Gachuurt to Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA - 10 july 2002
The next day, we thanked The Herdsman profusely and made our way back to the village. He took his horse and lasso to see us off. We crossed the river again. This time, Pablo’s and my feet did not feel that painful.
When The Herdsman finally left, the picture was of him riding the horse, in the middle of the river and turning back to wave at us. It really looked like a movie… the ending would be a circle around this picture shrinking to nothingness!
Nassan’s Guesthouse was more crowded today because the Naadam Festival would start tomorrow. We told Nassan we did not mind having no mattress to sleep on, we just needed some floor space. We were finally allowed to return to our original room to try and find ‘floor space’. OK, if we squeezed a little, we could crunch out floor spaces for three… and we would get in the way of everybody. Tina took the only free bed.
There was a sullen and silent German couple reading and smoking in the room. Negative energy oozed from them. Actually, they pretended to read. They eyeballed us the whole time we were in the room, watching us as we went from toilet to kitchen sink, hung our underwears, scratched ourselves, wrote our journals… They pointed us out, nudged and made muttering remarks to each other. Weird.
There was a local cinema opposite Nassan’s Guesthouse and naturally, we felt we needed to pay due respect to the Mongollywood industry.
Waiting for Tina and Jus to show up at the cinema, I wondered what movie we were watching. We found the poster outside. Well, there was a bare-breasted woman and a bare-chested man pressing their bodies against each other on a bed and next to it was written ‘8pm’. This must be our movie.
“Hmmm… Is this porno? Pablo, we watching porno?” I queried. A disembodied voice came from behind us brusquely, “Nyet porno [Not porno]”. We spun around in surprise, and saw a very grim woman who seemed to know her Mongol movies well. Ooookay…
The only people in the cinema were four other tourists, also from Nassan’s Guesthouse.
The movie began with a dying elderly woman lying in bed, being taken care of by a pretty young woman dressed in traditional Mongolian costumes. They were inside a ger, whispering and crying. We intuitively knew that the dying elderly woman was most likely NOT the naked woman featured in the poster. Our attention turned to the pretty young woman in traditional garb and appraised her slowly, mentally stripping her of the costume. The lights popped on suddenly and the cinema attendant entered sheepishly, waving a video-tape in her hand. Oh, that was the wrong movie.
The movie began again with a naked man and a naked woman frolicking in the shower and then, romping about on the bed. Now, that was more like it… Nyet porno.
The movie seemed to be shakily shot with a video-cam by someone with Parkinson’s disease. The harsh lightings caused the faces to be featureless and there was absolutely no regards for sound-editing. We could not figure out who was who because they all looked alike under the bright lights. But, we pretty much knew exactly what was going to happen because the storyline was thoroughly predictable. After the abrupt and bewildering ending, we stood up and applauded, yelling “Mongollywood! Yes! Mongollywood!!”
Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA - 11 july 2002
We had timed our visit to Mongolia to coincide with the Naadam Festival. This morning, we followed the procession from the main square to the stadium. There was a parade getting ready to walk around the stadium. While some of the paraders were wearing the gorgeous and varied traditional Mongolian costumes, there were also Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, Pluto, a boy with a poodle and acrobats dressed up like Xena and Hercules. We found the latter characters extremely odd and disturbing.
After a long wait for the opening ceremony, the wrestling began. Pairs of wrestlers, with no weight segregation, arrived on the field, doing a slow-mo eagle dance. They spread their arms like wings and bounced around slowly. They removed their pointy hats and began their wrestle. The loser would be the first guy who touched the ground with any part of his body, other than his feet and palms. Then, the winner would retrieve his pointy hat, do the eagle dance towards the centre, around a podium-thing, bow his head on the podium and depart. The loser would NOT retrieve his hat. He would do a loser-dance on the spot and ‘fly’ away. How I knew this was that we sat under the sun for hours, watching the wrestling (which eventually got boring) over and over again.
We found the archery competition in an open stadium outside. Here, there were women competitors, as well as men. All were dressed in their thick Mongolian wrap-around dresses. They looked really smart. The targets were the judges in the distance, apparently. I was pleased to note that some of the competitors were rather young.
Negative-energy couple was reading and smoking in the room again.
Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA - 12 july 2002
Pablo, Jus and I headed to Yarmag for the horse-racing competition on this second day of the Naadam Festival. The whole plain was wide and dusty. People were riding horses everywhere, kicking up the sand. It was difficult to see. Sometimes, a horse would appear out of nowhere and gallop by you, nearly crashing into you. It felt quite dangerous actually.
We squeezed to the barrier with the crowd and waited. Slowly, slowly, the crowd thickened. I had my camera in front of me and with the crowd pushing and shoving from behind, I was nearly fused together with my camera. Remember, I had mentioned the Mongolians are pushers. With each rude, forceful push, I would look around for the culprits and what I saw were shiny, happy Mongolians, smiling away. I was packed so tight I could not breathe. I figured I should slow my breathing rate down to suspended animation and hope to be revived later.
Finally, the horses arrived with the young jockeys. The crowd went wild, cheering and pushing some more. Some horses had lost their jockeys earlier, it seemed. Ooops.
Later, when the race was over, Pablo told us that he was at the section where some horses keeled over and died of heart attacks in the middle of the race. The concerned crowd surged forward with intentions to help the jockeys who were being dragged down and the crowd crashed the barrier! It was mayhem as behind the human crowd, there were spectators on horses and these horses were easily spooked. So, the horses were panicking and kicking up sand everywhere and everyone was pushing. Pablo and some nearby tourists simply gathered together and tried to protect their heads.
Meanwhile, Jus informed us that he encountered an Ali-Baba whom he caught red-handed. Ali-Baba simply broke free and slithered away into the crowd.
Later, when we took a bus back to Ulaan Baator, the same Ali-Baba got onto our bus. He even moved to stand behind Jus and Pablo, back-to-back. As I was seated down, I could see the guy between Jus and Pablo. His left arm was holding the railing. He had his head bent and was eyeing at us below his left arm-pit. I stared at him straight in the eyes. He then decided to try somewhere else. Just before the bus pulled away, he shoved further into the bus and then suddenly dashed off the bus. Rats. He got something.
Negative-energy couple was reading and smoking in the room again.
Ulaan Baator to Kharkhorin, MONGOLIA - 13 july 2002
Jus, Tina and Goretti would be heading to northern Mongolia today. They had a longer time here in Mongolia. Pablo and I did not. We decided to head to Kharkhorin because it was only 8 hours away and seemed to have an interesting monastery nearby.
We found the bus-station and were looking around for the bus when we saw a wrinkled hand extended from within a minivan and heard a booming voice in English, “If you're going to Kharkhorin, hop in. We are ready to go…”
The voice belonged to, we learnt later, a Zen Master nun. Her name is Lily-Marie, from Switzerland and she is 71. My goodness, she was quite a character. I never imagined in my entire life that I would meet a true-blue certified Zen Master.
She had with her, and I quote, ‘my lama’. The monk’s name was Demberil and he seemed the sort of sweet, patient, humble guy forever serving the needs of others.
Throughout the ride, Lily-Marie would tell the monk, Pablo and I anecdotes and Buddhism stories with really profound meanings. Pablo was more interested in religion than I was. I shall not pretend that I was intellectual enough to understand the complex meanings behind some of her stories. But, I must say she was very wise and funky as well. What a spontaneous lady! She made wisecracks, ate ice-cream and even snapped her fingers to the dance music playing in the minivan. Wonderful character!
We accepted her invitation to meet her tomorrow at Erdene Zuu Monastery and ‘her lama’ would give us a tour. What a treat!
Kharkhorin used to be the capital of Mongolia at one point in their glorious history. Now, not a trace of the majesty remained. It had a ghost-town feel. Every other shop or café seemed to be shut. The wooden buildings looked neglected. Strong gusts of wind would blow sand everywhere suddenly. Stray dogs roamed the streets at every corner and barked throughout the night.
Kharkhorin, MONGOLIA - 14 july 2002
We met up at Erdene Zuu Monastery as agreed and had the privilege of learning more about Buddhism from Lily-Marie. One concept that rang deep in my memory was: “One should not fret and regret about the past… One should not fret and worry about forcing the future… One should live for the HERE and NOW. By the time one is aware of the Present, it has already become the Past.” Or something like that. See what I mean? I am still trying to figure this out.
There were many tourists visiting the monastery as well. One came up to Demberil and said, “Hi, I’ve always wanted to take a photo with a monk. Do you mind taking one with me?” Was this a zoo? I wished Demberil had replied, “Why, thank you. What a coincidence. I’ve always wanted to take a photo with a stupid tourist. So, where should we stand?”
Later, we observed a chanting ceremony in a temple. Sadly, throughout the ceremony, tourists who had paid extra for the privilege of photographing the interior of the temples, also assumed they had paid for the privilege of disturbing the ceremony with their flash-pops and snappy-snaps.
That evening, I encountered my first ever mini sandstorm. We could see it brewing and blowing towards the town. I stood in the middle of nowhere, mesmerised. Then, suddenly, we were engulfed and totally blinded by the swirling sand. Everybody was scurrying to hide behind barriers and buildings. Disturbed dogs were howling eerily. Incredible…
Kharkhorin to Ulaan Baator, MONGOLIA - 15 july 2002
Zen Master Lily-Marie wanted to leave Kharkhorin at 8am today and had invited us to join her this morning to get a vehicle back to Ulaan Baator.
8am? She was so kidding me… We slept til way after 9am. Then, at 10am or so, we sauntered our way to the front of the market and found many minivans waiting to leave for Ulaan Baator. In fact, one was lacking two passengers. Perfect.
To our surprise, Lily-Marie was in the van! She was in her most cranky mood, however. Well, she HAD wanted to leave at 8am and now it was after 10am. Apparently, the van had a flat just now and the door crashed down earlier too. She insisted we would not make it back to Ulaan Baator alive.
Just before we left, the van spun around for another half an hour, loading more canisters of horse-milk and packing in more passengers. Lily-Marie got really mad and kept scolding Demberil about how they should have gone with the other van and not this one. In fact, throughout the ride later, she could not stop blaming Demberil for this and that.
Pablo and I giggled away. She was a Zen Master. But she was also human. In fact, she was like a spoilt impatient diva today. We finally reached the Ulaan Baator toll-booth in the evening. She applauded at once, utterly relieved. Then, we had a flat! THAT WAS IT! The driver, whom by now knew her cranky nature, hurriedly got around to open the van’s door. She stormed out of the van with Demberil in tow and marched angrily out to the road to flag down random vehicles.
We returned to Nassan’s Guesthouse without further incident. To our surprise, negative-energy couple was still reading and smoking in the room.
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