Seen from the train, the Gobi desert at sunset is an ocean of stillness. Under a new moon, the landscape slowly turns from pink to olive. A motionless Bactrian camel is silhouetted against the horizon, breaking hour after hour of nothingness. This is a place where souls could roam eternally. The track, level with the sandy scrubland, snakes its way across this space for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. A wild horse lowers its neck to graze, a yak stares vacantly as if he’s been transported into a time far beyond where he belongs. We pass a lone yurt, the octagonal tent which the Nomads erect in no time to form a secure, warm home, complete with stove and shrine.
We alighted at Ulaan Bataar, the name itself exotic enough to excite, and headed out to a ger camp for two nights under the stars, about an hour’s minibus ride out of the capital. Next morning, a nervously eager party gathered around a corral, somewhere out in the wilderness, to wait, whilst our guide went off to catch the horses for the day’s expedition. Hours later, my seventeen-year-old daughter returned, flushed with effort, to declare that she wanted to stay here for a long time and go galloping across the steppes again and again. I climbed to the top of a hill to gaze, uncomprehending, at the vastness surrounding me. Nothing could rob this scene of its solitude – a cluster of yurts far below marked a settlement of sturdy, swarthy horsemen and their families. They milk mares and ferment the milk to make a very alcoholic beverage which made our young guide go bright red in the cheeks. They top up the barrel every day with freshly drawn milk, and use some to make a quite delicious kind of nougat. They live, breathe and smell like horses, and are extremely hospitable despite their bewilderment at the increasing number of visitors who come to gawp at their rare lifestyle. In return, you are expected to bring a small gift such as a key ring, pen or any other western trivia. When we departed, they gave us the traditional send off, galloping, whooping and waving alongside the minibus until we were too fast for the horses.
Mongolia is a very poor country, struggling to adjust to its recent freedom. Of course ‘UB’ is run down, of course there is no concept of customer service, yet it remains a charming destination for those with a sense of adventure and humour. Perusing a menu consisting of only eggs and bread in the Urge restaurant, it was essential to remind oneself of the latter. Where else can you buy a roll up chess set which stinks of burnt wool, or cashmere at half the European price, or watch tiny twin girl contortionists grinning grotesquely under a centimetre of makeup, their faces tucked upside down under their armpits? Or see dinosaur eggs, or -most amazingly - hear the strangely haunting but utterly peculiar sound of throat singing, which is simultaneously the song of a bull frog and a canary? And last but not least, savour the all-pervading mutton fat which not only characterises but comprises their cuisine? Go now, before the country wises up to tourism. They are trying very hard (even extending menus in some places), but it can’t be long before the hawkers start to gain confidence. One word of warning though. If you go on the Trans-Siberian train, you might be woken in the middle of the night by an amazon of a woman, a customs officer, who will shout from her lipstick encrusted mouth for your passport, immediately after kicking open your compartment door. Give her my regards.
Price: free 1 # Gobi |
