wine. This ger, like the last one, is very nice. It’s well decorated, warm, and has electric light. Outside a little later, we can hear the swans and geese on the lake, and other wetland birds in the distance. More bizarrely, we can see the lights of a settlement on the eastern edge of the lake, until the entire thing spontaneously goes out and disappears. Dinner arrives at about 9.30pm, and is lovely – vegetable khuushuur, salad, and soup. Since we’ve got another (apparently) early start tomorrow, we get an early night. When we go to turn the light off, there appears to be no way of doing so, and we are thus forced to achieve darkness by taking out the light bulb.
Friday 24th September
We’re on the road by 8.30am, which is a new record. An hour or so later, we stop next to a few gers, and spend some time watching the local nomads wrangling their herd of horses. The effortlessness with which they ride around is a matter of amazement to me after the pain of my horse riding experience the other day. After a while we are invited in for airag (well, it is 9.30am after all. I suppose the sun is over the yard arm somewhere). I’m given a large bowl, and after Austin and Hishte have partaken, I’m given another, and another. I manage to keep up appearances, but after three bowls of airag, early in the morning, in the space of about ten minutes, the feeling I have is akin to that of having had about three pints and a large curry. We do manage some conversational interaction nonetheless, and are able to establish that on average, these nomads will move about four times during summer, but not at all during winter. This ger incidentally, has a LCD TV, an in-car (or in-ger) MP3 player, and a cellphone. I can only assume that while I’ve been getting drunk in the ger, the driver has been procuring fuel for the car, although I can in no way state this categorically. Once back on the road, I’m out like a light for quite some time.
I awake as we descend thorough pine-clad hills on the outskirts of Erdenet (pop.74,000). This is Mongolia’s second city, but would be a small town in most other places. It’s been built in the depressing communist style – lots of soulless, sad, functional buildings. The only redeeming feature of the city is a scattering of small, almost Swiss chalet-like houses on the edges of town that cling to the hillsides in an odd chalet ghetto kind of arrangement. According to Hishte, Erdenet was built by the Russians (no surprise there) purely and simply because this is the location of massive copper deposits. Indeed, just outside town is the world’s tenth largest copper mine, a mammoth facility that can be seen belching clouds of dust, and yellow, sulphurous fumes into the air. We stop for lunch at what must, for lack of appreciable competition, be one of Erdenet’s best hotels. They agree to let us eat our own food in their restaurant. Lunch today is a bizarre fusion involving potatoes, left over khuushuur, salad, and Korean style gimbap. The driver, evidently totally unwilling to eat anything that doesn’t involve at least one dead animal, orders something meaty from the hotel’s menu.
I’m not sorry to leave Erdenet, despite the good lunch and the hot running water in the hotel toilets. It’s a place of no soul, and an atmosphere of lingering soviet unpleasantness. For miles out of town the road is flanked by pipelines, leading I assume from the mine to the processing plants. It’s all rather bleak and industrial. We’re headed north-east towards the last main stop on our tour, Amarbayasgalant, an 18th Century monastery, and one of the very few to at least partially escape the destructive attentions of the communists. The road is a mixture of tarmac and wildness. In the late afternoon, on one of the wilder stretches, we’re overtaken by a white SUV going at a speed that seems, given the nature of the road, rather reckless. Moments later we crest the hill and find it lying on its side. The passenger’s door is being pushed upwards and open as we pull up next to them. We’ve missed the actual crash by mere seconds. Everyone relaxes once it’s established that all three of the occupants are uninjured, but my god, have they chosen a shitty place to roll their car! We are on an exposed hillside overlooking a barren plain, and there is a battering wind screaming all around and hurling painful quantities of dust and grit all over us. It’s impossible to face into it, so everyone shuffles sideways, hiding their faces from the full blast. An attempt is made to push the vehicle back onto its wheels, but there are too few of us, and it’s far too heavy. We thus hatch a plan to take one of the guys down to the plains with us in search of help. At a collection of gers, we manage to secure a length of strong rope from an old nomad, and then head back up to the crash site. When we get back there, the car is already righted. Apparently two other vehicles passed while we were gone, and a collective effort got the thing back the right way up. It’s remarkably unscathed considering, suffering only a broken wing mirror and some damaged body work on the side that was on the ground. The guys were lucky, for the car and for themselves.
When we are on our way again across the plain, the blue skies and sunshine we’ve been blessed with for most of this trip have been replaced by low cloud and a general atmosphere of Scotland in November. It’s only amplified as a series of low, bleak hills rise up on either side of us. We’re very close to Amarbayasgalant now, and so start searching for a place to stay. The first ger camp we try (this whole trip seems to have been arranged, or rather not arranged, on the fly so to speak) is already closed for winter, so we end up at a couple of slightly worse for wear gers very close to the monastery itself. Fortunately there is a tiny general store, where we able to purchase two litres of Mongolian beer. Unfortunately, the gers are less than expertly constructed, and thus ours has about an inch of empty space at the bottom, open to the ever gathering winds. The stove, once lit, does a good job of heating the place up nonetheless, so hopefully the night won’t be too uncomfortable. We also have electricity, although it’s a touch on the temperamental side, and the light can only be persuaded to stay lit when the cable is wrapped over itself such that the bulb hangs at a forty five degree angle. We spend some time outside taking in the bleak, remote surroundings, and this, plus the beer, leads to an exchange in which we indulge ourselves in the personas of a fictional 1930’s couple – Geoffrey and Madeleine:
“Oh Geoffrey, I can’t bear it, I simply can’t!”
“Come on now you sweet, fragile, helpless little darling. I’ll take care of you. It’ll be alright, you’ll see”
“But Geoffrey, where is the bridge club, and the women’s institute? I can’t even see the promenade!”
“Don’t worry Madeleine, Just be brave my sweet. Think of Elspeth – remember when you went rambling on the South Downs together?”
“Geoffrey, I don’t care about Elspeth anymore, I want to go home! Look! There are beasts everywhere, and those people…they’re all so….grubby. Why don’t they wash Geoffrey??”
Not long after we have settled into the ger, the electricity goes off. I break out the tea lights that I’ve learned to travel with for just this kind of occasion, and we soon have the place looking very cosy. The driver comes in moments later with a candle, and seems surprised and impressed to find that we are not shivering in total darkness. Do these people think we are amateurs or something?! Not long afterwards the power comes on again, and then goes off, and then comes on, and then goes off again. We’re best sticking to candles I think. A game of rummy is interrupted by dinner, but then it’s ‘Guess the Film Quote’, charades, and finally a round of ‘The Bridge’ (which I’ve mentioned and explained before, so I’m not going to do so again here). Approaching bedtime, I step outside and find that it’s snowing. This is lovely, and atmospheric, but I hope it doesn’t get too heavy, because we have to make it back to Ulan Baatar tomorrow!
Saturday 25th September
I woke up for a pee no less than three times in the night. The first and second times I got the stove stoked and burning again, and the third time it was totally dead. I did get a lovely view of the moon and a glorious starlit sky though, so all was not lost. I also managed to establish that the snow had stopped, so hopes for leaving unimpeded remain high.
Once the morning proper begins, I am up at 7am, to a four degrees Celsius ger. The plan is to eat, and then be at the monastery for 9am, so as to leave us enough time to get back to Ulan Baatar before the day is out. Once we’ve eaten, the pair of us are ready, with all our stuff packed up, but Hishte is preparing lunch in advance. It’s close to 10 o’clock when we eventually leave the gers to actually see something. We make our way first up a long staircase to the left of the monastery itself. It leads up to a stupa on top of the hill, very reminiscent of Swayambunath in Kathmandu, if slightly smaller. The same painted eyes gaze out across the landscape, and if anything, the spiritual intensity here is far more pronounced, due to the fact that those eyes are looking upon a scene of unsullied natural beauty, rather than one of urban sprawl. We cross the hill and join another staircase, lined with prayer wheels, which runs up to the right of the monastery. At the top of this, is a giant, golden statue of Buddha, surrounded by other assorted statuary. Hishte says that the golden statue has only been here for a month! However old it may or may not be, it is certainly very photogenic, and when I turn round to look back down, I find myself looking at something truly remarkable. The monastery of Amarbayasgalant stands below us in splendid and serene isolation, and in all directions around and beyond it, the wild plains stretch away, sometimes towards rugged hills, and sometimes toward endless, empty grassland. The effect is to emphasise the isolation of this place, and to make clearer the reason why, in this far-flung corner of Mongolia, it may have escaped the ravages of the communists. Inside the monastery itself, which apart from ourselves and the child-monk who shows us around is utterly deserted, the forgotten, middle of nowhere atmosphere merely heightens. Thick, old, wooden doors squeak on their hinges, and floorboards creak with age whenever we take a step. The complex consists of a large, central temple, and about fifteen other smaller buildings – some shrines, some temples, and some accommodation for the monks (most of whom are apparently away today). The whole thing is surrounded by a low wall of red brick. Around the eaves of many of the buildings, chicken wire has been placed in an effort to stop birds from landing or nesting. Sadly, things don’t seem to have quite gone to plan. There is a grisly collection of dead birds behind the wire – I can only assume they found a way in but couldn’t get back out again. I harbour fears of a similar fate for three sparrows perched cheerfully on a statue inside a glass cabinet in the last shrine we look round. All in all, even in this land where pretty much everything is out in the wilds, Amarbayasgalant feels like the one of the most remote places I’ve been.
As we are getting packed up and ready to leave, the woman who owns the tiny shop (and one presumes the gers too) invites us in for a cup of Mongolian tea. It tastes like warm milk with salt in it, and nowhere can I detect the slightest hint of any actual tea. She insists it contains some however, and even shows me the tea leaves. Having provided refreshment, she requests that we give her a lift to her home some sixty five kilometres away, since she’s closing up for the winter. Usually when I finish a trip, I have to deal with the fact that while I’ve returned to normality, other people are still enjoying the place I’ve just left. This time, it looks like Mongolia is battening down the hatches right behind us. Once we’ve gone, only the landscape and the nomads will be left. I like that feeling. We leave Amarbayasgalant heavier to the tune of a middle-aged Mongolian woman. I sleep almost immediately.
We are in a sizeable, but particularly unattractive town when I wake up, and are bidding farewell to our passenger. We then stop for lunch at a vegan cafe, located with utter incongruity on the ground floor of a shabby soviet style apartment building, in an area full of other similarly shabby soviet style apartment buildings. We’re dining from our own menu, which today includes more gimbap, and the leftovers of yesterdays potatoes, curried. The cafe, like almost every interior we’ve been in here, is a fly magnet, but lunch is nice nevertheless.
The rest of the journey back to Ulan Baatar, is on tarmac roads that look as though Top Gear should be road testing super cars on them. Much of last night’s snow still clings to the hillsides, and serves to make this part of Mongolia resemble the Yorkshire Moors. It also adds to the feeling that winter is beginning, and we are getting out just in time.
We approach the edges of the capital at about 5pm, and near the LG, get involved in a traffic snarl up. A bus driver has simply abandoned his vehicle at a stop, and thus the bus behind it, halfway to pulling in, is blocking the carriageway. Horns are beeped furiously and from all directions. Eventually, the driver of the second bus gets into the first and moves it, before returning to his own vehicle and clearing the way. Where the other driver disappeared to, or indeed whether he ever returns, we do not find out.
Back at the LG, and back in the same room, showers and beers serve to refresh, before we head out to the State Department Store for the shopping spree. A great many weird and wonderful things are purchased, including vodka, masks, bags, and cushion covers. From here we repair to the Great Khaan, which is heaving. There is only one spare table, and that has a ‘Reserved’ sign on it, but the staff don’t seem to care. Our last evening is whiled away with a few Chinggis, a final cocktail, and the musical accompaniment of a Mongolian live band, most of the members of which look decidedly Bolivian.
We reach the LG, after a surprisingly quiet and inebriate-free walk, at about 11 o’clock, however upon ringing the bell, we are greeted by nothing but silence and a resolutely locked door. We ring again, and again. Nothing. We bang on the door. No success. Austin tries the front, but that’s all shuttered up. He then goes to try the hotel next door to see if they can somehow make contact. While he’s gone, a head pokes out of a window above me. It belongs to a member of staff who we’ve previously noticed to be deaf. Once I’m in, another girl appears to ask if I just called from next door. Austin is let in a few moments later. I am left with the feeling that putting the deaf girl on duty to attend the door bell, which (we now learn) isn’t working anyway, is a strategy doomed to failure. We’ve got about three hours to sleep before our pick up for the airport tomorrow.
On the plane, I’m surprised to be offered wine with breakfast at 7.30am. Austin declines, but is given a glass anyway. Reflecting on the last nine days, Mongolia has lived up to, and far exceeded all of my expectations. It was bigger, wilder, grander, bleaker, more beautiful, less developed, friendlier, more vegetarian, and simply more epic than I’d imagined. There’s plenty of room for returning too, as the Gobi Desert is still out there to be explored. An awesome trip – thank you Mongolia.
