The British had a liking for renaming the distant corners of the world that they ruled. Local names in obscure languages often didn't sit well on a public-schooled tongues of officers and government workers, much less upon the palates of the Irish, Scottish, or Cockney laborers and seamen doing the dirty work wherever Her Majesties shadow fell upon the globe. They had difficulty enough with standard English, much less towns like Pyay whose names changed pronunciation depending on which Burmese who happened to be speaking with. Thus there were the city of Rangoon (Yangon), the Irrawaddy River (Ayeyarwaddy), Prome (Pyay), Moulmein (Mawlamyine), The Mergui Archipelago (Myeik), and Burma itself (named after the majority Bamar ethnicity) where the ancient kingdoms of Myanma once stood. The names thus composed still evoked exotic destinations, but without spraining the average British tongue in the process.
The names have been changed back in recent years. Like regimes everywhere in the recently decolonized developing world, de-anglicization was a good opportunity to wave the bloody flag of nationalism. Historical names brought pride to the average Burmese--the colonial overlords were well and truly gone. I sympathize much more now that I know the names do have a historical basis and weren't just cooked up by the junta. But unfortunately for Myanmar, names are not the only historical trend that has returned to the living. Myanma of old was a place where cruel, war-like kings forced serfs to build grand monuments to themselves and the gods. These lords have seemingly returned to flesh, dressed in camo rather than golden raiments, but just as capricious and cruel of temperament, just as unwilling to consider the fate of their peasants as they lavish themselves with proceeds from sales of Myanmar's wealth of resources. This is the aspect of Myanmar for which it is famous today: an isolated totalitarian state ruled by a military junta who have used conscript labor to build infrastructure for themselves and live in luxury as the rest of the country molders in abject poverty. There is more complexity to the story, of course, but the basic idea is correct. Myanmar is a totalitarian, impoverished pariah of a country.
* * *
Day 1
Arriving at Mingaladon Airport in the northern suburbs of Yangon, there was nothing particularly shocking for us to see. A modern airport with all the conveniences. The security apparatus and immigration control procedures gave us no hint of the draconian regime. Even the touts waiting outside seemed relaxed and diffident about the newest batch of tourists to arrive. Our fellow foreign arrivals seemed largely of the elderly, wealthy persuasion. I had expected to see more backpackers--this being one of the last frontiers of travel--but I suppose the necessity of flying in and out of the country (as well as the general higher cost of travel) keeps most of the shoestring budget types out. Other parts of SE Asia (and China) can be traveled on as little as $10 - $14 a day. We averaged more like $25 a day per person, in country.
Our hotel sent a van to pick us up--free service and much appreciated after the ordeal at Bangkok Airport--and we sped away. The appearance of Myanmar was much like the Philippines: low-rise architecture of impermanent mien, palms and banyans sprouting like weeds, decrepit architecture, the occasional grand, rotting colonial edifice. We spotted the great Shwedagon Pagoda rising high above the city like a vast golden bell set to rest upon a molding tablecloth. Its alien architecture was the most clear signal to our sleep-fogged brains that we had arrived in Myanmar, a place like no other.
Exchanging money is the first of many hurdles for the traveler who reaches Myanmar. Dollars are accepted, as are Euros. Yuan might be accepted, at least in some parts of the country--business with China and Chinese tourism are one of Myanmar's few relatively open windows on the world. The first catch is that none of this exchange is done under official auspices. The official dollar exchange rate for kyat (sounds like the word chat spoken in the Cockney form of English) is about 6 kyat per dollar. The black market exchange rate is more like 1,000 kyat per dollar. Thus, no one exchanges at banks or the airport. The second catch is that only pristine new dollar bills will be accepted. A microscopic tear or wear or fold upon the dollar will render it worthless as far as the Burmese are concerned. Larger bills (100s preferred) get a better exchange rate. I exchanged some money at the hotel and some money with street changers (not a mistake I intend to repeat in future).
Errands attended to (and nap had--I hadn't slept for more than a couple hours in the previous 24 spent traveling from China), we headed down to the center of town: the Sule Pagoda. Squatting upon a roundabout amongst the dressed up colonial buildings, the newer constructions of glass and steel, and innumerable hawkers, the Sule Pagoda is a gleaming bell of gold and incense. Salary men on their way home from work, children just off school, and housewives stopping by to take a hiatus from their shopping errands all congregate in that patch of serenity. A little boy and his father washed an image of Buddha (and what appeared to be Buddha's pet dragon-lion-monster). In Myanmar, Buddhism is not just the facade of millennial culture dressed up for tourism and giggles--as it generally is in mainland China. Buddhism is a way of life, and we could see that common people both rich and poor made a space for worship, meditation, and solemn contemplation. Even young people who sat along the cool marble courtyard facing the inner spire of gold were subdued, giving way to the spiritual impulse. For our part, Kiera and I shed our shoes and socks and strolled a circuit through the worshipers. I could see that while religion is a more common and serious duty in Burmese life than it is in China, there are some great similarities in its incarnation. First, the love of gaudy baubles. Diamonds and gold encrusted the upper surfaces of the pagoda. The Buddha images had been (recently, I guess) adorned with halos of scintillating, multihued neon electrified and set to dance and shimmer like the lights of Las Vegas. Second, the commercialization of hallowed ground. Temples, pagodas, and other religious shrines were often preceded by government tourist toll booths as well as hawkers. Thirdly, the overlay of Buddhism onto older regional pantheons. But more on that later.
Outside the pagoda, with the sun's last light withering into tropical gloom, we decided on our first meal in Myanmar. An elderly Burmese woman with haunting blue eyes had advised us that the street side woks of biryani (Indian fried rice) were a good choice, and certainly cheaper than some of the nicer restaurants touted in guide books. The biryani stalls, unfortunately, were tapped out. Clearly the hoi polloi also favored this form of dinner. Perhaps that was fortune, however. I had other plans for our valentine's/spring festival dinner in Myanmar.
It was in the upper stories of the well-to-do--and romantically dimmed--restaurant, Monsoon, that I proposed to Kiera. She was dutifully scribing the names of our dishes in her pocket notebook. She handed the booklet over to me so that I could advise on spelling. I did so, and then wrote my proposal and handed in back. The answer was affirmative. A good note on which to end our first day of adventures in Myanmar.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Tidings, on Return from Myanmar
First: Kiera and I are both safe and sound, returned to the urban hubbub of Nanjing. We were not shot or imprisoned by the infamous junta; we did not fall ill with malaria or break-bone fever; we were not bitten by any of Myanmar's many venomous snakes.
However....
Our trip was not without obstacles, trials, and tribulations. This was Kiera's first trip abroad from China, and she certainly got a taste of the challenges as well as the rewards that easily make travel one of the most worthwhile pursuits in life. In fact, the first problem hit us before we even got to Myanmar. Having booked three sets of flights (Nanjing to Guanzhou, Guanzhou to Bangkok, Bangkok to Yangon), we arrived at 1:00 AM in Suvarnabhumi airport (Bangkok) for a night of uneasy snoozing. Our flight for Yangon was set to take off at 8 AM that same morning. What we learned, upon waking around 5:30 AM, was that our budget carrier (Air Asia) did not have an agreement for in-airport transit. With only a couple hours til our flight, we learned that Kiera would have to apply for and successfully receive a visa-on-arrival for Thailand, and only then could we make our way through immigration control, customs, get our tickets, back through security, and run for our gate of departure. Guts churning, fearing for this trip we had already spent so much time and money preparing for, we raced through each hazard as quickly as we could. The short of it is that God, airport security, and fellow travelers all had mercy on us. We made it to our gate with only a few minutes to spare.
Yangon is one of those romantic destinations that have nothing to do with sunsets on sandy beaches, hip clubs, royal hotels, or any other lap of luxury you could care to name. Yangon is old-school romance: the smells of curries, voracious plant life, and sun-baked spoilage; crumbling colonial architecture succumbing to vines; giant banyan trees festooned with hanging shrines to the Nats (pre-Buddhist Burmese deities); golden bell-curved pagodas towering over a ground-hugging cityscape of old British manors, Chinese temples, Indian mosques, tenements, bamboo huts. Arguably, even the great democracy advocate, Aung San Suu Kyi--imprisoned within her home upon the shores of an urban lake--only adds to the romance of that city. A genuine damsel in distress guarded by thuggish warlords! Yangon, in shorter and less baroque description, is the romance of a world less globalized, less sanitized, less homogenized. And we arrived on February 14th: Valentines Day as well as Chinese New Years Day by the lunar calendar. The stars had aligned.
So, on February 14th, 2010, I asked Liang Li Li (Kiera Liang is her chosen English name) to marry me. She said yes.
How's that for heart-stopping news? I assure you, it was heart-stopping for us, too. Are we really that old, to have stumbled upon this particular milestone? Kiera lamented--even as she smiled and cried tears of joy--that she was no longer a young girl. I feel the same way, but at least if we are to give in to that human condition of aging until we become dust, we will have good company for the durance.
The rest of the story may seem anti-climactic following this *big* news. However, I will soon post the stories of our adventures in depth. Myanmar is a beautiful, if isolated, country that will remain an important and memorable one for both Kiera and myself.
However....
Our trip was not without obstacles, trials, and tribulations. This was Kiera's first trip abroad from China, and she certainly got a taste of the challenges as well as the rewards that easily make travel one of the most worthwhile pursuits in life. In fact, the first problem hit us before we even got to Myanmar. Having booked three sets of flights (Nanjing to Guanzhou, Guanzhou to Bangkok, Bangkok to Yangon), we arrived at 1:00 AM in Suvarnabhumi airport (Bangkok) for a night of uneasy snoozing. Our flight for Yangon was set to take off at 8 AM that same morning. What we learned, upon waking around 5:30 AM, was that our budget carrier (Air Asia) did not have an agreement for in-airport transit. With only a couple hours til our flight, we learned that Kiera would have to apply for and successfully receive a visa-on-arrival for Thailand, and only then could we make our way through immigration control, customs, get our tickets, back through security, and run for our gate of departure. Guts churning, fearing for this trip we had already spent so much time and money preparing for, we raced through each hazard as quickly as we could. The short of it is that God, airport security, and fellow travelers all had mercy on us. We made it to our gate with only a few minutes to spare.
Yangon is one of those romantic destinations that have nothing to do with sunsets on sandy beaches, hip clubs, royal hotels, or any other lap of luxury you could care to name. Yangon is old-school romance: the smells of curries, voracious plant life, and sun-baked spoilage; crumbling colonial architecture succumbing to vines; giant banyan trees festooned with hanging shrines to the Nats (pre-Buddhist Burmese deities); golden bell-curved pagodas towering over a ground-hugging cityscape of old British manors, Chinese temples, Indian mosques, tenements, bamboo huts. Arguably, even the great democracy advocate, Aung San Suu Kyi--imprisoned within her home upon the shores of an urban lake--only adds to the romance of that city. A genuine damsel in distress guarded by thuggish warlords! Yangon, in shorter and less baroque description, is the romance of a world less globalized, less sanitized, less homogenized. And we arrived on February 14th: Valentines Day as well as Chinese New Years Day by the lunar calendar. The stars had aligned.
So, on February 14th, 2010, I asked Liang Li Li (Kiera Liang is her chosen English name) to marry me. She said yes.
How's that for heart-stopping news? I assure you, it was heart-stopping for us, too. Are we really that old, to have stumbled upon this particular milestone? Kiera lamented--even as she smiled and cried tears of joy--that she was no longer a young girl. I feel the same way, but at least if we are to give in to that human condition of aging until we become dust, we will have good company for the durance.
The rest of the story may seem anti-climactic following this *big* news. However, I will soon post the stories of our adventures in depth. Myanmar is a beautiful, if isolated, country that will remain an important and memorable one for both Kiera and myself.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Myanmar's Eve
Also Chinese New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Eve. Quite a conjunction of events, don't you say? And when Kiera and I finally arrive in the former capital city of Yangon, on the Irrawaddy Delta, we'll have missed their 'Union Day' celebrations by a mere two days. Supposedly some of the events will be ongoing. But that's getting ahead of the story.
Three flights--Nanjing to Guangzhou (formerly Canton), Guangzhou to Bangkok, Bangkok to Yangon (formerly Rangoon)--and two days are the cost of getting to Myanmar (former Burma). And what could be worth such costs? A country, isolated under a despised and despotic government, where magic realism is reality. This the guidebooks assure us. Boulders perch in peril upon holy peaks, encrusted in gold dust brought by countless pilgrims. A plain studded with over 4,000 temples, emerging from the fields in various states of dishabille. And, well, beaches. A beach without any sunburned tourists studding its modest brown sands or guzzling the juice of its blowsy palm trees. Myanmar is a good place to find such beaches. Kiera hasn't yet in her life met the ocean; I was introduced with its rough play at the age of three; I feel well able to make the necessary introductions. Most importantly, Myanmar has--so it is said--many kindly, curious people. Sanctions on the luxurious lifestyles of their military junta shouldn't be allowed to cut contact between the country's common people and the world.
So here's hoping for a good Chinese New Year and Valentine's spent in a remote and fascinating corner of the world. I'll let you know how it went.
Three flights--Nanjing to Guangzhou (formerly Canton), Guangzhou to Bangkok, Bangkok to Yangon (formerly Rangoon)--and two days are the cost of getting to Myanmar (former Burma). And what could be worth such costs? A country, isolated under a despised and despotic government, where magic realism is reality. This the guidebooks assure us. Boulders perch in peril upon holy peaks, encrusted in gold dust brought by countless pilgrims. A plain studded with over 4,000 temples, emerging from the fields in various states of dishabille. And, well, beaches. A beach without any sunburned tourists studding its modest brown sands or guzzling the juice of its blowsy palm trees. Myanmar is a good place to find such beaches. Kiera hasn't yet in her life met the ocean; I was introduced with its rough play at the age of three; I feel well able to make the necessary introductions. Most importantly, Myanmar has--so it is said--many kindly, curious people. Sanctions on the luxurious lifestyles of their military junta shouldn't be allowed to cut contact between the country's common people and the world.
So here's hoping for a good Chinese New Year and Valentine's spent in a remote and fascinating corner of the world. I'll let you know how it went.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Mongolian Adventures (6): Swans and Horses
August 5th:
We said 'Bayartai' (goodbye) to the children of the nomads. As a parting gift, I left them with some Disney stickers I had bought for the purpose of distributing just so. That seemed to break the ice a bit, so one young boy decided to practice his English with me. I showed him my notebook with its sketches of ruined monasteries, dunes, wastelands, and the sour mare's milk contraption I'd shared the ger with that previous night. Amusingly, the boy told me his tow-headed little sister was really a Russian, and her name was "Jenny". His father was less amused with the jest. As it turns out, many Mongolian children have blond hair which gradually darkens to hickory as they get older. I suppose this is a remnant strain of Caucasian blood from the days when the horde raided Russia and Europe, bringing back concubines for the Khans.
The grasses were again green and thick by this point in our journey. But as the day progressed, the land around us stretched itself, shrugging up mountains from the rolling hillsides. Pine forests hugged the southward faces of the higher slopes. Yaks and yak-cow hybrids grazed the lower meadows.
We stopped for lunch on a steep hillside overlooking a broad valley, and the river winding through it. A couple Kazakh men had arranged a ger at the roadside, with a golden eagle and bows to entice any tourists who happened along. Although later we did try the bows (I didn't do too badly with mine--thank you Camp Au Sable!), for the moment we were more interested in our bowls of stir-fry with pasta. So was a hungry goat who wandered away from his herd and across the asphalt to join us. More welcome to join us in our prandial gorging, an orange butterfly. The goat was discouraged after we shoved him away from our food a few times. The butterfly, meanwhile, alighted on a cup of our heavily-sugared tea. Tea had become something of an indulgence, with our small traveling group devouring box after box of the stuff each day.
That afternoon we journeyed half the length of a broad valley. Ragged upthrusts of volcanic stone bespoke a violent past for serene valley. Our encampment sat on an embankment; the stream below wound through a gorge engraved into the valley floor. A pair of swans swam circles in stately grace within its rocky parenthesis. Periodically, yaks nudged the side of our ger, calling us outside to play.
August 6th:
Mongolian horses are half-wild, so our Mongolian horsemen tell us just before we jump up into the saddle. They look it--with their shaggy hair, angry eyes, and the way the Mongolian horses will buck their heads rapidly up and down when tethered as if they are headbanging at a rock concert.
Our quest is for the Orkhon Khukhree, a waterfall somewhere in the valley not far from our encampment. The guide then lets me (or more specifically, my horse) guide the way. I don't know the way, and my horse seems more intent on finding himself a nice grassy lunch. My companions, however, are having even more trouble with their half-wild mounts.
Eagles, vultures, falcons and hawks have spotted prey, somewhere ahead of us. The usual description is to say that these raptors "circle", but when these hungry birds form a certain density, what they really become is a cyclone. The waterfall is somewhere beneath them, and we dismount accordingly. Forsaking the waterfall for a moment, however, we search for the fount of these carrion birds and find a cow, its ribs picked clean.
The Orkhon Khukhree waterfall was formed--like the valley itself--by volcanic action. A pit falls in the middle of an otherwise flat valley floor, then trails off downstream in the shape of a comma. The water thunders down over the edge of this hole. Forest grows thick within the rift. We descend via a treacherous crack in the rift's wall, dodging a never ending stream of ascending tourists wearing their florescent tour-caps. When the noon-day tumult of tourists depart, we have the thundering falls, the icy pool beneath it, and the tranquil forest to ourselves. I sketch the mossy forest floor as the sun sketches ruddy fire onto my skin.
After leaving the waterfall, I was ready to nurse my badly sun-burned arms in the cool depths of our ger; our guide had one last surprise in store for us, however. Upstream from the waterfall, a small waterfall (more properly a rapids) sent spray up towards the blue Mongolian skies. What was our purpose in being here? we wondered. The guide pointed to the falls and told us to look more carefully.
Then I saw it. A dark shape darting amid the falling water. And another. And downstream my eyes suddenly perceived differences of depth amongst what had previously seemed nothing but stony shallows. Fish were jumping upstream. Taimen, perhaps?
Later, I found my island of solitude further away from camp. Upstream. I explored an ancient sandbar with rocky margins. A pine tree, scarred from fire or lightning, stood sentinel. Although I wasn't really very far from camp, I could feel the silence and tranquility of nature. But then nature called with its forceful urgency, reminding me that tranquility is just a title we bestow upon it out of nostalgia or misconception. I had a choice. Did I wish to return to the encampment with its smelly outhouse--nothing but a hut placed over a pit of piss and shit, a few boards and a gap between them functioning as the commode? Or should I find a more natural solution? I have to come clean, the main argument in my mind against the latter was the issue of how to come clean. Leaves are never satisfactory. But there is this pristine, crystal clear stream....
* * *
I looked around me and saw none to see; clothes were lain upon the bleached river boulders; I jumped into icy waters that scoured my skin. I've never felt cleaner in my life than when I emerged from that Mongolian creek.
Later, returning to camp, I would tell my companions that the waters were warm enough to swim in. Was that mischief on my part?
We said 'Bayartai' (goodbye) to the children of the nomads. As a parting gift, I left them with some Disney stickers I had bought for the purpose of distributing just so. That seemed to break the ice a bit, so one young boy decided to practice his English with me. I showed him my notebook with its sketches of ruined monasteries, dunes, wastelands, and the sour mare's milk contraption I'd shared the ger with that previous night. Amusingly, the boy told me his tow-headed little sister was really a Russian, and her name was "Jenny". His father was less amused with the jest. As it turns out, many Mongolian children have blond hair which gradually darkens to hickory as they get older. I suppose this is a remnant strain of Caucasian blood from the days when the horde raided Russia and Europe, bringing back concubines for the Khans.
The grasses were again green and thick by this point in our journey. But as the day progressed, the land around us stretched itself, shrugging up mountains from the rolling hillsides. Pine forests hugged the southward faces of the higher slopes. Yaks and yak-cow hybrids grazed the lower meadows.
We stopped for lunch on a steep hillside overlooking a broad valley, and the river winding through it. A couple Kazakh men had arranged a ger at the roadside, with a golden eagle and bows to entice any tourists who happened along. Although later we did try the bows (I didn't do too badly with mine--thank you Camp Au Sable!), for the moment we were more interested in our bowls of stir-fry with pasta. So was a hungry goat who wandered away from his herd and across the asphalt to join us. More welcome to join us in our prandial gorging, an orange butterfly. The goat was discouraged after we shoved him away from our food a few times. The butterfly, meanwhile, alighted on a cup of our heavily-sugared tea. Tea had become something of an indulgence, with our small traveling group devouring box after box of the stuff each day.
That afternoon we journeyed half the length of a broad valley. Ragged upthrusts of volcanic stone bespoke a violent past for serene valley. Our encampment sat on an embankment; the stream below wound through a gorge engraved into the valley floor. A pair of swans swam circles in stately grace within its rocky parenthesis. Periodically, yaks nudged the side of our ger, calling us outside to play.
August 6th:
Mongolian horses are half-wild, so our Mongolian horsemen tell us just before we jump up into the saddle. They look it--with their shaggy hair, angry eyes, and the way the Mongolian horses will buck their heads rapidly up and down when tethered as if they are headbanging at a rock concert.
Our quest is for the Orkhon Khukhree, a waterfall somewhere in the valley not far from our encampment. The guide then lets me (or more specifically, my horse) guide the way. I don't know the way, and my horse seems more intent on finding himself a nice grassy lunch. My companions, however, are having even more trouble with their half-wild mounts.
Eagles, vultures, falcons and hawks have spotted prey, somewhere ahead of us. The usual description is to say that these raptors "circle", but when these hungry birds form a certain density, what they really become is a cyclone. The waterfall is somewhere beneath them, and we dismount accordingly. Forsaking the waterfall for a moment, however, we search for the fount of these carrion birds and find a cow, its ribs picked clean.
The Orkhon Khukhree waterfall was formed--like the valley itself--by volcanic action. A pit falls in the middle of an otherwise flat valley floor, then trails off downstream in the shape of a comma. The water thunders down over the edge of this hole. Forest grows thick within the rift. We descend via a treacherous crack in the rift's wall, dodging a never ending stream of ascending tourists wearing their florescent tour-caps. When the noon-day tumult of tourists depart, we have the thundering falls, the icy pool beneath it, and the tranquil forest to ourselves. I sketch the mossy forest floor as the sun sketches ruddy fire onto my skin.
After leaving the waterfall, I was ready to nurse my badly sun-burned arms in the cool depths of our ger; our guide had one last surprise in store for us, however. Upstream from the waterfall, a small waterfall (more properly a rapids) sent spray up towards the blue Mongolian skies. What was our purpose in being here? we wondered. The guide pointed to the falls and told us to look more carefully.
Then I saw it. A dark shape darting amid the falling water. And another. And downstream my eyes suddenly perceived differences of depth amongst what had previously seemed nothing but stony shallows. Fish were jumping upstream. Taimen, perhaps?
Later, I found my island of solitude further away from camp. Upstream. I explored an ancient sandbar with rocky margins. A pine tree, scarred from fire or lightning, stood sentinel. Although I wasn't really very far from camp, I could feel the silence and tranquility of nature. But then nature called with its forceful urgency, reminding me that tranquility is just a title we bestow upon it out of nostalgia or misconception. I had a choice. Did I wish to return to the encampment with its smelly outhouse--nothing but a hut placed over a pit of piss and shit, a few boards and a gap between them functioning as the commode? Or should I find a more natural solution? I have to come clean, the main argument in my mind against the latter was the issue of how to come clean. Leaves are never satisfactory. But there is this pristine, crystal clear stream....
* * *
I looked around me and saw none to see; clothes were lain upon the bleached river boulders; I jumped into icy waters that scoured my skin. I've never felt cleaner in my life than when I emerged from that Mongolian creek.
Later, returning to camp, I would tell my companions that the waters were warm enough to swim in. Was that mischief on my part?
Friday, January 1, 2010
Mongolian Adventures (5): Origins of Indiana Jones, Dinosaur Eggs, Lycanthropic Bovines
August 3rd:
We left the Khongoryn Els (the great dune sea) behind us.
Onwards to the site of Roy Chapman Andrews's dinosaur excavations. There, the saxual (not sexual) trees can be be seen growing from the nobbly landscape, hunched and bunched like withered crones gossiping at market. Our guide and driver must have grown weary of us by this point, as Zoola merely pointed vaguely in the general direction of an escarpment of livid sandstone on the horizon. 'There', she said, 'You'll find the dinosaurs. Maybe 1 or 2 kilometers. Dinner and hot showers will be ready when you come back."
Oh, but we three remaining travelers (one of the Danish girls had to fly back from Dalanzagad due to her inner-ear problems and the bumpiness of our journey into the Gobi) swear... we SWEAR that the round trip that day was at least 10 kilometers! Straight into a biting gale of sand! Uphill both ways! Without feet!
Okay, well maybe the last part is an exaggeration on my part. I did have some problems with my shoes, however. My shoes, which I had bought a couple years earlier in Chongqing (China), finally gave up the ghost that day. I had already had the sole's attachment reinforced with stitching, but the stitching gave way. Rocks and sand migrated deep under my feet as I trudged across a rolling, barren expanse of gravel towards the cliffs which never seemed to get much closer. I watched as poofs of sand spurted from the newly-gaping mouths of my shoes, each forward stride producing an arc of sand or gravel. Not good.
We did eventually reach those eroded, blazing cliffs where Roy Chapman Andrews--often cited as the inspiration for the movie character, Indiana Jones--withdrew the bones and eggs of a mighty dinosaur trove. The Protoceratops (a smaller and less viciously-horned version of the famous Triceratops) was one of the main finds of this particular dig. Of particular importance was a Velociraptor and Protoceratops found locked in deadly combat, the the Protoceratops's beak-like mouth locked on the Velociraptor's leg and the raptor digging his claws into the Protoceratops's underbelly. This particular specimen is the one of the great prizes at the contemporary Mongolian Museum of Natural History in UB which I saw later in the trip.
But for now we were in the wasteland realm of dinosaurs, not polished halls of learning. This was the desolate region that Andrews, explorer extraordinaire, fought through pirates, bandits, an angry and wounded whale, typhoons, wild dogs, illness and "mad lama priests" to reach. The aforementioned calamities conspired at his death, but merely managed to kill off ten of his expedition members. Of course his contemporaries claimed that the man was given to tall tales: "The water that was up to our ankles was always up to Roy's neck". Tales of great height or not, the man certainly provided plenty of fodder for the modern-day tale of an adventurer/archaeologist.
August 4th:
We headed north from the burial grounds of the 'terrible lizards' of yore. The lands grew greener by the mile as our van chugged along. Before we had reached the proper steppe, however, we stopped to explore the vast ruins of a once-great monastery city, Ongiin Khiid. A long-since dessicated riverbed separates the two parts of this complex. One side housed the master monks and a series of temples upon the rocky slopes of a ridge, the other, flatter side housed their disciples. Neither is much more than a chest-high labyrinth of foundations and walls--like the remains of the far more ancient Greek city of Mycenae--sprouting from the dusty ground. A couple stupas and one small rebuilt temple are all that remain. The temple is merely two rooms about two stories high, containing the usual assortment of Tibetan Buddhist relics and a few photographs of the Dalai Lama. I believe the holy fellow may have even visited the place, sometime in the 90's. The monastery was razed and the monks slaughtered in Mongolia's communist purge of 1937. Apparently the communists promised the monks they would be allowed life if they brought a herd of cows as a tribute... but of course they weren't spared. Our guide, Zolaa's grandfather was a monk (evidently not the celibate sort, at least during some portion of his life) who perished at that time. Apparently he hid the family treasures before he died, but the family has only be able to retrieve a part of those valuables.
Later, we saw a double rainbow cast over a herd of horses and and yaks upon the steppe.
We made several stops at nomad encampments not able to give us succor (often the city-dwelling cousins of nomad families come back out to visit and enjoy the fresh steppe air and traditional lifestyle). Eventually, towards evening, we found one that could. A gaggle of children played upon the threshold of our ger. More ominously for my ability to sleep well that night, a stench of sour milk permeated the air of our ger. The famous Mongolian fermented mare's milk, or airag, was being fermented in a large leather sack suspended at the foot of my bed. A wooden frame carries the weight of this bag; a wooden paddle is thrust into its depths. Every so often, the nomads came within the ger and thumped the paddle down into the sudsy fermented milk. Apparently it is considered good luck to give the bag a few thumps every time one enters a ger that has an airag bag (called a khokhuur). The tradition is a practical one, as the concoction needs to be thumped at least 1,000 times before it is considered fit to drink. And if it is extremely sour to whiff, the drink is tongue-curdling to taste. I fell to sleep, lulled by the fizzing of the fermented mares milk and (I kid you not) the cows howling at the full moon that rose above our ger. Were-cows?
We left the Khongoryn Els (the great dune sea) behind us.
Onwards to the site of Roy Chapman Andrews's dinosaur excavations. There, the saxual (not sexual) trees can be be seen growing from the nobbly landscape, hunched and bunched like withered crones gossiping at market. Our guide and driver must have grown weary of us by this point, as Zoola merely pointed vaguely in the general direction of an escarpment of livid sandstone on the horizon. 'There', she said, 'You'll find the dinosaurs. Maybe 1 or 2 kilometers. Dinner and hot showers will be ready when you come back."
Oh, but we three remaining travelers (one of the Danish girls had to fly back from Dalanzagad due to her inner-ear problems and the bumpiness of our journey into the Gobi) swear... we SWEAR that the round trip that day was at least 10 kilometers! Straight into a biting gale of sand! Uphill both ways! Without feet!
Okay, well maybe the last part is an exaggeration on my part. I did have some problems with my shoes, however. My shoes, which I had bought a couple years earlier in Chongqing (China), finally gave up the ghost that day. I had already had the sole's attachment reinforced with stitching, but the stitching gave way. Rocks and sand migrated deep under my feet as I trudged across a rolling, barren expanse of gravel towards the cliffs which never seemed to get much closer. I watched as poofs of sand spurted from the newly-gaping mouths of my shoes, each forward stride producing an arc of sand or gravel. Not good.
We did eventually reach those eroded, blazing cliffs where Roy Chapman Andrews--often cited as the inspiration for the movie character, Indiana Jones--withdrew the bones and eggs of a mighty dinosaur trove. The Protoceratops (a smaller and less viciously-horned version of the famous Triceratops) was one of the main finds of this particular dig. Of particular importance was a Velociraptor and Protoceratops found locked in deadly combat, the the Protoceratops's beak-like mouth locked on the Velociraptor's leg and the raptor digging his claws into the Protoceratops's underbelly. This particular specimen is the one of the great prizes at the contemporary Mongolian Museum of Natural History in UB which I saw later in the trip.
But for now we were in the wasteland realm of dinosaurs, not polished halls of learning. This was the desolate region that Andrews, explorer extraordinaire, fought through pirates, bandits, an angry and wounded whale, typhoons, wild dogs, illness and "mad lama priests" to reach. The aforementioned calamities conspired at his death, but merely managed to kill off ten of his expedition members. Of course his contemporaries claimed that the man was given to tall tales: "The water that was up to our ankles was always up to Roy's neck". Tales of great height or not, the man certainly provided plenty of fodder for the modern-day tale of an adventurer/archaeologist.
August 4th:
We headed north from the burial grounds of the 'terrible lizards' of yore. The lands grew greener by the mile as our van chugged along. Before we had reached the proper steppe, however, we stopped to explore the vast ruins of a once-great monastery city, Ongiin Khiid. A long-since dessicated riverbed separates the two parts of this complex. One side housed the master monks and a series of temples upon the rocky slopes of a ridge, the other, flatter side housed their disciples. Neither is much more than a chest-high labyrinth of foundations and walls--like the remains of the far more ancient Greek city of Mycenae--sprouting from the dusty ground. A couple stupas and one small rebuilt temple are all that remain. The temple is merely two rooms about two stories high, containing the usual assortment of Tibetan Buddhist relics and a few photographs of the Dalai Lama. I believe the holy fellow may have even visited the place, sometime in the 90's. The monastery was razed and the monks slaughtered in Mongolia's communist purge of 1937. Apparently the communists promised the monks they would be allowed life if they brought a herd of cows as a tribute... but of course they weren't spared. Our guide, Zolaa's grandfather was a monk (evidently not the celibate sort, at least during some portion of his life) who perished at that time. Apparently he hid the family treasures before he died, but the family has only be able to retrieve a part of those valuables.
Later, we saw a double rainbow cast over a herd of horses and and yaks upon the steppe.
We made several stops at nomad encampments not able to give us succor (often the city-dwelling cousins of nomad families come back out to visit and enjoy the fresh steppe air and traditional lifestyle). Eventually, towards evening, we found one that could. A gaggle of children played upon the threshold of our ger. More ominously for my ability to sleep well that night, a stench of sour milk permeated the air of our ger. The famous Mongolian fermented mare's milk, or airag, was being fermented in a large leather sack suspended at the foot of my bed. A wooden frame carries the weight of this bag; a wooden paddle is thrust into its depths. Every so often, the nomads came within the ger and thumped the paddle down into the sudsy fermented milk. Apparently it is considered good luck to give the bag a few thumps every time one enters a ger that has an airag bag (called a khokhuur). The tradition is a practical one, as the concoction needs to be thumped at least 1,000 times before it is considered fit to drink. And if it is extremely sour to whiff, the drink is tongue-curdling to taste. I fell to sleep, lulled by the fizzing of the fermented mares milk and (I kid you not) the cows howling at the full moon that rose above our ger. Were-cows?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Mongolian Adventures 4: The Dune Sea
August 1st:
In our ger, we learned how to play a traditional Mongolian game. The game is played with the vertebrae of goats or sheep. Each vertebra represents one of four common Mongolian herd animals, depending on how it falls on the ground. Each base (the side that stacks on top of another vertebra to make up a spinal cord) has a convex and a concave side. Each side (perpendicular to the fatter 'base') also has a concave and a convex side. Concave base = camel, convex base = horse, concave side = goat, convex side = sheep. So when we throw the vertebrae on the ground, we have camels, horses, goats, and sheep. The person who cast the die, so to speak, gets to flick one bone at a time, trying to make it touch another vertebra of its type. Only one hand can be used to flick, and you can not touch any of the other vertebra as you do so (either you or the vertebra you flick). If successful, grab one of the pair that touched, with the non-flicking hand. The strategy is in choosing which of the pair seems easiest to use to flick yet another vertebra of like kind. When only three vertebra total are left on a throw-down, and if all come up the same or different (no like types or all the same type), all players are allowed to grab for as many of the remaining vertebra as they can grab.
Most of that afternoon, we skirted a great dune sea. The dune sea's edge looms above the flat hardpan like pancake batter spilled upon a stove. Its edge is luminous with reflected light; a phantasm creeping over scoured gravel. By early evening we arrive at a ger camp near the base of the dunes. Between the camp and the dunes lies a wet place, a true oasis. Hummocks of grass and brush contrast so green against the face of the dune. A rivulet of water snakes between these verdigris humps. Camels, with humps of their own, and horses wander freely in this sheltered place. Why is it that such an oasis exists just within the shadow of sandy annihilation, when there is a whole dessicated plain beyond it begging for its water?
As the sun sets, we plan our ascent of the dune face. The face is quite sheer in most places, but dimples and rumpled edges (like an unruly blanket remaining as a child departs bed for school) seem ripe for our ascension. Zoola, however, tempts us with a delicious Mongolian supper: goat fried with peppers and onions on a bed of rice. Our ascent, then, takes a nasty turn as our full stomachs and the strain of climbing upon a curtain of sand bring nausea. The moon rises, full, above the knife edge where the face of the dune meets the sky. We plan to try once more tomorrow, and we descend.
On the threshold of our ger, a little goat lays his head. Not a grown goat--just a kid, really--the creature is obviously sick, dying. My companions named him Jesus.
August 2nd:
Jesus is dead. Thus spake Nietzsche, as if he could see how the Mongolian nomad lady grabbed that little goat by the horns, pulled him up from our doorstop, and tossed him into the shade in a dusty corner of the encampment. Hours later, he breathed no more.
In the late morning we went camel-riding below the dunes. Truly evil beasts, they are, as texts since the dawn of time have attested. If not for their unique adaptations to desert life which in turn make possible human habitation of the deserts, they would have long since been hunted into extinction for their tough meat, and in retaliation for their bad manners. We decided to name our camels after prominent dictators. I named mine Mugabe. The name helped add to my delight in whipping him with a ragged rubber goad, onwards across the burning sands.
I spent most of the day sketching in my ger, waiting for the heat to pass.
As evening fell, we climbed the great dune's face once again. I left my shoes at the base, as they tended to fill with sand and hinder my attempted ascent. Sometimes soft enough for feet to sink into, sometimes a hard crust, hard enough that feet skid and skitter towards the knife's edge of a wrinkle in the dune face, and the abyss beyond. I felt such terror, I never could have imagined, from climbing at the edge of such sandy cliffs. When the ground beneath your feet is so uncertain, and the gulf of air beyond is so certain, it must be sheer hubris to tread in such a place. I often scrambled on all fours, discovering that this provided a more secure feeling (four pods planted in the sand) and on steep ascents, more stability. I developed a rhythm, climbing the 60 degree incline like a steam-powered greater ape. Thirty meters, we ascended like that. And Bina, my Danish companion on that stretch, was about to give up. She had a fear of heights which to her credit she had sought to defy in climbing this monstrous sand mountain. But I suggested that we must be at least 1/3rd to 1/2 the way up of the sheer part of the face. Not a time to give up! So she steamed ahead of me at that point, and we learned that in fact we had been about 90% of the way up that sheer face. Distances can be deceiving when measuring an angle of sand against the night sky.
So at last I straddled the dune's peak, a knife's edge that stretched away for kilometers. On one side, hardtack gravel in complete darkness. On the other side, twilight still smoldered above a dune sea doing battle with itself--its crests and troughs much lower than this vanguard. And then, descent. The depths of the sand gave off a deep drumming sound, a thrumming that vibrated the entire dune face, as we pushed the sand ahead of us in our long slide into the gloom. The sand speaks. Eerie.
In our ger, we learned how to play a traditional Mongolian game. The game is played with the vertebrae of goats or sheep. Each vertebra represents one of four common Mongolian herd animals, depending on how it falls on the ground. Each base (the side that stacks on top of another vertebra to make up a spinal cord) has a convex and a concave side. Each side (perpendicular to the fatter 'base') also has a concave and a convex side. Concave base = camel, convex base = horse, concave side = goat, convex side = sheep. So when we throw the vertebrae on the ground, we have camels, horses, goats, and sheep. The person who cast the die, so to speak, gets to flick one bone at a time, trying to make it touch another vertebra of its type. Only one hand can be used to flick, and you can not touch any of the other vertebra as you do so (either you or the vertebra you flick). If successful, grab one of the pair that touched, with the non-flicking hand. The strategy is in choosing which of the pair seems easiest to use to flick yet another vertebra of like kind. When only three vertebra total are left on a throw-down, and if all come up the same or different (no like types or all the same type), all players are allowed to grab for as many of the remaining vertebra as they can grab.
Most of that afternoon, we skirted a great dune sea. The dune sea's edge looms above the flat hardpan like pancake batter spilled upon a stove. Its edge is luminous with reflected light; a phantasm creeping over scoured gravel. By early evening we arrive at a ger camp near the base of the dunes. Between the camp and the dunes lies a wet place, a true oasis. Hummocks of grass and brush contrast so green against the face of the dune. A rivulet of water snakes between these verdigris humps. Camels, with humps of their own, and horses wander freely in this sheltered place. Why is it that such an oasis exists just within the shadow of sandy annihilation, when there is a whole dessicated plain beyond it begging for its water?
As the sun sets, we plan our ascent of the dune face. The face is quite sheer in most places, but dimples and rumpled edges (like an unruly blanket remaining as a child departs bed for school) seem ripe for our ascension. Zoola, however, tempts us with a delicious Mongolian supper: goat fried with peppers and onions on a bed of rice. Our ascent, then, takes a nasty turn as our full stomachs and the strain of climbing upon a curtain of sand bring nausea. The moon rises, full, above the knife edge where the face of the dune meets the sky. We plan to try once more tomorrow, and we descend.
On the threshold of our ger, a little goat lays his head. Not a grown goat--just a kid, really--the creature is obviously sick, dying. My companions named him Jesus.
August 2nd:
Jesus is dead. Thus spake Nietzsche, as if he could see how the Mongolian nomad lady grabbed that little goat by the horns, pulled him up from our doorstop, and tossed him into the shade in a dusty corner of the encampment. Hours later, he breathed no more.
In the late morning we went camel-riding below the dunes. Truly evil beasts, they are, as texts since the dawn of time have attested. If not for their unique adaptations to desert life which in turn make possible human habitation of the deserts, they would have long since been hunted into extinction for their tough meat, and in retaliation for their bad manners. We decided to name our camels after prominent dictators. I named mine Mugabe. The name helped add to my delight in whipping him with a ragged rubber goad, onwards across the burning sands.
I spent most of the day sketching in my ger, waiting for the heat to pass.
As evening fell, we climbed the great dune's face once again. I left my shoes at the base, as they tended to fill with sand and hinder my attempted ascent. Sometimes soft enough for feet to sink into, sometimes a hard crust, hard enough that feet skid and skitter towards the knife's edge of a wrinkle in the dune face, and the abyss beyond. I felt such terror, I never could have imagined, from climbing at the edge of such sandy cliffs. When the ground beneath your feet is so uncertain, and the gulf of air beyond is so certain, it must be sheer hubris to tread in such a place. I often scrambled on all fours, discovering that this provided a more secure feeling (four pods planted in the sand) and on steep ascents, more stability. I developed a rhythm, climbing the 60 degree incline like a steam-powered greater ape. Thirty meters, we ascended like that. And Bina, my Danish companion on that stretch, was about to give up. She had a fear of heights which to her credit she had sought to defy in climbing this monstrous sand mountain. But I suggested that we must be at least 1/3rd to 1/2 the way up of the sheer part of the face. Not a time to give up! So she steamed ahead of me at that point, and we learned that in fact we had been about 90% of the way up that sheer face. Distances can be deceiving when measuring an angle of sand against the night sky.
So at last I straddled the dune's peak, a knife's edge that stretched away for kilometers. On one side, hardtack gravel in complete darkness. On the other side, twilight still smoldered above a dune sea doing battle with itself--its crests and troughs much lower than this vanguard. And then, descent. The depths of the sand gave off a deep drumming sound, a thrumming that vibrated the entire dune face, as we pushed the sand ahead of us in our long slide into the gloom. The sand speaks. Eerie.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Mongolian Adventures (3): Enter the Gobi
July 30th --
We woke to discover that a jerboa had drowned in the goat's trough during the night. Silly kangaroo-hamster.
Had I written that the lands we passed through the previous day were desolate? The Gobi soon taught me the definition of that word. Jouncing over ground that became steadily drier, the grasses of the steppe around us turned yellow and brittle as the morning hours passed. Then the grasses became mere tufts, like the feathers of a leprous vulture's pate. Then the beds of gravel that had once peeked between grass tresses became entirely predominant.
We rolled into Mandalgov, the capital of Middle Gobi sum (province) sometime mid-morning. The sun had already become an angry, white tyrant by that point. Only 14,000 unfortunate souls lived in that collection of sand-worn shacks and gers, the desert sands blowing in from all sides. No proper roads could be seen there (as I recall), only patches of bald wasteland left undeveloped between the cowering dwelling-places. Was this the setting of a spaghetti-western or post-apocalyptic civilization? The shy youngsters who played football in its streets didn't seem to mind their surrounds, however. Eden is not needed for a youngster's happiness, I suspect.
Our shock-absorbers, unfortunately, were not so forgiving of the surrounds. We found ourselves waiting at a mechanic's garage for an hour or so, while "new" shock absorbers were cobbled together out of spare parts and welded into some semblance of utility next to us. I attempted a few conversations in Mongolian with the ladies who were crushing piles of plastic Sprite bottles into bales for recycling, practicing such basic pleasantries as 'What's your name?', 'Where are you from?', and 'Are your livestock doing well?' A quick look at the dessicated hillsides would seem to suggest "no".
I also passed the time asking Zolaa about the relationship between Mongolia and China. The short answer is "bad". The Mongolians have a bit of a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the Chinese. The long history of rampage and conquest that goes both ways between these two ancient cultures underpins the dislike, but modern justifications exist as well. Illegal Chinese immigrants are a problem in Mongolia, and Chinese businessmen are distrusted--building contractors came in for particular scorn from the Mongolians I talked to. More recently, a Chinese businessman shot a Mongolian. A country-wide purge of Chinese expats (legal or otherwise) followed. I was left wondering whether getting a tourist visa for Kiera would be a problem.
Beyond the grim oasis that is Mandalgov, our van passed deeper into the wasteland. Little tufts of onion-grass sprouted from kitty-litter gravel. Among them could be found small lizards, so lazy in the heat of the sun that I could easily catch them and hold them in the palm of my hand. Bulbous beetles trailed wet ovipositors through the gravel, sheathed in exoskeletons as verdant in green as the wasteland was not. Our stop for a lunch of sandwiches revealed that even the vast litter box was filled with life.
The Gobi is not kind to intruders. Once again that day, our van failed us. The radiator overheated, and we were forced to stop at the top of a dune, the van turned crossways into the wind in an attempt to maximize its cooling. I could only think how horrid it would be, to be stranded here in the midst of nothing. There was, after all, not even a proper highway with the eventual certainty of other caravans passing along our particular path in the desert. There was well and truly nothing... to all horizons.
Of course our van did eventually start up, and we did eventually come to another small town carved from the sand and grit. A herd of camels groaned and moaned. A small shop sold us aloe juice, Turkish cookies, and pickles. That night the pickles were positively devoured by myself and the American girl, Stephanie.
July 31st
Around noon we reached Dalanzagad, another major outpost in the midst of the Gobi. We ate sushi for lunch, at least a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, in the midst of a waterless hardpan. Is this irony? Perhaps only by Alanis's definition, but in fact our small rolls of seaweed, rice, and veggies only represented a miraculous and strange juxtaposition.
The land over which we bounced, jounced, and skidded became increasingly rumpled and wrinkled as the day wore on. Perhaps in the midst of summer there was no obvious culprit for the rapid multiplication of ravines we passed over, but I could imagine that this sere desert is carved and torn whenever water does pass down over its bald hills. The distant crags--and crags these are, the very definition of, with ravenous raptors perched upon their clefts and spires--are our destination for this today. We seek the place known ominously as "The Vulture's Mouth".
The Vultures Mouth is a gorge set in a range of crags, set in the middle of the Gobi desert. This gorge is so deep that even in the midst of summer, shards of ice still sleep unmelted in the depths of its gullet. This gorge is so treacherous that the Argali sheep, ibex, and antelope that graze on its upper slopes routinely fall to their deaths upon the jagged rocks within, a daily feast for vultures and other carrion eaters. Hence the name.
We also quickly discovered that the gorge is a most hospitable home for a legion of pikas--cute little rodents somewhere between a hamster and a rabbit in both size and appearance. The pikas chirp merrily as the vultures circle above. Evergreen shrubs scent the air with hints of allspice (perhaps it was?). We do indeed come upon both remnant ice and an antelope fallen to its death. We are somewhat disappointed that the only wild ungulate we come across is the dead one, its stomach busted upon a rock. There is no better place in which to see that the Gobi's cruelty and generosity are one and the same.
We woke to discover that a jerboa had drowned in the goat's trough during the night. Silly kangaroo-hamster.
Had I written that the lands we passed through the previous day were desolate? The Gobi soon taught me the definition of that word. Jouncing over ground that became steadily drier, the grasses of the steppe around us turned yellow and brittle as the morning hours passed. Then the grasses became mere tufts, like the feathers of a leprous vulture's pate. Then the beds of gravel that had once peeked between grass tresses became entirely predominant.
We rolled into Mandalgov, the capital of Middle Gobi sum (province) sometime mid-morning. The sun had already become an angry, white tyrant by that point. Only 14,000 unfortunate souls lived in that collection of sand-worn shacks and gers, the desert sands blowing in from all sides. No proper roads could be seen there (as I recall), only patches of bald wasteland left undeveloped between the cowering dwelling-places. Was this the setting of a spaghetti-western or post-apocalyptic civilization? The shy youngsters who played football in its streets didn't seem to mind their surrounds, however. Eden is not needed for a youngster's happiness, I suspect.
Our shock-absorbers, unfortunately, were not so forgiving of the surrounds. We found ourselves waiting at a mechanic's garage for an hour or so, while "new" shock absorbers were cobbled together out of spare parts and welded into some semblance of utility next to us. I attempted a few conversations in Mongolian with the ladies who were crushing piles of plastic Sprite bottles into bales for recycling, practicing such basic pleasantries as 'What's your name?', 'Where are you from?', and 'Are your livestock doing well?' A quick look at the dessicated hillsides would seem to suggest "no".
I also passed the time asking Zolaa about the relationship between Mongolia and China. The short answer is "bad". The Mongolians have a bit of a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the Chinese. The long history of rampage and conquest that goes both ways between these two ancient cultures underpins the dislike, but modern justifications exist as well. Illegal Chinese immigrants are a problem in Mongolia, and Chinese businessmen are distrusted--building contractors came in for particular scorn from the Mongolians I talked to. More recently, a Chinese businessman shot a Mongolian. A country-wide purge of Chinese expats (legal or otherwise) followed. I was left wondering whether getting a tourist visa for Kiera would be a problem.
Beyond the grim oasis that is Mandalgov, our van passed deeper into the wasteland. Little tufts of onion-grass sprouted from kitty-litter gravel. Among them could be found small lizards, so lazy in the heat of the sun that I could easily catch them and hold them in the palm of my hand. Bulbous beetles trailed wet ovipositors through the gravel, sheathed in exoskeletons as verdant in green as the wasteland was not. Our stop for a lunch of sandwiches revealed that even the vast litter box was filled with life.
The Gobi is not kind to intruders. Once again that day, our van failed us. The radiator overheated, and we were forced to stop at the top of a dune, the van turned crossways into the wind in an attempt to maximize its cooling. I could only think how horrid it would be, to be stranded here in the midst of nothing. There was, after all, not even a proper highway with the eventual certainty of other caravans passing along our particular path in the desert. There was well and truly nothing... to all horizons.
Of course our van did eventually start up, and we did eventually come to another small town carved from the sand and grit. A herd of camels groaned and moaned. A small shop sold us aloe juice, Turkish cookies, and pickles. That night the pickles were positively devoured by myself and the American girl, Stephanie.
July 31st
Around noon we reached Dalanzagad, another major outpost in the midst of the Gobi. We ate sushi for lunch, at least a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, in the midst of a waterless hardpan. Is this irony? Perhaps only by Alanis's definition, but in fact our small rolls of seaweed, rice, and veggies only represented a miraculous and strange juxtaposition.
The land over which we bounced, jounced, and skidded became increasingly rumpled and wrinkled as the day wore on. Perhaps in the midst of summer there was no obvious culprit for the rapid multiplication of ravines we passed over, but I could imagine that this sere desert is carved and torn whenever water does pass down over its bald hills. The distant crags--and crags these are, the very definition of, with ravenous raptors perched upon their clefts and spires--are our destination for this today. We seek the place known ominously as "The Vulture's Mouth".
The Vultures Mouth is a gorge set in a range of crags, set in the middle of the Gobi desert. This gorge is so deep that even in the midst of summer, shards of ice still sleep unmelted in the depths of its gullet. This gorge is so treacherous that the Argali sheep, ibex, and antelope that graze on its upper slopes routinely fall to their deaths upon the jagged rocks within, a daily feast for vultures and other carrion eaters. Hence the name.
We also quickly discovered that the gorge is a most hospitable home for a legion of pikas--cute little rodents somewhere between a hamster and a rabbit in both size and appearance. The pikas chirp merrily as the vultures circle above. Evergreen shrubs scent the air with hints of allspice (perhaps it was?). We do indeed come upon both remnant ice and an antelope fallen to its death. We are somewhat disappointed that the only wild ungulate we come across is the dead one, its stomach busted upon a rock. There is no better place in which to see that the Gobi's cruelty and generosity are one and the same.
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