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  • Day 15

    Coming into Ulaanbaatar

    July 9, 2018 in Mongolia ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Due for arrival in Ulaanbaatar at 6.50 a.m. I woke at around 5 on the train to be greeted with the most magnificent view of the Northern Mongolian countryside. A vast open space bordered by hills with patches of early morning mist and a lone rider on horseback. It would have made the most wonderful photograph had the call of a more immediate nature not pulled me onward. By the time I had got to my camera the mists had lifted and we had left the rider far behind. The scenery continued to impress for miles, looking exactly as I had expected Mongolia to be. It was love at first sight.
    Mention should be made of our lovely travelling companion Anya. The second class carriages are all four berth affairs and we knew that the chances were that we would be spending many hours in close proximity to a complete stranger. Fortunately our luck was good and we were to be sharing with a delightful young Swedish woman who had decided, upon finishing her studies to pursue her mother's dream of travelling the Trans-Mongolian railroad. Anya was charmingly underprepared for the journey, having assumed that a credit card would be sufficient for her needs and thus carrying no cash. Luckily I still had a sufficient amount of roubles to accommodate a small loan when her blood sugar levels got the better of her pride. Like every Swede I have ever met she spoke impeccable English and, being a young lady, smelt a good deal better than me and the boy by journey's end in spite of the washing facilities previously mentioned. We could not have asked for a better comrade.
    We left Anya behind at the cash machine, where the angels of lone travellers caused her to run into the guide she had contacted in Sweden. Her guide was also kind enough to arrange a taxi to our hostel, where we greeted by the garrulous Gan and his wife. The early train had brought a fellow traveller and whilst the kids retired to our room she and I were regaled by Gan with what he regarded as a "lovely conversation " but what in fact was a lengthy monologue on his life story, interspersed with a few facts about Mongolia. It turned out, speaking to fellow inmates later that this first warm, if rather eccentric introduction, is standard and rather calculated. After the first day, and having learnt that we had already booked a tour of the countryside with another agency we heard little more from Gan for the rest of our stay. That is to say, we heard little more until it had finally sunk in that there was no further business to be gained. Gan has a poor memory, compounded I think by alcohol dependency. On asking for directions to a passable yet cheap restaurant for lunch Gan offered to accompany us across the road where he too ordered, talked, asked us again about our tour plans and then left, leaving us to pick up the bill. Not to worry, I told the children, this is probably some cultural thing and the amount is trifling. Probably the kindness would be repaid somehow. It never was and I doubt he remembered. We heard little from Gan again except to ask for a loan and whether he could come and drink beer in our room, out of sight of his long suffering wife. Occasionally he would forget that we weren't interested in taking a tour with him and ask again about our plans but it was clear by then that the friendliness was driven by commercial interests. On the upside, the hostel was decent for the price, with a young, international and interesting clientele and on the doorstep of the Gandan monestary, headquarters for Mongolian buddhism.
    In the afternoon we went to have a look at the monestary, a large complex of buildings serving as seminary and centre of worship for a population that since the fall of the communist government identifies in the majority as Buddhist. I say "worship" advisedly, as in my understanding of Buddhism, worship does not really figure as a practise. This was shown to be a rather academic understanding, as in practise Mongolian Buddhism, which is basically Tibetan yellow hat school, is as devout in its attachment to iconography and pantheon as Russian Orthodoxy. Indeed the proliferation of shops around the complex, selling various artifacts was strikingly reminiscent of what we had seen around the cathedrals of Kiev. The central feature of the complex is a temple which houses a 25 meter, 20 ton statue of the Avalokakiteshvara bodhisattva. Entirely covered in gold leaf it is hollow and houses tons of medicinal herbs, sutras , mantras and even a fully furnished yurt. It is a copy of the early 20th century original, rebuilt in the 90s after the first was destroyed by the communists. It is said that this embodiment of the principle of compassion was largely melted down to produce bullets.
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