My last blog recounted my journey across the length of Russia, to Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, a week of homestays in the Gobi desert and a few days doing translation work in an ultramodern museum in Genghis Khan’s hometown. That was as far away from London-town as I made it, but even the return journey was a long way to travel.
“These few weeks have taken me a couple of thousand of miles west, and further north, to the border of China, out of Mongolia, and into Russia. When I last wrote I was in Kharkhorin, in Central Mongolia, helping my friend Shine at the excellent Karakorum Museum, where he works. From there, I turned my compass to the west of the country. Mongolia’s rickety network of public buses is very heavily based around Ulaanbaatar, so I needed to return six hours east to the capital before I could even start my journey. I wanted to travel to Bayan-Ölgii, the country’s westernmost district, over one thousand miles away. As I don’t fly, I took the local (and in my view, far more enjoyable) option, which was the 53-hour road-journey by Russian bus (no trains here), a fraction of which is on sealed roads.
I had booked my ticket in advance and arrived at the Dragon Bus Station – pronounced De-rag-gone – an hour or so before my bus was due to leave at 3pm. I then spent a long, hot and sticky while looking for the bus among vehicles heading out in different direction across the whole country. By chance I came across a lady also waiting for the same bus, who showed me where another fifteen or so people were hanging around, waiting for the bus to arrive; this it eventually did around 5pm, before the driver carried out some repair work for another hour. (This was to be a recurring theme, as has been my experience with old Russian jeeps and buses in the past: they need simple repair work the whole time, but with a hammer, oil, spanner, and not much more, it seems possible to keep them battling on for decades.) Another half hour followed as the driver and his assistant stuffed a huge amount of luggage into all the possible crevices in the bus. At 7pm we could finally sit in the few gaps remaining, and drove off. A mile from the bus station we burst a tyre, which meant another hour’s repair-work, and so at 8pm we finally started on the journey for good, a full five hours late. This was not un-punctual for Mongolia. The journey that followed was my best chance to get a sense of Mongolia’s huge scale, and the isolation of its towns and villages. We would often drive for hours without seeing any settlement other than a handful of white gers (Mongolian yurts) in the distance, travelling along what was a dirt-track or worse; with little warning there would be a road-sign, and over a hill would appear a town, complete with houses, shops, and maybe a tea-shop, but little else.
We arrived at 11pm on the third day at Ölgii, the capital of Bayan-Ölgii aimag (region). Bayan-Ölgii is unique in Mongolia because its inhabitants are almost exclusively ethnic Kazakhs. Its isolation, and moreover the fact that Kazakhstan itself spent so long under Communist rule, mean that it is almost certainly the best place in the world to find traditional Kazakh culture. For me this was a great opportunity to experience another Central Asian culture – when I visited Central Asia a few years ago, I crossed the southwest corner of Kazakhstan by train, but saw nothing of the country or its culture. The locals of Bayan-Ölgii nearly all speak Kazakh as a first language (not the case in Kazakhstan) and while Mongolian is a second language, a strong local affinity with Kazakhstan (there was a lot of emigration post-perestroika, and lots of people travel between the two areas) meant that my (basic) Russian was useful again, which was a relief after suffering all the frustration of linguistic impotence elsewhere in Mongolia.
I had come to western Mongolia largely to trek in the Altai Mountains, and managed to make arrangements to do so: with Marc and Justen from Chicago, who also endured the bus journey with me; and Yanir, a hardcore Israeli who I got in touch with after I saw a note he left in an Ulaanbaatar youth hostel. We decided to trek a route in the Tavan Bogd National Park, on the border with China and Russia (and only 40km from Kazakhstan), a route of nine or ten days. With Yanir as our chief navigator, and fully stocked up on what provisions the local supermarkets could supply (think: tinned tuna, tinned beans, instant soups, biscuits, rice, porridge, raisins, and powdered milk) we set off for our starting point, the tiny settlement of Sirgali, in a Russian jeep whose characterful engine continued to purr for 15 seconds every time the ignition was switched off. We were all keen to walk without guides, and this was, as it were, a luxury: it was possible to enjoy the beautiful scenery in real isolation, at our own pace, and, most importantly, independently. This meant navigating from the only topographic maps of the area: the Russian survey maps made in 1942. This map comes from the same series that I used in Tajikistan, a stunning survey of the the entire USSR and its satellite states. The maps’ age meant of course that most urban settlements had grown a lot in the meantime, and even that some lakes’ shorelines seemed to have changed noticeably. The other upshot of walking independently was that we had to carry not only our tents on our backs, but also our food: with eleven days of provisions each, our bags started off very weighty. The Hebrew for this, I learnt, is bayit b’gav, ‘house on your back’, and this is how it felt, with our bags weighing around 25kg at the start of the walk (it was always a huge relief to get out a bag of rice for supper).
The start of our trek took us northwest, along Khoton Nuur, a mountain lake stretching 30km through a wide valley. On the far shore the hills stretching upwards were fir-covered, and suspended in the valley’s sides were four or five hanging valleys (smaller glacial u-shaped valleys feeding into a major u-shaped valley at a great height, because their smaller glaciers did not erode as deeply). I really enjoy spotting the features of glacial scenery; I find them as evocative of an ancient time as any geographical features can – Khoton Nuur itself was a perfect example of a ribbon lake.
We often trekked 20-30km a day, spending up to ten or eleven hours on the road. Our most enjoyable pauses were at the many yurts that we passed. It is my experience that walking past any yurt in Mongolia (Mongol, Kazakh, or other) earns you an invitation inside for tea and food, and this was also the case in Tavan Bogd. Often a group of small children would walk a couple of hundred metres to meet us on the path, before walking us back to their home, giggling and peering up at us. Kazakh yurts are not called gers, but kigzuus, and they were, besides the language, the most noticeably unique aspect of Kazakh culture. They are much higher and much larger than Mongol gers, with space for a sitting area in the northwest section, and as many five or six beds around their edges. Nearly all of the kigzuus that I entered were very richly decorated with traditional Kazakh fabrics: on the ground there were usually felt carpets (over an earthen, or linoleum floor), and often very intricate tapestries around the walls. The colours used in these sometimes seemed almost gaudy; however, these fabrics hardly ever came from Chinese factories, but were more often made locally, and even by family members. Long embroidered hangings were often strung between the long painted white branches which support the roof, along with what look like Kazakh pom-poms, while I also saw fox-furs and even preserved eagles.
On entering a kigzuu we were straightaway offered salted milk tea – something in common with Tibet and the Tajikistani Pamirs, although it was fortunately far less traumatic an experience here – cup after cup of it. Perhaps as fresh water is scarce, this tea seems to be the most common drink in the countryside, as the yak-milk with which it’s made is more than plentiful. After the tea, there would appear on the table bortsog (little fried rolls – fresh, if you’re incredibly lucky), biscuits, curds, more, subtly different curds, delicious salted butter, cream, sweets. It is absolutely expected that you eat as much as you want (and often more); this really is absolute, natural hospitality, and really incredibly odds with our own customs at home.
While we were trekking we tried to offer something back (not that it was either expected in the least, or necessary from an etiquette point of view): sweets we had brought with, some of those heavy rice bags, as well as a few postcards of the Queen, who is now proudly adorning the shrines of a few Kazakh yurts in western Mongolia.
Our trekking route took us on to the end of Khoton Nuur, and, after an abortive visit to some hot springs (we weren’t allowed to wash, as the locals didn’t believe that we wouldn’t use soap, which is forbidden), over a high and memorable pass, known locally as the Ice Pass. Having started our climb the previous night, we rose early and set off at 8pm, up a steep and narrow path. The pass, when we reached it, was nearly a kilometre long, wide like a valley, and awash with wild flowers. It was marked with a large pile of stones, and I found it satisfying and impressive to notice two streams flowing in different directions a couple of hundred metres from each other, either side of the higest point. The pass’s name comes from the numerous glaciers that we walked alongside, as close as ten metres from us, as we descended – although the size of these was far less than on our 1942 map.
By the time we descended on the far side of the pass, it had started to rain (and it would hardly stop for two days). We drank tea in the first yurt that we reached, and as usual I tripped out our basic Kazakh greetings; however, I was quickly reprimanded and drunkenly told that the people on this side of the pass were NOT Kazakhs, but Tuvans (of throat-singing fame). We did not spend a lot of time with the Tuvans, but meeting them in this way was another reminder of how many different cultures are stuffed even into the corner of Mongolia, and of how little I know about them.
The final part of our route took us towards the so-called Base Camp of Tavan Bogd, and across the impressive Tsaagan Gol river; its name means milky river, and it really is very white from all that glacial sediment. After an attempt by Yanir to test the possibility of crossing it by foot which was foolhardy but extremely brave (reading about the Napoleonic Wars in War and Peace has given me new points of comparison for his endeavour) we decided, after a break from the rain in another kigzuu, to do the traditional thing, and hire horses from a local Tuvan. Our crossing really was a testament to the huge strength of the local horses: one single horse made four return crossings, each time taking its owner, one of us, and one heavy backpack, through fast waters reaching very nearly up to its body. I’d been a little nervous during river crossings earlier in the trek, but this time falling off really was not an option.
On the other side we made a final push, in the rain, climbing for a couple of hours more, until at 7pm we reached a crest and saw the wonderful sight of the Tavan Bogd (‘five peaks’ in Mongolian) hiding in the clouds opposite us, each mountain sending out a glacier, and these all meeting in one huge glacier in the valley below. We made camp, had a good and much-needed meal (our usual hearty stew/plov of rice, beans, tuna and soup), before the rain finally abated in the early evening. I really enjoyed this wonderful campsite. I’m a little fascinated by glaciers, which to my imagination are white and majestic, but in reality rather suggest mountain motorways, with their dirt, rocks, and all-consuming force.
The weather did not clear, and this meant it was unlikely that our planned ascent of Malchin Peak would be possible the next day. All the same, Yanir and I pluckily set out (Marc and Justen preferred to hold fort) to see what we might manage. An hour from our camp we saw a sizeable collection of nesting tents: around ten small yellow ones and two large white ones. We approached one of the latter, and, before we knew it, were invited in for tea – in fluent English. This turned out to be the mess tent of a group of five Americans, and we had been welcomed in by their staff of five local Mongolians. As with a previous tourist group we had met, it was a source of considerable smugness that five Americans needed a large staff, as well as a good few horses and camels (I have no idea how the camels were persuaded up there) to do a trek a few days shorter than our own. However, besides bragging rights, in this tent we also received some excellent vegetable soup (the variety and the vitamins were welcome) and the good advice that as Malchin Peak was not reachable – it was actually surrounded by cloud – we were best advised to climb the nearby hills for a good view.
Happily refuelled, this is what Yanir and I did, and climbed for an hour or so up the hill behind us, for a fantastic view of the mountain vista; we could just about see into China and Russia. I think I enjoyed this view even more than our views later on, when the clouds finally cleared – the mountains had a sense of danger and mystery when they were cloaked. At this point Yanir produced the best of his many ‘surprises’, which apparently came naturally to anybody who spends their spare time trekking all over Israel, but were more impressive to my Londoner self: he pulled out a primus stove, and cooked real some hot chocolate. The moment was complete.
From this highpoint of the trek, we gradually returned back to Ölgii town. Of course, as soon as our summit day had passed, the sun emerged and shone non-stop for days. We experienced a fair bit of confusion reaching the pickup point arranged with our driver – we went to the wrong ranger’s station, 10km from the correct one as the crow flies, but 120km by road. As there was no phone signal we hired horses to take us to the correct place. In fact this turend out to be ideal for me, as horse-riding is a bit of a ‘must’ for holidays in Mongolia, where every child and pensioner can ride. I had not yet ridden on a horse, and hugely enjoyed the first couple of hours. However, as we reached the road and (more or less) our car home, I was sore, bored, impatient at the slowness, and happy to get off – so the ride was perfectly timed.
This trek was my last major endeavour in Mongolia. After returning to Ölgii I spent a few quiet days in the town of Tolbo, near the beautiful lake of Tolbo Nuur; from here I did a solo overnight trek into the nearby mountains (bigger than they looked) and spent a wonderful afternoon, night, and morning totally alone in nature. This was a very refreshing experience and something I am keen to try and recreate, either back home or as part of another trip.
I soon headed for the nearby Russian border, taking an afternoon jeep to the border town on the Mongolian side; although I hadn’t realised it, the taxi arrangement included a meal en route – an afternoon snack of half a lamb, shared five ways – and an overnight stay at my driver’s family kigzuu. This was perhaps the most beautiful kigzuu I had the chance to see, and was decorated with tapestries all made by the family matriarch. This lady had a delightfully long plait sneaking out of her white headscarf, but was a slightly formidable character, getting the stove roaring and opening the kigzuu roof in the morning, before anyone else was out of bed). In the evening I was also very excited to help with some chores: gathering up the sarlaag-dung (a sarlaag being a yak/cow cross-breed), which I was quite good at; moving some baby sarlaags about, which wasn’t very hard; and even trying my hand at milking, which I was not successful at – formidable granny was happy for me to get out of the way and let one of the women do the work. Notwithstanding this disappointment, it was a great way to spend my final night in Mongolia.
The next morning I made it trouble-free across the border (there’s a remarkable 2km drive through no-man’s-land between the Mongolian and Russian frontiers) and hitched a ride from a kind French father and son along the road to Gorno-Altaisk, the capital of the Altai Republic. I was pretty uncomfortable in their jeep (which was stuffed full, but justifiably: when we stopped for a break they produced ice-cold beer, served in a nearly-crystal glass). However, this discomfort was cancelled out by the Russian roads, which were sealed and smooth. While the roads were the most immediate noticeable change in Russia, by the time I reached the modern, if provincial, city of Gorno-Altaisk, it was already strange to think that I had spent the previous night in a yurt, with the mooing of saarlags lulling me to sleep.
From Gorno-Altaisk I spent a couple of nights by Lake Teletskoe, ‘Western Siberia’s answer to Lake Baikal’, a long and beautiful mountain lake surrounded by forests, and in the heart of Russian tourist-land (although I have still met no non-Russian tourists, in over a week in Russia). The most enjoyable aspect of this stay was striking up a friendship with Tanya, a lady who worked in a local restaurant, but spoke to me in clear English when she saw I was struggling with the menu. Tanya is in a fact a German-teacher in the nearby city of Barnaul, and so we had some lovely conversations in English and Deutsch.
Via Biysk, where two locals, whom I had asked for directions, instead drove me around for the afternoon, incorporating a museum-visit, lake swimming, and sampling the local beer – all paid for – I have come to Tomsk, where I am staying now. Depending on whether one believes the Lonely Planet, the city may or may not be known as ‘The Oxford of Siberia’ for its university and large student population; in any case, it’s a charming town, with a tree-lined main boulevarde and a surprising number of preserved traditional houses. Chekhov stayed in Tomsk and wrote a damning verdict, but as part of its 400th anniversary the city erected a statue of the playwright, as seen by a drunk in a gutter, with overzised feet and misshapen face. I have even managed to find a vegetarian restaurant, to the disbelief of a couple of Russophile acquaintances.
My journey home soon begins in earnest. Tomorrow I take the train to Novosibirsk, capital of Siberia, where I am looking forward to spending a couple of days with a Couchsurfer called Kristina, who studied the piano at music school. From there I am taking sleepers to Moscow, then on to Berlin, where I am visiting my good friend Ruth, before the Berlin-Paris sleeper and the Eurostar home.”
As my journey on the Trans-Siberian railway had shown me Russia’s physical enormity, so the slow journey back to Moscow brought home the cultural distance between central Siberia and Moscow, nearly 2000 to the west. It takes a leap of the imagination, out there, to see Europe as a neighbour – China is over the border, not Germany. Ethnic minorities and LGBT communities might be suspect in Moscow, but in Novosibirsk they are almost unimaginable.
But the journey home was also a reminder that hospitality comes not only in exotic yurts but also on the fourth floor of soviet-era blocks of flats. Kristina was a generous and attentive host, her family gently welcoming me into their home, her grandfather’s gruffness melting once I played a little piano-music. I have fond memories of visiting an outdoor railway museum, its exhibits half-hidden in the forest of dark firs, Kristina showing me around proudly.
But as I look back to Russia and Mongolia, four years on, my strongest memory is of vast distances – forests that stretch away from the trainline and only stop at the Arctic, steppes extending to the Himalayas, roadless deserts until China. As I sit writing from one of the most densely populated places in my own continent, it is a comfort to think that a long way away, huge empty spaces remain, where human footprints are few, and far between.
