Adventures, both failed and successful

REMINDER TO READERS: After this blog post, there will be several posts dealing with interactions with Shamans.  As shamanism is greatly misunderstood in the world, I will keep some posts private. Furthermore, some posts will deal with my interactions with these shamans.  For my own privacy, I will keep some posts protected. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THESE POSTS, please subscribe to this blog and I will be able to select you as a reader. 

Dec 22

It's hard to walk around Mongolia and see the amazing Mongolian winter boots without coveting them.  I mean, they are AMAZING.  Finally I gave in and asked my hosts if we could go to Narantuul "black" market.  I don't entirely know why it's called the black market. It's completely legitimate.  It is, however, quite an experience.   It is huge, and made up of stalls and tarps and the occasional sheet metal wall. It is an absolute labyrinth. I can't imagine trying to go there without an experienced guide.  My experienced guides demanded that I walk arm-in-arm with them, due to the sheer number of people.  I also had to keep my purse under my jacket.  Like any mass market, it's a haven for pick-pockets.  And it has EVERYTHING.  When I say everything, I mean everything.  Garden hoses, wallpaper, buddhist altars, blue jeans, camel wool socks, mongolian deel (robes), western fashion, modern and traditional boots, batteries, shamanic supplies and more.    As we started walking, I couldn't help but get "Portobello Road" from bedknobs and broomsticks stuck in my head.  And it wouldn't stay in my head. I had to sign. Fortunately, I sang quietly. Unfortunately, no one started spontaneously dancing.

Exactly like this. Except no spontaneous dancing.  We went around to several boot makers until finally we found one with quality, price and size that met our needs. I now am the proud owner of the most amazing boots ever.

Containing a felt lining. Mmmmmm.  Man these are awesome.  Our next stop was hats.  I picked up a traditional mongolian hat.  I also wanted a jews harp, or an aman huur (mouth fiddle) as it's known here.  For that, we headed to the shaman quarter of narantuul, where one can fulfill all their shamanic item needs.

Batches of "snakes" (cloth ropes that are attached to a shaman's robes) hung from all the stalls, chimes (hungunur) mirrors (toli) and small metal imitations of weapons and blacksmith tools to be attached to a bartag (beating stick) or robes for protection, butter lamps, statues, and quite a selection of animal parts.  This is the only place to get an aman huur. Although the aman huur is an instrument used in folk music, it is special for shamans, and therefore the best ones are all to be found in shamanic supply stalls.   My host, a shaman himself, helped me test run several aman huur until we found one of decent quality for a beginner.  I still don't know how to play it, but now at least I am starting to learn.

Mungunu (my host) bought a new traditional cigarette holder, as his previous one was broken by his curious two year old, and a few wolf teeth necklaces as gifts for a younger brother visiting from Russia.
Faces stinging from the cold, we hustled our way back through the market to the car and to a local traditional mongolian food restaurant. I ate bintai harshul, (meat broth with dumplings) and we also ordered lamb joint with a sort of steamed pancake and an onion dipping oil and of course plenty of salty milk tea to go around.  The perfect food for a frigid winter afternoon that was quickly turning into evening.

When we came home to show off the amazing boots, we dressed me up in my deel that I got last summer to put together the full look.  Man, those boots are comfortable.

Dec 23

Monday morning I made my way to class.  After 2 weeks of delicious, but quite bland food, I was about ready to kill for something containing vinegar and chilis.  When I told my teacher, he offered to take my out for Korean food.  As we sat getting dinner, we got a call from Mungunu that we would be going up to Selenge Aimag, a province in the far north, next to Russia, for four days.  This sounded like a great adventure, so I headed over to the house.  Mungunu and Soyloo helped me choose appropriate clothing (my Tibetan sheepskin robes, new hat and boots) and Mungunu, Ankhaa, Enkhule and I piled into a car.  Our first stop was to pick up Huygaa at Mungunu's sister's house.

Two of the daughters are part of a girl band and they charmed us with lovely singing.  I, then, was called upon to sing back to them.  Enkhule pulled them aside and told them how to congratulate Tibetan singers, so before long I had a few blue mongolian Khatags around my neck.

We sat around chatting with our hosts, the time getting later and later, but happy to leave late as we would have no traffic and arrive in morning after a 7 hour drive.  It turned out that this was an excellent move.  At around midnight we got into the car and it wouldn't start.  We thought the issue was a lack of gas. We took the family car to the petrol station, filled a gas can and filled up the car.  We made it about half a mile before the car stopped again.  Fortunately, still being near the family home, we were able to catch a taxi and head back to Mungunu's home.  Unfortunately, the trip to Selenge had to be scrapped, but luckily our car broke down at the family home, rather than in the middle of nowhere, at night, on the streets of Mongolia.

Also, fortunately, Mongolia is a culture that loves to joke and get a laugh out of everything. So our adventure in four cars (our car, the family car and two taxis) and 4 hours of travel to go only 15 kilometers became a source of laughter.  We made our way home, had a few drinks and laughed about our mixed fortune and misfortune, before piling into various beds at 4 AM and not waking up until well afternoon.

REMINDER TO READERS: After this blog post, there will be several posts dealing with interactions with Shamans.  As shamanism is greatly misunderstood in the world, I will decide to keep some posts private. Furthermore, some posts will deal with my interactions with these shamans.  For my own privacy, I will keep some posts protected. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THESE POSTS, please subscribe to this blog and I will be able to select you as a reader.  

Daily winter life

From Dec 15
I had been told that my host, Mungunu, a shaman, would be Shamanizing that morning.  However, Enkhule, my friend and translator, had to take care of some work, so we decided to postpone until afternoon.  Morning moved into afternoon and afternoon into evening and Enkhule's work didn't finish, so we just spent the day at home.
Dec 16
In the morning I made my way to Dashchoilin monastery, where my friend Altankhuu, a managing monk at the monastery, would be my teacher.  We covered some very important topics that had been driving me nuts, specifically if constructions, when constructions, and making requests.  All three of which are painfully complicated. However, after a few hours, (and a few bowls of sweet rice) we had made significant progress.

After two hours of intensively practicing these constructions, we decided to get a late lunch (around 2:30 PM) of some khuushuur (meat pasties.)  Just as we were heading out of the monastery to the khuushuur place, Soyloo called me saying come home now, Mungunu will be shamanizing.  Fortunately, Altankhuu has a better understanding of the Mongolian definition of "now" and agreed that as long as we ate quickly, we had time to eat our Khuushuur.  He was right and the khuushuur was delicious. I also tried a drink of boiled curd of some sort. Sweet, sour, salty....all in all very strange.

I jumped in a taxi and made my way to Tolgot, our section of the Ger district.  When I arrived, the house was full of Mungunu's relatives, including several children running around.  One of whom, a little three year old, very quickly learned how to access and use the camera on my phone, even without the password.

During the ceremony, two spirits came to visit. Mungunu's grandmother and grandfather. They advised and blessed the attendees in an overall short ceremony which was hilariously interrupted by children frequently.  It was interesting to see a different shaman, as I had only seen one other Mongolian shaman.  I was interested to look at the similarities and differences. I shall write more about that when I post about the previous experience.

Unfortunately, Enkhule was still busy with work, so all of this was done without a translator. With some help of the dictionary on my phone, we were able to get a basic communication going on more complex topics and after Mungunu came out of trance, he discussed with Soyloo and they were able to express a bit of what I was told.

We then all packed up and went with Mungunu's mother back to her apartment in the city.  She made a delicious dinner of Buuz and we played with the children and went to sleep, 7 adults scattered across the floor of a room that was maybe two and a half meters across.   'Twas cozy.  Being a nomadic culture, like Tibet, when you wake up in this situation, people are scattered differently than they were when they first went to sleep and quite likely in different states of undress, but in a completely platonic way. I never feel like quite as much of a prude and raised in an over sexualized culture as when I'm in Mongolia.  I think I was the only one sleeping in full pajamas. Everyone else was in varied states of underwear.  I think it says much more about America's inability to separate the body from sexuality than it does about nomadic culture.  Kind of sad really.

Dec 17

In the morning, I got a ride to the State Department Store to meet Roy, an australian NGO worker who has been living in Mongolia for the past 6 years.  He invited me to a new year party being hosted for a local orphanage and school for mentally handicapped children.  The party was a blast.  Hosted at an american restaurant, the kids got burgers and fries and fried chicken.  Different kids got up to sing, professional dancers performed and the kids had a blast on the dance floor.

The orphanage and school are run by a catholic charity. When priests or workers come to volunteer, they must first spend a year undergoing intensive Mongolian language training, to gain complete fluency in Mongolian.  In addition, the workers are not allowed to proselytize to anyone.  The goal is just to provide a loving, caring home and school for kids in need.

After lunch I made my way back over to Dashchoilin for a few more hours of class.  We worked on numbers and "Because...so..." constructions.  After class I  went to meet Simon, a former PhD student at University of Washington and a Mongolian literature scholar here with his wife on a fellowship. We had a nice time just sitting, having coffee and chatting.

When I made my way back to Mungunu's mother's house, Mungunu and Soyloo needed to run home to pick up some things. I asked them to get me a change of clothes and my backpack and then they headed off, leaving me with Mungunu's mother, neice and older sister.  Well, when you just have girls.....First came the junk food, then the vodka (...still not a fan), then Mungunu's sister's UNBELIEVABLE HEAD MASSAGE. I cannot even describe it. It was unreal.  I've asked her to teach me, or to let me kidnap her to america.  45 minutes of BLISS.  My scalp was bruised the next morning, but I would do it again. And again. Oh man.  It's not just a head massage, she also does shoulder and upper back.  To give you an idea of HOW GOOD this is, part way through she told me to take off my shirt and unhook my bra so she could properly do my back.  Meanwhile Soyloo, Mungunu and at least one other guy came in AND I JUST DIDN'T CARE BECAUSE WE SHOULDN'T STOP THIS MASSAGE. (Also, nomad culture, no one gives a damn, and I was still somewhat covered from the front).

Dec 18
I was woken up at 5:30 by the arrival of Temujin, a younger brother who has been studying in Russia. He made us breakfast and I went over to the State Department store to finally buy a Mongolian language text book.  Unfortunately, I also seemed to have picked up a cold so class ended early and I went home to get some sleep.

Dec 19
After a slow morning, Chuka came over to take me to Terelj national park.  Chuka and Mungunu chatted for a while about mutual interests, which is good, as Mungunu is very protective of me in Mongolia. He is worried about me getting targeted by bad people, and so felt much more comfortable about me traveling with Chuka after having met him.

Unforunately, traffic was a nightmare and after 2 hours, we still hadn't crossed the city.  Realizing it would be after dark before we could reach Terelj, we gave up on that idea and decided to go to Chuka's place and watch a movie.  Chuka made dinner and we watched "Slumdog Millionaire."  No one warned me it had quite so much torture and police abuse in it.  Still a good movie.

When we got home, we saw Mungunu had been shamanizing again and was quite exhausted, so we all went to sleep.

Back in Mongolia

Since I am also posting back logs, I will write inside of the post whether this post is from the current trip or previous one.  For the duration of my trip, it will probably be current.  Also, setting up a personal hotspot from my phone might have been the best idea EVER.

FROM DEC 12- DEC 14

I got very lucky on my flight from New York to Turkey, sitting next to a wonderful man, originally from Chandigarh, India and now residing in Toronto. He was heading home to India and for a family trip through Himachal, so we spent hours reminiscing about our favorite (and least favorite!) parts of life in India.  We traded tips on the best places to go in Himachal and just had a wonderful ride.  This also helped both of us conquer jetlag, because we didn't sleep for most of the flight.

At Ataturk Airport I made my way to my gate and it became very clear that there would be very few non-Mongolians on the flight.  At our stop over in Kyrgystan, this number dwelled even further.  In addition to the two or three Russians scattered across the plane, there was one family with four adorable blonde children, ranging from around 3 to around 14.  Something about their clothing and speech made me a bit curious as to why an Australian family would be going to Ulaanbaatar in Winter.  I ended up talking to the oldest daughter at the luggage carousel.  The family travels a lot, it seems, but had been settled in UB for the past two years.  When I asked what the parents did, she answered that they were on a language visa and very professionally evaded any request for details.  As usual: Missionaries.

I got a pleasant surprise at the airport to find that I was being picked up by both my friend Enkhule and our friend and my host, Mungunu.  We decided that I should get a SIM card immediately and stopped at the first Unitel shop we saw.  No new sim cards.  Well, that's fine. We went to the next Unitel shop.  Yes, new sim cards, no mini card puncher.  So then we went to another shop where they charged us to punch the card (we joked that the unitel shop keeper and the card puncher must be husband and wife, working a racket.)  But 3g would have to wait.   Welcome to Mongolia!

We made our way back to Mungunu's house where I was able to distribute the massive suitcase of gifts I had schlepped along.   Later several members of his family came over to hang out.  Really wonderful people, including a 13 year old neice named Bujinlham.  Mungunu and Soyloo asked Bujinlham and I to babysit their 2 year old son, Duulag, the next morning.  I thought this would be a great chance to practice Mongolian and agreed.  By 8 PM, jetlag had gotten the better of me, and I collapsed on the bed they had made me.

I woke up at 5:30 to a very surreal scene:  At some point in the night, Bujinlham and climbed in bed next to me, the lights from an LED christmas tree were flashing in my face from the living room, the shaman's altar was too our left and when I looked up I realized that all the shaman's ritual clothing and masks was directly above me.  Welcome to Mongolia!

But it was time to face my fear.  5:30 AM, around -20 F outside, and I had to pee.  I tried to wait it out, I really did. But before long, I knew I would have to face my fear.  I bundled myself up, walked past the scary watch dog (who was tied up for my safety) and to the rickety outside with no light. I successfully relieved myself without freezing, falling in, or being eaten by a dog.  I SURVIVED!

The next morning Mununu headed off to work, and Soyloo headed off to pick up the older child, a girl named Gunje.  Bujinlham and I took turns taking care of Duulag and playing with him and coaching me in Mongolian. Nothing is better for learning Mongolian than a mongolian kid.  In the afternoon, my friend Chuka stopped by, which was awesome.  We made some travel plans for later.

In the evening, Enkhule, Bayra and Tudu all showed up so I distributed more gifts and we sat around talking, drinking a bit, and joking a lot.  I helped peel potatoes and Soyloo made tums khuushuur, fried bread stuffed with milk-mashed potatoes.  We dipped this in Thai sweet chili.  It was one of the most delicious things.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  I ate four.

We ended up staying awake until 3 AM and falling asleep scattered around the house on blankets and pillows.  Some aspects of nomad culture are the same everywhere.  Partway through the night, people changed positions, which led to a lot of jokes about Mungunu having a boyfriend and Soyloo needing a girlfriend now. Mungunu of course proceeded to play along and tease the man who had somehow ended up curled up next to him.  This meant that I needed to snuggle up to Soyloo.  :P

Since my Mongolian language teacher would have a meeting, we decided to head up a mountain to an oboo, or a mountain top cairn.  We got all bundled up and headed up the mountain. At some point at the top, we all decided that it was more appropriate to have a snowball fight than visit the Oboo, so although the men took care of their duties, offering some vodka, we spent the rest of the time tackling each other and trying to get snow in each other's faces at -14 degrees.

That night we all came home, drank tea and sat by the wood stove, ate rice and beef stew and just talked until around 11 when we collapsed from exhaustion, just as scattered around the house as always.  

Whirlwind Tour of Ulaanbaatar!

My second day in Mongolia, I woke up early with Enkhule so he could get to work and take me in to downtown UB.  A Mongolian monk in the USA had introduced me to another Mongolian monk in UB who had once studied in Seattle. Altankhuu, managing monk at Dashchoilin Monastery in UB was once a head monk at Yonghe Gong Tibetan Buddhist temple (the ‘Lama Temple’) in Beijing and had studied in Amdo at Tashikhyil monastery.  Altankhuu, despite never having met me, instantly offered to show me around Ulaanbaatar and help me learn Mongolian. 

Altan picked me up at Enkhule’s work place and drove me to Dashchoilin monastery.  Dashchoilin was once a massive monastery at the center of a massive complex of religious buildings forming the center of UB. Virtually all were destroyed under the Soviet influence and communist years, but Dashchoilin has revived.  The architecture was beautiful and unusual.  All of the buildings were modeled to look like Gers, including the smokehole at the roof. 

A stylized smoke hole in the ceiling of the shrine room

Central shrine in Dashchoilin Monastery.
The giant bead in front of the Buddha is part of the world's largest Buddhist Rosary.

One of the ger-shaped temples at Dashchoilin

Honor guard bringing in the 9 white horsehair banners of Chinghis Khaan

 At Dashchoilin, Altan introduced me to some monks and guests from Inner Mongolia.  As a result, I was speaking Chinese to some people, Tibetan to others, and English to others still!  We met the abbot of Dashchoilin, who fortunately spoke Tibetan and then all piled into cars to Sukhbaatar square, at the center of UB. Unbeknownst to me, today would be the day of the first ever public presidential innauguration!  At the government palace on the south side of the square, the enourmous statue of Chinghis Khaan was framed by the giant, lapis blue outline of a Ger.  The steps had been converted into a massive stage and about a quarter of the square had been roped off, with seats available to ticket holders only. 

The abbot, as a special guest, was quickly ushed to a seat on the steps, and Altan, the inner mongolians and I waited in the crowd.  It turned out to be our lucky day, and all of us ended up with inauguration tickets in hand and got excellent seats for the festivities.  I, in a pair of jeans and flowered blouse felt terribly underdressed compared to the Mongolians who were decked out in their best.  No one told me that I would be attending a presidential inauguration!

The inauguration ceremony itself was set to begin at the hour of the horse (which, I'm not sure exactly, but is either 11 AM or noon depending on who I asked.)  Before that, famous singers performed on stage.  Then came the honor guard with the 9 white flags of Chinghis Khaan, without which the ceremony could not go forward.

As someone who can't speak Mongolian, I didn't understand much of the ceremony itself, but it was amazing to take part!

When the ceremony ended, we piled back into cars and went to visit the Bogd Khan palace museum. The Bogd Khan was the Buddhist Lama King of Mongolia, and the palace museum is a collection of art and artifacts housed in the small, surviving portion of his former palace.  Unfortunately, the price for photo rights was too steep. 

The art was stunning, showcasing different styles of Buddhist art. Although it was all mongolian, some was more influenced by Indian, others by Chinese, others by Tibetan, others purely Mongolian.  The 1920s palace was filled with the Bogd Khan and queen's personal effects.  Like any royal family, they were surrounded by opulence, which at time went truly overboard.  Specifically, a ger entirely covered in leopard skin.  Probably my favorite items in the 1920s palace were the toys that the young Bogd Khan had played with as a child: a doll sized ger, a children's toy boat with moving parts, a child sized throne.  For me, it's always fascinating to imagine what people were like as children and seeing these amazing Mongolian children's toys gave me a chance to wonder what games the Bogd Khan played as a child, the wealthiest and most respected child in the entire country.

I was surprised, at the gate of the Bogd Khan Palace to see the Tibetan word ཤེས་རབ་ (Sherab, wisdom) incorrectly spelled as ཤིས་རབ་ (shirab.)  I pointed this out to Altankhuu who went on to ask someone.  We both were surprised as Tibetan was a major religious language of Mongolia, and several great works of Buddhist literature were written in Tibetan language by Mongolians. Surely, someone would have known the right spelling!  The answer was fascinating: according to a scholar with whom Altankhu spoke, the spelling mistake was demanded by the Qing emperor who controlled Mongolia at the time.  He had demanded that the word wisdom be spelled incorrectly so that Mongolians would not seem well educated as compared to the Qing empire.

From there we went to the Choijin Lama museum. The Choijin Lama was the second Lama after the Bogd Khan, and also a medium of the state oracle.  This museum was amazing.  It was not set up like a museum at all, rather a series of temples with captions.  I cannot even begin to describe it adequately. One temple was made to look like the stylized inside of a meditation cave, with sea green and blue stalactites coming down from the ceiling and framing statues of famous meditators!  At this temple too, the Qing emperors had made demands that certain religious figures be painted who would otherwise not fit into the pantheon represented. Again, this was to signify the strong connection of China to Buddhism, and therefore China's superiority over Mongolia. (Did I mention that Mongolia really doesn't like China?)

At this point, my friend Ganbaa called me and invited me to meet.  Altankhuu dropped me off at Sukhbaatar square where we saw hundreds and hundreds of stunningly dressed Mongolian dancers!  Ganbaa asked what was going on and we found out that we had just missed by minutes a group of 5000 dancers performing a Mongolian folk dance and qualifying for the Guinness Book of World Records.

Ahh well. Can't do everything!  Ganbaa and I sat down in a restaurant, my first time to relax that day. I pulled out a notebook and he helped teach me basic Mongolian verb conjugation and a few basic sentences.  Not long after, Enkhule got off of work and joined us.

We headed up to a big hill, just outside of the city, with a large communist monument on top.  As we started hiking up this hill, I saw a Kazakh man with a golden eagle.  Now, I was damned if I was going to turn down an opportunity to hold a golden eagle!

Yes. it was totally awesome.  

We made our way up the hill, and it turns out it is a popular hang out spot for young people. In the center was a torch-like pit, presumably there had once been a fire there. 

The monument was covered in socialist art.  One that especially caught my eye was Mongolians in traditional dress offering blue khadag to soviet soldiers.  It's kind of strange to see what parts of the soviet period remnants Mongolia has chosen to keep and what parts they hate.  Mongolia seems to have a real love/hate relationship with Russia.

Finally, we drove down the hill to an opposite monument. This one, built not long after the collapse of communism, is an enormous Buddha statue.

At this point, I was exhausted.  Enkhule and I said goodbye to Ganbaa and caught dinner then headed back to the ger district for home.

First day in Mongolia

My flight from Kyrgyzstan left at 3 AM and, with time zones, arrived at 10 in the morning at Chinghis Khaan international Airport, a few miles outside of Ulaanbaatar.  The airport was small, so I was surprised to arrive and look around and not see Enkhule, my friend and host for the duration of my stay.  To make matters worse, Enkhule was one of only two people I knew in Mongolia. Period.  Therefore, when I looked up and saw Ganbaa, the only other person I knew, walking down the stairs in the arrival area, I assumed that Enkhule must have sent him.  Nope. Turns out Mongolia is just a really small country (population-wise, at least.)  Ganbaa gave me a warm welcome and we chatted for a bit as I used his phone to call Enkhule.

Fortunately, Enkhule arrived a few minutes later.  We loaded my bags into the car and started our ride into Ulaanbaatar.  My initial impression of Mongolia was the fact that on the ride from the Capital City international airport into the Capital City itself, the roads were unpaved.  Seriously.  Completely unpaved.  My other impression was absolute exhaustion from pulling an all-nighter on the plane.

Enkhule's home is in the Ger District, the nomad-built suburb of UB.  The Ger District (henceforth, GD) is what happens when a million nomads suddenly have a chance to move into the capital and settle down, with no urban planning.  The roads are unpaved and hardly roads, houses are scattered around with little rhyme nor reason, house numbers are not in order, and there is no running water.  For those of you who know my style of travelling: paradise.  The outhouses on the other hand left something to be desired.

Enkhule's house was behind a scrap wood gate. There was a large Ger (yurt) in the front yard, inhabited by a family that I never really met, nor much about, and protected by several dogs who were rather suspicious of me. I think they had learned to associate "Non-Mongol" with "Missionary."  If that's the case, I forgive their incessant barking.  The house itself was a very simple house with a large storage room, and then a single room, partially split by a wall. On one side was a fridge, stove, sink that functioned through water being poured into a resevoir, a single bed and a television.  On the other side of the wall was a much larger room with cupboards and a few shelves.  Inside the cupboards were the bedding for the rest of the family.  Enkhule told me to go to sleep on the bed and he would wake me after a bit when his friends came by.  I passed out almost immediately.

About an hour and a half later, I woke to Enkhule gently shaking me by the shoulder.  His friends were here, he said, and would be preparing me dinner.  I glanced at the clock. It was only around two o'clock, and I hadn't had breakfast yet, much less lunch.  I quickly splashed some cold water on my face and stumbled outside to find two large, burly young Mongolian men pulling a live sheep out of the back of a pick up truck. They smiled at me and greeted me in Mongolian. I smiled back, too shy and limited to say anything. I threw my camera bag over my shoulder and stepped out into the dusty yard.

One man grabbed sheep's front legs, the other grabbed the hind legs, and laughing and chatting started carrying the sheep out the gate and through the winding alley ways of the Ger District.

We walked out way to a friends home, and the sheep was laid out in the yard.  I didn't want to impose my beliefs or culture on anyone else, but we were about to kill a sheep, and this sheep was about to be killed for me in part, which gets into questionable theological territory. Hesitantly I asked Enkhule, "Look, I know this sounds crazy, but can you ask them if I can pray for the sheep for a bit?"  Enkhule translated my request then turned to me and said "If that's crazy, then we're crazy too."  I knew I'd be OK here.

I prayed for the sheep for a few minutes, turned to Enkhule and his friends, thanked them and stepped back.  Baagi, one of the men, took off his shirt and started sharpening a knife (don't worry, no slaughter pics will be posted.)  Two other men held the sheep as Baagi put the knife to the sheep's stomach, made a small hole, then reached in his entire hand up to the elbow and tore the aorta.  I later found out that Baagi, being a young man, was inexperienced at slaughter.  The time and trouble it took for the sheep to die illustrated this.  I continued quietly praying under my breath as two little girls played in the yard, oblivious to the daily routine of preparing an animal for dinner.

As they worked, one friend's wife sat in the corner, separating blood from meat and cleaning intestines. As the men continued to skin and separate the parts of the animal, she prepared blood sausage.  As the slaughter wrapped up, Enkhule took me into the downtown part of the city to get a sim card for my phone. This process took far longer than it should have.  Now, tired and hungry  I found myself in a car with 4 Mongolian men, of whom I knew one and that was the only one who spoke english.  We drove around town, buying khuushuur (mongolian meat pasties) and eating them in the car as we hunted for outlet adapters and Enkhule desperately tried to teach me how to say "thank you" in Mongolian.  (For some reason, the two most important words to learn in Mongolian: "thank you" and "I don't understand" are also the most difficult to pronounce:  Bayarlalaa and oilgokhgui. COME ON, Mongolian! Are you trying to weed out the weak ones?)

I was surprised, in a capital city, how many gers I was seeing.  I didn't realize then that I was living in the Ger district, or for that matter, what the Ger district is to mongolia.  We stopped at one especially beautiful Ger, where we were treated to some sausage and airag, fermented mares milk.  After my initial dislike of it, airag was starting to grow on me, and together we managed to finish a very large bowl.  The organ meat was still uncomfortable.

By the time we made it back for dinner, I had eaten my "brunch" of several pieces of fried meat pasties, sausage, and an enormous bowl of fermented mares milk, and was now being brought home for a special meal of "new soup."  We went over to Enkhule's friend Mungunu's home and made our way into his ger.  Mungunu, a Boo, or shaman, had a fancy Ger with his ritual clothing and drums hanging from the walls and a shrine int he back.  Although I was allowed to take photographs, he asked me not to post them online.  I can say, however, that I had a stuffed condor over my shoulder. As in taxidermy.

We sat around, almost everyone drank beer (man, I hate beer. I stuck with juice) and out came plenty of organ meat. While I am a big fan of blood sausage, I cannot say the same for the big chunk of sheep's liver I was given. It wasn't bad, it was just so unusual for me.  Fortunately, Enkhule understood and relayed to my hosts that I was just getting used to Mongolian food, and that we don't normally eat this part of the animal in the west.  The new soup, however, was rich and delicious. Basically just a meat broth.

We sat around in the ger joking and teasing. Everyone was very kind about the fact that I couldn't speak Mongolian and either spoke through Enkhule or using hand signals.  I didn't feel like I was Enkhule's guest, I felt like I was everyone's friend. Being new to Mongolia, I didn't know the protocol for the ger, and twice made the mistake of stepping between the central support poles. Both times I was good-heartedly yelled at by Mungunu.  By the second scolding, I had figured out what I was beings scolded for!

Mungunu's wife, Soyloo, came in with their children, a little six year old girl and a two year old boy.  The boy had never seen a white person before and screamed in terror whenever I looked at him, to the amusement of everyone else present.

I was introduced to all the friends, Baagi, Mungunu, Tudu, and others who's names I've forgotten now.  At one point, while joking around, I twisted Enkhule's arm, then gave him an arm massage to make up for it.  Mungunu pointed to his lower back and said something. Enkhule explained that Munugnu was experiencing lower back pain and asking if I could help. As a frequent sufferer of lower back pain, I did, indeed, know a good trick.   I learned this trick from a Tibetan monk who worked on sand mandalas. Nothing is worse on your lower back than hunching over a sand mandala all day.

I turned to Enkhule "Tell him I can help him. But tell him he isn't going to like it."  Enkhule nodded and translated, then said "OK."  I said again "I need you to make sure he understands, he really isn't going to like this." Enkhule translated again and said "Yes, it's fine."  Finally I said "Does he fully understand that he is not going to like this at all."

"Yes, already!"

I signaled to Mungunu to stand up.  I stood behind him and started punching him in the lower back.  He shouted went down to his knees and held up his hands in surrender saying "no, no, no!" as everyone else in the ger started cracking up. I tried to get him to stand up again and he just kept waving me off and scuttling away saying "no, no, no!"  I turned to Enkhule and said "I told him he wouldn't like it!"

Well, the other men took this as a challenge and all stood up for me to punch them in the back.  They all took it well.  I even gave Mungunu the opportunity to punch me in the back.  Then we all collectively, in English and Mongolian, told him to suck it up.  I finished punching him and sat down.  He looked at me with great suspicion.

About ten minutes later, he stood up, his eyes went wide, he looked at me again and went "WOW!" and started giving me a thumbs up and speaking rapidly to Enkhule in Mongolian.  He spent much of the rest of the evening standing up, sitting down, rubbing his back in wonder and giving me a thumbs up.   For the rest of the trip it became a running joke with those guys that we would threaten to punch each other in the back.  And whether it was the punching or not, I can't say, but those folks would become my closest friends in Mongolia.

First full day in KTM

OK, I've made massive notes about Mongolia and I am writing them out, but today was a bit intense in Kathmandu, so I felt I should write about what's going on starting with the most important words: nothing to worry about.

This morning, I headed over to start recording.  We managed to re-record a song that I was unhappy with, as well as an entirely new song. Both came out very well and we will probably do mixing and the like tomorrow.

While I was waiting, I decided to check facebook and saw that a Tibetan monk had self immolated in Boudha that morning.  Fortunately, I am neither staying, nor working in Boudha, but none the less this was a concern.

After finishing up at the studio, I called some friends, who all said not to come to Boudha, that it was swarming with security and probably not even possible to get near the stupa, period.  My Tibetan friends did not want to go anywhere near there.  Overall, however, the view is that things will be back to normal tomorrow, therefore there is nothing to be overly concerned with.

In the afternoon, I went to meet Tsering Gyurmey, who is amazing at Piwang. I asked his help with one song and he kindly agreed, then we just sat around and chatted, as we hadn't seen each other in years.

Expect more posts about Mongolia soon!

Kyrgyz Country side

Lack of internet but so much going on! The best I can do is try to summarize. I will post photos later, but it's more important just to get the words out.

We drove out of Issyk Kul, got lunch in Bishkek (where I discovered the magic that is okroshka. Just try it. Now.) and then headed over to the pastures near Talas.  We had a crisis involving a CRAZY CRAZY driver who wanted to charge us 1000 som more to take us to the exact place we told him we wanted to go.

The passes were over 10,000 feet, which made me happy, and covered in snow despite it being early July.

We found a yurt with nomads happy to take us in, a mother, her daughter and her neice.  The mother was pregnant with twins, yet insisted on doing all the work. We did try our best to take care of her.

Unfortunately, the cold weather and altitude struck Aijaan rather hard, so I was largely left to my own devices.  Our hosts didn't speak a lick of English so I spent this time learning Kyrgyz! Within a few days, I had mastered some basics.

On our second day, there was a horse race festival for the local nomads.  It featured wrestling, racing, and the local form of polo involving a dead, headless goat.  Unfortunately, due to a lack of women, they did not take part in the one sport I wanted to see, Girl Chasing.  During this sport, women get on horse back and men get on horseback. The women get a head start down a racetrack and the men must chase them down and give them a quick peck on the cheek. If the woman avoids being kissed, she earns the prize, If the man succeeds, he earns it. They joked that I should race, and had there been more women, I would have.

I was able to take part in some of the nomadic work. For example, I milked a mare. I also separated the cream from the milk to make Kaimak, one of the most delicious foods in the world, the thick, yoghurt consistency cream that is spread on bread. Yum!

After the horse race, a family gave us a ride into Talas.  Talas was far smaller than expected which created some difficulties, specifically no ATM that would accept a mastercard debit card. We also had trouble finding a hotel.  And unfortunately, all there was to see was the Manas Mausoleum and Museum, both of which were interesting, but not worth the overnight in Talas.

We went back to the pastures where I spent more time meeting the nomadic neighbors, drinking Komuz, eating Kaimak and learning basic Kyrgyz.  It was by far my favorite part of the trip :)

Last Days in Issyk Kul

All of the rich food of the previous days took a bit of a toll on me, so I spent my first morning in Issyk Kul in bed, drinking tea.  The local cure for an upset stomach is vodka, so Aijaan ran out to a shop and brought back more tea and 50 gm of vodka.  I managed to down it, but it burned so hard, it took my two tries and I thought I was going to lose it.  I managed!!!

Once I was feeling a bit better, we made it down to the beach, and what a beach! The water is ocean blue, and cool but not cold. People were swimming, paddle boating and also just relaxing on the beach. The sands of Issyk Kul are famed for their healing properties, especially for asthma and arthritis, so Aijaan and I covered ourselves in sand.  The sand is SO iron rich that when I brought my camera bag, which has a tiny magnet, the magnet was covered with black iron filings.

People are also walking around selling things. A lot of people were selling fresh smoked fish, which was a huge temptation, but with an upset stomach, we decided to wait a day.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Choldon Ata to see the petroglyphs.

The petroglyphs were about 4000 years old and mostly depicted different hunting scenes. Of course we also found some "modern" petroglyphs.  Mostly young punks writing things like "I love you".

The field of petroglyphs was huge. Then our driver told us that there was a place called Rokh Ordo, a spiritual center, nearby. Aijaan got very excited, because she had heard of this place, but thought it was further away. Of course we had to go!  The center was built by the same man who made Supara. He made it as an homage to all religions, philosophies, and thinkers who love peace.  The idea was to show respect to all and show love for all religions, without saying one is right, but instead that all love peace and all religions and philosophies that love peace are a path to peace and love.

An Islamic center and Russian Orthodox center in the background, with the old Kyrgyz gods in the foreground

Rokh Ordo

Young Kyrgyz man with a young golden eagle

Catholic saints

Buddhist Center

Victor Hugo

Jewish center

This place is also largely devoted to Kyrgyz writer Chinghis Aimatov and has a hall devoted to him.  As we were walking over to that hall, we found that we were being followed....

A professional photographer had taken a liking to us!  So those of you who saw my recent facebook profile picture. That's from him.

The next day, we again spent our morning on the beach. We couldn't decide what to do for lunch, so we had a picnic on the beach! We ate Samsa, pieroshki, and bought one of those whole, smoked fish.  Those things are not the easiest to eat! First we had to peel off the skin, then cut out the meat. But wow, it was worth it.  If you ever go to Issyk Kul, you MUST eat a smoked fish.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Karakol to see the Chinese Mosque and the Karakol museum.  Both of these were wonderful, but we agreed that it was not worth the two hour drive in each direction.

Day Two. Bishkek to Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan

Jet lag started the morning early. We had breakfast at our hotel, a very russian breakfast of juice, blinchikis (kind of like a crepe), sausage and eggs.  We then made our way to Dordoi, the largest bazaar in central asia.

Dordoi Bazaar

The bazaar was the definition of Kyrgyzstan's diversity. My hostess, fluent in several local languages, was able to point out through language, dress and accent, where people were from: Uzbek, Chechen, Kyrgyz, Russian, Kazakh and so forth.

The bazaar had everything. Our favorite parts were the shops that sold traditional clothing and modern Kyrgyz fashion. Both of which are extremely popular.

Kalpak, one of the traditional styles of men's hat

We found a wonderful hat shop also selling traditional Kyrgyz ladies' scarves, a necessity for some of our site seeing, such as visiting the inside of local mosques.

Aijaan (my hostess), pushed me away from the variety of bazaar snacks. Normally I'd object, but her reasoning was valid: "They don't make it well here. You have to eat this in Issyk Kul."  Except when we hit the Samsa.  Samsa are one of her favorite snacks, and I understand why! It's a triangular puff pastry filled with ground meat and onion. She got chicken, I got beef.  Really good! We also bought some fresh cherries.

After last night's extremely rich dinner (horse meat, anyone?), we opted for a much lighter lunch, then got in the taxi for Issyk Kul. Our driver was an older man, originally from Issyk Kul, who made the ride a blast by pointing out everything on the road, trading jokes and puzzles and talking to us about Kyrgyz culture and history. His wife ended up in the taxi, and a few hours later, his son and daughter in law, so before long this was a family trip to Issyk Kul.  His wife brought sour apples, fresh apricots and home made bread, all of which were delicious.

Road to Issyk Kul

The ride to Issyk Kul took around three and a half hours, but since we left pretty late, we only arrived nearing 8 PM.  Aijaan and I headed off to find dinner and I heard a rustling. I looked down to see something, roughly pica sized, running around. She said "It's a hedgehog". Holy moly, Kyrgyzstan has wild hedgehogs.

In the restaurant, one ran across the restaurant and took a nap behind the counter.  Apparently, he's a regular. I shall take photos of the next one I find.

Not much else to report!  Shall write more tomorrow.

Day 1, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan: The Journey Begins

Technically, this post encompasses two days, but it was around 24 hours.

I flew from JFK to Moscow on Aeroflot, which was much more comfortable than expected. Then again, I did get the exit row all to myself.  I was pleasantly surprised by the movie selection and food. All in all, Aeroflot gets my approval.

Moscow airport, on the other hand, could use some organization.  It was very difficult to figure out where to go to get to international transit (eventually I found a guided tour of about 15 Chinese athletes, all of whom were at least 6 feet tall.  Amalia used CHINESE. It was very effective.)  To make matters worse, after getting through passport and security, the Bishkek flight was listed as being at gate 19. It wasn't at gate 19.  At the time the flight was supposed to board, it was STILL listed as gate 19.  It was gate 32.

But Moscow wasn't a total loss. Meet Cheburashka, the former Soviet claymation star who will be my co-traveller on this journey.

If I squeeze his hand, he speaks in Russian.  I don't understand it, but whatever.

Three hours later, we arrived in Bishkek. The landscape during landing was amazing. The central Asian Steppe must be seen to be believed. It's so broad and smooth, that it looks almost as if a giant blanket has been thrown over the landscape.

And then there are the mountains and the poplars. In terms of nature, this place looks like Lhasa, but altitude wise it's rather low at only 2600 feet.

It's a small city, with less than 1,000,000 people.  The nation only has about a 6 million population total.  My friend, Feruza, picked me up at the airport. She is Kyrgyz, originally from Osh in the south, but she's spent a lot of time in Bishkek. She was concerned about Bishkek as a developing city, but as the capital of a nation that has only been independent for 21 years and had two major uprisings in the past 10, it's doing amazingly! The streets are clean and organized, there doesn't seem to be a lot of crime, it feels safe, there are very few beggars (we saw 4), and everyone we saw appeared well clothed and well fed.

Bishkek is very diverse, even within the Kyrgyz Muslim ethnicity. You would see a woman in a mini skirt and tank top, next to another woman in traditional dress with her headscarf tied behind her head, next to a woman who had adopted the Arabic style of Hijab. There are also many Russians here, most of whom do not speak Kyrgyz.  For young people, there is a debate between whether it is better to know Kyrgyz or Russian.

We wandered around town, mostly so that I could buy a charger for the gopro camera (I knew I forgot something!) and I got to try one of the national drinks, Shoro, a sour, salty grain drink. Not my cup of tea, but very interesting, at least.  What's interesting about Shoro is that, in an effort to popularize local culture, Kyrgyz businessman Tabylydy Egemberdiev started bottling and mass producing it. What this meant was that although the local art of making this drink was being lost in Soviet and post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, he managed to repopularize it.  I saw at least 7 street-corner stands with women pouring brand-name Shoro from coolers. His efforts at re-popularizing Shoro have been an amazing success.

We made our way over to Supara, a Kyrgyz cultural complex and restaurant, which was also founded by Egemberdiev, with the same goals in mind.  He has managed to make a high class, yet still affordable, restaurant complex, showcasing Kyrgyz traditional arts, architecture, food and culture, in a way that pushes Kyrgyz culture forward in the Kyrgyz mass media.  Again, he is succeeded. While we were there, we saw a deputy of the Kyrgyz parliament with her family, several major Arab investors, some Turkish tourist, and plenty of families and parties of Kyrgyz people looking for a good dinner and a good time.

I also had the good fortune to meet a man dressed as the legendary King Manas.  The epic of King Manas contests with the epic of King Gesar for the longest epic poem in the world. It holds a similar level of importance.  The flag of Kyrgyzstan, for example, represents the opening of a yurt and the symbols of King Manas: the two things that Kyrgyz people feel best represents Kyrgyzstan.  This actor also prided himself in looking like Genghis Khan.

And the food. Oh the food. First we had Boorsok, a puffy fried bread bite. We also had Nan, a baked bread, and both of these were dipped in kaimak, an extremely heavy cream yoghurt.

For our main course, we had Besh Barmak, or "five fingers", a dish consisting of five parts: Horse meat, horse sausage, horse intestine, horse meat broth, all over home made noodles.  Horse meat is a food of the aristocracy and it is so much better than I could have expected.  Definitely worth trying!

Of course, if horse meat intimidates you, they had a mutton version and several tamer, yet still traditional dishes, such as dried yak meat with pickled cabbage, fried mutton with potatoes  a few kinds of soup and some lighter dishes.  We, however, went for the richest of the rich.  Be forwarned, this is extremely rich and even local people when unused to eating this on a daily basis will suffer an upset stomach.  I was fine.

We then made our way back into the city center, which is presided over by an enormous statue of King Manas, labeled "Generous Manas".

By enormous I want to note that I wasn't kneeling to take this picture.  We walked around the central square, saw the parliament building, and I learned more about the recent history of Kyrgyzstan, including the uprisings in 2005 and 2010 against corrupt presidents. The 2010 uprising resulted in the deaths of 200 protestors, when the president's brothers ordered the army to open fire.  Their names are on plaques on the gates of the parliament building, and a large monument honors their sacrifice for Kyrgyz freedom.

By this time, the jetlag was hitting me hard, so we made our way back to the hotel. It turned out that there was a singing competition on TV.  During this competition, local singers from a village came out, men versus women.  They traded songs and jests and puzzles, such as "What is soft and sweet but has no sale value on the market" (Sleep), "What has no legs nor feet, yet can move extremely fast" (Gossip).  It was a blast to watch.

Next up: The bazaar, historical museum and on the way to Issyk Kul!