The Most Sparsely Populated Country in the World

         Chinggis Khaan, silent, authoratative, paternal, presides over present-day post-imperial, post-totalitarian, successfully democratic Mongolia, the most sparsely populated country in the world (pop. ca. 2.8 million; density 1.76/sq km), with a land area about the size of Alaska. Chinggis Khaan is their mono-hero, so it seems, present on all their money (as Mao is in China and Gandhi is in India), his statue and (imagined) likeness everywhere.          
         I had read (or rather listened to) Jack Weatherford's marvelous "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" before coming on the trip. In it I learned that Genghis Khan--or Chinggis Khaan the way it's spelled in Mongolia--spent the first 60 years of his life bringing the warring Mongolian tribes together into a single nation and fighting force, then having consolidated his power, went on to conquer the surrounding territories and make them his vassals. His innovations included a strict military meritocracy that avoided nepotism, a number of military strategies based on the assumption that his foe would underestimate him, such as pretending to flee and then when the enemy was sufficiently stretched out, turn and attack mercilessly; terrifying siege tactics, including hurling burning oil over the city walls--an anticipation of napalm--and ultimately of putting gunpowder and various heavy objects into a metal tube and firing it off--the cannon. His sons extended the Mongol conquest westward, becoming the scourge of Eastern Europe, and, by defeating so many aristocratic-based armies, dealt a death blow to feudalism. And unlike the Christians, he never tortured his enemies, although he did come up with some novel ways of putting his enemy chieftans to death, such as sewing a group of them up in a carpet and having them trampled.
         It would not be an exaggeration to say that as a world figure and the most successful Mongol in history, he has become the guiding spirit of the country. It is apparently impossible to name too many things after him.
          But in the 20th Century, Mongolia became famous for something else: dinosaur fossils, starting with Roy Chapman Andrews' 1922 expedition into the Gobi desert under the auspicies of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Armed with a side pistol against bandits, and sporting a wide brimmed hat, he became the scientist-adventurer model for Indiana Jones. I had read his children's book "All About Dinosaurs" in the fourth grade, and now I had a chance to see the sites where he had made his great discoveries.
          I had emailed GobiTours based on their website, and they had responded with some suggestions and also left phone messages at our hotel. Once we got moving Monday morning, after having arrived so late, Enktuya Banzrachg, a perky middle-aged Mongolian woman, came to meet us at our hotel and took us to an ATM close by and also the airline office where we bought our tickets to Dalanzagdag, the major city that is the jumping off place for tours of the Gobi. Since flights were every other day, we took her offer of a two-day tour starting that very day, to Terelj National Park, about two hours from Ulaanbaatar, and the monumental statue of Chinggis Khaan, and including a horseback ride. We would sleep in a yurt or ger that belonged to a family living in a ger camp in the park. Conditions would be primitive. Were we ready?
         Of course! This is exactly what we wanted, to be in the wild, to get to know the locals with roots in nomadism, after the programmed and controlled environment of Beijing.
          Our driver came about 3 pm, and we headed for the park, arriving about 5. On the way we passed what looked like a number of tourist camps, including one with gray life-size dinosaur models. This looked much more like an ongoing established business than our guidebooks had given us to understand. There were volleyball courts, what looked like a small soccer field with goal posts, some very colorful buildings in bizarre shapes, and many, many gers. It was right before the official start of the season. No swimming facilities were in evidence.

           Right before we arrived at our final destination, our driver stopped in front of an impressively towering rock, right on the side of the road. It was clearly a landmark in the park, of a piece with the rocks that surrounded the road, but separate, a centerpiece, the star of the show. I jumped out and photographed it, framed by its wispy birches.

          Our ger camp had a full complement of cattle roaming around, some of them scratching themselves on the simple rail fencing that still had its bark on, chickens in a coop, a dog curled up to keep warm. Our hosts were a youngish couple with an impish little girl of about three. The mother kept mentioning "poot," which I figured out was food. We had stopped at a "supermarket" for supplies on the way. I had allowed myself to be seduced by the Mongolian version (citing Chinggis Khaan's very mobile army) of jerky, which turned out to be some kind of shredded meat with sticks in it that were actually pieces of unshredded meat. In my mouth it reconstituted itself into a rather fatty mass that I couldn't completely reduce by chewing and had to spit out.

 I had also bought a mini-loaf of dark bread an a small carton of drinkable blueberry-flavored yogurt. I also had my dried fruit and coconut snack from Nepal, but there's only so much you can eat of this. Barbara bought some plastic wrapped cheese slices and bread.
           Following the advice of the guidebook, I had brought gifts from the US, having them dragged them with me throughout the whole trip. Now was the time for the first distribution. I found the family in their kitchen hut, which was piled high with dirty dishes. Family and friends were there, the men smoking. I gave the little girl a sheet of number and heart stickers and the mother a pair of decorative nail clippers. Both of them ended up in the hands of the little girl, and when the cardboard mounting wrapper for the nail clippers tore, she began to cry. The mother unwrapped them, though I protested that they were not for a baby, but the tot could only be consoled with the breast, which the mom pulled out; the babe connected, and all was suddenly calm.

          Barbara and I decided to take advantage of the breathtaking natural emplacement of the camp. We were in a natural bowl, with rock sloping up on three sides, like a small cirque. We began to hike up the slope on the opposite site of the access road. It was past 5 pm, and the sun was low overhead, with a cloud cover that distributed the sun's light in focused sweeps across the landscape. As we climbed higher the various planes of mountain, tree lines and rocky outcroppings darkened and brightened, creating a series of light variations on the magnificent diorama spread out before us, punctuated by that lone rock tower, and which I had fun finding compositions in that reminded me of my favorite 19th Century landscape painters from Caspar David Friedrich to Frederick Church and Albert Bierstadt. We also noticed delightedful little irises growing very close to the ground, and some mosses among the lichens on the rocks.

          It was soul-calming to be up there, just to be surrounded by the wide embrace of those rocks. We also saw a monastary off in the distance, and above it some colorful writing on one of the vertically sloping rock surfaces.
         We had been given what must have been their guest ger, number 1. This was much better organized than the guidebook had given me to understand: they were operating a bed and breakfast, albeit a modest one with no running water. But it was very authentic. Every ger had a gaily painted door, and even the wooden struts that held up the tent were individually painted with traditional designs.

          When we got back to the ger, our host made a fire in the wood stove in the center, which heated the place up pretty quickly. There was also a large party ger with a sound system and a bar, and they were playing one of those pop tunes I hear too often at the weddings I photograph. I hoped they didn't expect us to party, drink and dance to this American music.

           They didn't. Barbara and I ate our provisions, Barbara making a very quickly grilled cheese sandwich on the stove, and I doing in-the-mouth battle with my Chingis Khaan (mostly) shredded jerky. Soon, however, the fire was out, and our host had to return with his blowtorch in a can to get the split logs going again. I stoked it after that.
          To call the bathroom primitive would be an understatement. A little hut painted green about 80 feet from our ger, its operative part consisted of a floor of planks over a deep hole with a plank missing in the middle. One crouched, of course, and brought one's own paper. I immediately dreaded stepping into the hole.

           We put ourselves to bed, and soon the fire was out again. The beds were warm and firm, but not too hard. My bladder being what it is, I had to pee 7 times during the night, and each time I put on my socks and shoes and coat, grabbed my iPod for light and forayed out. There were bright lights mounted on chest-high poles, so you could avoid the cow-pies and manage not to step in the hole in the outhouse, but the lights ruined the brilliance of the starry moonless sky.
          I was up and taking in the morning at 6. The sun was bright and low in the sky imparting a lining of light on the grazing cows in the neighboring compound, and the previous day's overcast sky had given way to clear blue garnished with cirrus wisps.

           Our hostess served us tea around 7: hot water in a large thermos, a teabag and a cup; and hard cakes from a plastic bag. Horseback riding was on the agenda, but the horses were otherwise occupied. Waiting on them, Barbara and I took another hike up another slope, this one leading to a stand of elegant birches. The sky was much clearer, and a haze had settled in, so the landscape magic was gone, though the view was still interesting.

           At about 11 two horses showed up, and we quickly understood that we would be led on them by a rope held by a walking guide. This was not real horse riding. Barbara imediately said we'd only take an hour of this poney ride, since it wasn't what she'd  had in mind. As for me, I would have been just as willing to skip it. We did see some new perspectives, but riding on a walking horse for an hour felt like an exercise in muscle tension. I did not bond with my animal, who seemed barely to tolerate the excursion.

View from my mount of my horse's neck and our guide. It was a very perfunctory exercise.

We did see this rock formation fairly closeup from horseback, however.

          Finally, we rejoined our driver, paid for the lodging and horse experience (a total of 40,000 MNT or Mongolian currency units each, or $24), and headed off to the monumental Chinggis Khaan statue. This had been constructed six years ago on the site where Chinggis Khaan was said to have found his legendary golden horsewhip. It was made of a shiny chrome-like metal, and evoked the proportions of the Black Hills Crazy Horse, though I'm sure it wasn't as large. Where the parking lot ended and the walkway began and enterprising eagle owner had brought three magnificent birds and perches, and for 2000 MNT you could pose with one on your gloved arm. It was exactly what I had dreamed of doing, but had given up on, since we weren't getting to the far West of the country where eagle hunting is practiced. Our driver took the photo.

          For the 7000 MNT entry ticket, you not only got to climb the horsehead of the statue and face the stern paternal and wise visage of the Great Khaan, there was a Bronze Age museum and a Mongol Empire artifacts museum that were both quite worth while. The former contained figurines and belt buckles that reminded me of Viking culture, and the latter had the actual helmets (looking like 1930s versions of space man helmets), spear points, a bow and embossed cannon tubes (the Mongols invented the cannon) that were used in the 13th and 14th Centuries.

           On the main floor next to the gift shop was a full rack of cloaks and hats from Mongol Empire times that you could pose in. I couldn't resist buying a Mongol hat in the shop: silk and fox fur with a red ribbon, for 65000 MNT, or $36. These were over $150 in the US.

View from the ground.

The entrance gate arch, with the statue visible inside.

The array on top of the gate arch.

Detail of the array of soldiers on top of the arch.

One of the bronze soldiers that flank the walkway up to the main building.

          We were back in Ulaan Baatar by 3 pm. I visited the office of our tour operator to pay her the balance for our Gobi tour, on the way passing a statue of Marco Polo! How refreshing to see him honored in the capital that is the successor to Kublai Khan's.

         Then I passed by the central square and parliament building, where squat in the center of the facade sat--you guessed it--Chinggis Khaan. The square supported a charming business of two- and three-seat bicycles, as well as battery-powered miniature vehicles for small children.

       I stopped in at a Korean restaurant for an excellent and quite ample dinner on my way back to the hotel, but I still wondered about Mongolian cuisine. Mongolian barbecue had enjoyed a brief popularity back in the 90s, and I wondered what it was now, at its best, in the capital of the place. 

         I found out once we were camped in yurts in the Gobi: the staples were friend bread and overcooked (and often too tough to chew) goat meat, with chunks of goat fat, that I refused to put in my mouth.