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.