The centre of Mongolia is the archetypal Mongolian landscape, desert steppe rolling into wide empty green valleys, a handful of Gers dotted along the course of the river running between distant dark green mountains. Horses roamed the plains and herders lived wherever water could be found. We took a couple of days to head up through the aimags (provinces) of Dundgov and Övörkkhangai, a journey broken by our happening across a small Naadam (games) in the middle of the steppe.
Perhaps a hundred people had arrived, as if from nowhere, in a flat area in the middle of nowhere. People on horses, families in Russian minivans and young men on motorbikes, most wearing Dels and wielding horse brushes, all gathered together in the dusty plain. A jeep sold basic ice cream and another khuushuur (fired goat dumplings) as we waited for the wrestling to start and the horses to appear. The wrestling was exciting and usually over quickly, the victor presented with a traditional before circling the national flag clockwise, his arms waving and his knees bent in a melodramatic dance (I think it might represent some sort of bird, perhaps a crane). The horse race was 15km of flat-out racing over flat steppe. The finish line was two flags placed somewhere that seemed fairly arbitrary to me, and the spectators gathered there when the first plumes of dust could be seen on the horizon. I found the whole thing tremendously exciting, watching the young riders of about 12, who these days ride without saddles because of too many accidents in the past, spur their exhausted horses to a finish in a dusty cloud of cheers. It was great.
We visited Erdene Zuu Khiid, the ancient monastery, famous for its 108 stupas surrounding it and spent the morning in Kharkhorin, stocking up with supplies. The monastery is considered one of the three greatest Buddhist sites in Mongolia (along with Gandantegchinlen Khiid in Ulaanbaatar and another I didn’t see), but like all the others, is a shadow of its former glory. Communist purges banished or executed most of the monks and destroyed most of the temples, removing all their relics and using the stones for other buildings. Only since 1995 has work begun to restore the country’s religious heritage, though it’s proven a very difficult task as several generations of Mongolians have now grown up with little knowledge of traditional beliefs and there is hardly any money available for restoration.
The great emptiness of the landscape has a profound impact on the feeling of spiritual desolation you get in such places, especially Ongiin Khiid, a monastery we visited on our way north. It was a once thriving Buddhist community home to 1000 before being utterly destroyed and its water source diverted for a communist factory. Two monks, educated there long ago, have returned to attempt to rebuild the monastery and have no completed one temple. I found a profoundly affecting place, somewhere so desolate and empty that had once been so busy, bustling with the sounds of praying monks and day to day life of religious ritual.
From Kharkhorin we travelled through a spectacularly beautiful river valley, so stunning it was hard to take in. Mountains rose on either side and a broad river braided its way through green pastures, Gers littering the valley floor and filling it with wandering herds of sheep, goats, cows and horses. Orkhon Khürkhree, our campsite, was no less beautiful, a spectacular plunge of the Orkhon waterfall into a deep canyon. This is a popular tourist site, especially with urban Mongolians from Ulaanbaatar who come for the weekend to swim and walk around the falls. From here we planned a two day walk to Naiman Nuur, an area of eight lakes (which is the meaning of the name) at the head of the valley, inaccessible to vehicles. This involved Bagi first finding a translator, he found an enthusiastic but somehow exceedingly annoying American-accented guide who was leading a group and staying in the next door Ger camp (we were camping). She was very helpful, but probably didn’t need to specify that she was the ‘enthusiastic guide on page 80 of the new Lonely Planet’, which only grated more.
We hired a guide to lead us and take a pack horse for our stuff. Although we were told you need a guide, all you really need is a map, which we didn’t have, because the navigation wasn’t that hard and in fact was significantly less challenging than many hillwalks in the Highlands. However, hiking remains something of a foreign concept to most Mongolians, who can’t think of any earthly reason why someone should walk to see some lakes just for the sake of it.
The trip was great, but proved a good lesson in failing to communicate. After about four or five hours of walking, we came to rest near a Ger on a hill above the first lake (actually the eighth as they’re numbered from the other side). Our guide made signs that we should camp here and tomorrow go somewhere else and then some more signs as well. As it was still early and we’d only seen one lake, which was somewhat dried up at best, we didn’t want to camp there but carry on to the next one. A long discussion ensued with much gesticulation and pointing at the phrase book. Eventually we persuaded him to go to the Ger where another group, heading the other way, had stopped for a bite to eat. Their guide was able to translate and the misunderstanding was cleared up. It turned out that for the last twenty minutes he’d been trying to tell us we shouldn’t swim in the lakes because they’re so deep (?!), but we’d had literally NO idea that was the message he was giving us. We thought we’d arguing about where we were going to stay. It was, of course, sorted out and we moved on to the next lake, about five kilometres over a ridge. And it was worth it. It was beautiful, remote and peaceful. The scenery was a little like Scotland in fact, but then Scotland is beautiful too, so who cared? We were alone, camping far from the world, cosy by the campfire and refreshed by our swim in the lake. What else mattered?
