Three Weeks (more or less) in Mongolia

Day 15: Sunday 20th July

I wanted to get in touch with Puujee again, but was a bit nervous about phoning her brother, not knowing how much English he spoke. Decided to try and meet her at church instead. I left a bit early so I could be sure to find the right place, and followed the route we took last Sunday as near as I could remember it, dodging muddy puddles on the way. I found it just slightly further down the road than I remembered, and went in and sat down at a pew near the back, watching the younger people of an earlier service singing with their pastor.

The main service started; I enjoyed the singing again, as much as I could read, and when the sermon started I got out the newsletter from last week and my dictionary so I could be doing something I'd understand and not fall asleep. It worked, though it was an awfully painstaking paragraph of bad translation.

Alas, Puujee never did turn up.

So I took the opportunity to go to Bogd Khan's Winter Palace. Not finding the appropriate bus I simply walked the few kilometres south. My first thought on entering the grounds was that someone desperately needs to take an industrial lawnmower to the place. The grass is overgrown with weeds shin-high and then some. The buildings were nicer but just as old and abandoned-looking; a lot of the paintings on the roofbeams were fading. I was interested in the animal figurines on the roofs, which are different from the figurines on Korean roofs. The paintings also reminded me of the paintings in China's Long Corridor, and overall the style of these buildings seemed much closer to the Chinese.

Left: Bogd Khan's winter palace, with lovely roofs, peeling paint, and overgrown grass.

Right: One of the paintings on the roof beams.

Inside each building were statues, paintings and embroidery of the various deities in Tibetan Buddhism. There were English labels and explanations, not quite as repetitive as the ones in Erdene Zuu. The place was fairly deserted, so I took a number of photographs inside when I was alone.

I went around the back of the last building, through a little side-gate, to take a photo of the roof. There I got stung on my elbow by some plant that left it tingling off and on for most of the rest of the day.

The Winter Palace itself was a western-style white building. While I was there a Korean tour group came in, and as they were taking plenty of photos I used them as camouflage for my own photographic endeavours. I discovered there that the hairstyle worn by the royal women (see photo on day 10) is in fact a headpiece, though made with real hair. That's probably less work to maintain, after all...

Right: The royal thrones, with the emblem of Mongolia on the panel behind them.

Downstairs were room upon room of stuffed animals, all explained as "Hamburg 1905", which bemused at least one other tourist. There was also the "animal eats ants" and "lazy antelope", which last was -- no, not a strange species of deer, but rather a sloth.

At the souvenir shop I bought a book of legends, and then wandered about taking photos of all my favourite building paintings. Walked back into town, went shopping in the supermarket, and took a bus home.

Day 16: Monday 21st July

Practised a few Mongolian phrases and tried ringing Puujee's brother, but no answer to his phone - got a 'try again later' message from the phone company.

Went into town, first to the Zanabazar Museum, a museum about the history of Mongolian art. It starts with a small room of everything from rock paintings to the 13th century AD, then the next room is about Zanabazar, a great religious and political figure in about the 16th century, who went to Tibet to study, became known as the incarnation of the Dalai Lama, came back to govern Mongolia, invented a religious alphabet Soyombo, and painted and sculpted many great works of art. What did he do in his spare time, one wonders...

Left: Part of the alphabet Zanabazar invented.

The following rooms were about the development of the arts of thangka (religious paintings on cloth) and embroidery (more religious themes), then tsam masks (for a religious dance) and finally a room about the 20th century artist Sharav, who painted among other things "One Day in Mongolia", and did a lot of propaganda art for the communists when they came to power.

Right: One example of the art of thangka; I didn't write down who it was, but knowing what I like taking photos of it's probably who Koreans call Guanyin/Guanseum, the boddhisattva of mercy and compassion.

On my way out I was pointed to the Red Ger, a room displaying contempory art for sale; very little of it interested me at all, even if it had been anywhere near my price range. Beyond that was a display of some research the French have done into old tomb sites.

Outside I visited first Scrolls, a small second-hand bookshop with a few walls of books including about a dozen science-fiction books. Next the library. Every room seemed to be an office of some kind; I finally found a reading room, and there was a catalogue room on the ground floor. No books, or at least not browsable books.

I went then to a monastery-museum that I'd tried to find another time. I found it this time, but when I went to buy a ticket they told me that the lights were out inside, so I decided to come back tomorrow.

Other random sights included a rock inscribed with the music and words of the national anthem, and a couple of statues, including of course Lenin.

Left: Statue of Lenin

On my way into town I got surrounded by some people selling paintings. I let myself look this time as I do want some, and ended up bargaining for four in total. Was fairly happy with the end price, though also fairly sure that I could have got them for lower; those people weren't grumbling enough at the end.

Took a bus home. Was crowded, so had my bag on my front, tied and clipped shut. It was digging into the back of the guy in front of me and looked pretty secure, until suddenly he jumped off at one busstop and I noticed the bag was open and my cute foldable Walmart bag was missing. Grr! At least there was very little money in that this time, only about US$10. But I liked the bag.

I'd been discussing by email with Dad belatedly buying some travel insurance; this is the day I confirmed it. At this point I was mostly concerned about coverage for my Korea-Thailand flight, if my Mongolia-Korea flight was late again.

Tried phoning Puujee's brother again, but still no luck.

Day 17: Tuesday 22nd July

(At this point I stopped making notes, and my emails are uninformative, which leaves me relying on photos to job the memory. It's possible that some things are written about on the wrong day as a result.)

This appears to have been another lazy day; I have no photos extant.

That being the case, this is probably as good a place as any to describe how, at some point, the hot water stopped working. I don't like cold showers. I ended up boiling water on the stove and mixing that with cold water for a hasty sponge bath.

Phoned Helen, a missionary acquaintance of some church friends of my mother. I'd emailed her a few weeks before coming, so wasn't descending on her entirely out of the blue. We arranged to meet tomorrow for lunch.

Day 18: Wednesday 23nd July

Met Helen for lunch. Can't remember what we ate, except it was very nice, in a popular ex-pat restaurant. We sat by the window and she regaled me with stories about past traffic crashes on the road outside. Afterwards, we walked to a supermarket she likes, and she also showed me a nice souvenir shop. Made plans to meet again.

Went back to the monastery where the lights had been out: Monastery-Museum of Choijin Lama. Turns out I didn't miss anything much. But right at the last temple there was this lovely painting on the wall (directly painted on, I mean): some boddhisatva chap sitting crosslegged in a cave or among clouds... my memory has faded terribly, though I tried to memorise it. It was beautiful and peaceful and also completely unlike any of the other paintings I'd seen; something to do with the colour shadings. I wanted to take a photo, but a caretaker was in the room. I asked if photography was allowed and as I expected she said no. So I started sketching it instead -- and she said that wasn't allowed either. We had a lovely discussion about how it was beautiful, wasn't it? and of course she'd like to let me, but someone might see....

Bought some small card-sized paintings. Considered, on the way home, buying a horse-head fiddle as a souvenir.

Right: A gratuitous scene of the main street of Ulaan Baatar. The ever-present pool table; the cafes, money changers, cobblers and cybercafes to the left; the skyscraper and billboard in the background.

Made a cryptic note on google-groups that "there's nothing good on tv"."

Day 19: Thursday 24nd July

Eventually decided against the horse-head fiddle on the grounds that a) it'd be a nuisance to carry around airlines and Osaka and more airlines; b) it wasn't cheap; and c) it has a great potential for making horrid squeals, and I probably wouldn't practise enough to get past that level. Got a CD instead.

Went to one more temple. (I can't figure out from my Lonely Planet what it was called; it's conceivable I'm confusing this with something else, but I don't think so; it just doesn't match up with anything else.) One of the four traditional guardians by the door was described as "Virupaksa Bisman heaven - Yellow man weared the Zugder headgear and who situated in north. His breath has got a poisonous who always close the mouth. His right hand held the Jantsan and left hand held the little white mouse. that mouse vomit by the dimand. It means the it has provide every good wealth, abundant and resources. Yellow man were the Zulger headgear and who situated in North."

That aside, this temple was exceedingly cool: the roof-beam paintings were of strings of dismembered people, and there were more paintings inside depicting hell, and people getting chopped up and other people being thrown in boiling oil, or eaten by dogs, or all sorts of other horrific things, painted in loving detail. Absolutely gorgeous.

	Decorations in what I call the Temple of Grue.

Attempted to go to the Theatre Museum (with puppets) or the Intellectual Museum (with puzzles and games). Asked around at the places they were supposed to be, but either they've moved or disappeared or they're just in another universe somewhere. Or the people I asked really didn't want me to see them.

Met Helen for dinner; again absolutely delicious. Went back to her apartment and talked for a while over herbal tea. Finally she walked me down to the main street and got a taxi for me. I told the taxi driver to just go straight for so many kilometers, which was fun; though it turned out to be a few more kilometres than I thought. But eventually there were the familiar blue apartment buildings.

Day 20: Friday 25th July

Packed up, cleaned up, took my rubbish downstairs. I'd carefully scouted the place out yesterday and discovered a sort of open-air room, with a wide door up to about chin-height; rubbish could be tossed over.

Toroo picked me up and drove me to the airport. I went through security and waited for the check-in counters to open in the same room as before I'd gone through security. The multi-country clocks on the wall claimed that Beijing and Seoul were at 8:15, and Ulaan Baatar and Tokyo were 9:15. This paradox kept me amused until my plane arrived; and yes, it did indeed arrive, and even took off, and moreover made it all the way back to Korea safe and sound.

My plane, a very welcome sight.	A misty view of Mongolia from the air.

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