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.