flowers from selenge

Robbie Burns once wrote that the best laid plans go awry, so what better solution than to make no plans at all?

On Friday after a few harried text messages earlier that morning, I hopped on the overnight train to Selenge with three friends. I knew so little that I'd packed my sleeping bag, baby wipes, toilet paper and a miniature bottle of mango scented Body Shop liquid soap my my mum gave me as a Christmas stocking stuffer about 15 years ago.  It has been to countless music festivals and on as many camping trips and is still going!  I had anticipated that we'd be sleeping in gers and eating mutton for a few days. Believe it or not I was a bit excited at the thought of eating decent Khorkhog, it's been a while since I've had an opportunity to chew on gamey fat and bones - the best stuff is always eaten in the countryside!

Train travel, even first class, is cheap here. A four bed, soft sleeper coupe will set you back all of 18,000MNT - or a little under $15. Our journey took 8 hours, enough time to enjoy the wood fired urn and the rattle of the tracks as I drifted off to sleep.  When we were woken at 5 (apparently they make one of those in the morning too) we were in Sukhbaatar, the tiny capital of Selenge right on the Russian border. Another half an hour and I would have needed a visa and money for bribes! 

Jen, Me, Catherine, Jessy - First Class!

After glancing at the half page of information on Sukhbaatar offered in the Lonely Planet the night before, we decided that we'd splurge and head for the classiest hotel in town - the Delphin. Described as a "new place" with "some" modern furniture it was the line about the "over the top kitch extravaganza, with gaudy furnishings, wolf pelts and Greek statuettes" that really got us over the line. Naturally we were disappointed (though it wasn't entirely unexpected) when the receptionist, who we could see had been sleeping behind the counter, told us the rooms were "bakhui" - a word you will quickly become familiar with if you spend any time in Mongolia. Never mind, we were still slightly stupefied from a lack of sleep and carried on.

Sukhbaatar the man

Sukhbaatar the station

After a few laps of the town we found a hotel that offered rooms of the "lux" and "half lux" variety. We took one of each and for the equivalent of about $10 per person we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the rooms, albeit slightly perplexed by the lack of toilet seats even in the "lux" room.  We napped then spent the rest of the day ambling about the streets chasing pigs and exploring the small market where we bought bread (still warm)and jam (wild blueberry) which we later ate over a game of gin and some beers back at our hotel.

Quality fittings in our "Lux" room

Toilet, no seat

Jen - Жен

Wandering through the market

Friendly town folk

Sukhbaatar sits right on the Selenge River which feeds into Russia's famous lake Baikal. We could see the river from the train as we pulled into town but it was on the 'other' side of the tracks.  In the afternoon we followed the tracks for a few hundred metres until we could see a gap in the concrete and barbed wire fences surrounding what looked like small wheat silos. Where the wheat would have come from still remains a mystery. There was an audible sigh amongst our small group as we caught our first proper glimpse of the river.  I think it was a combination of the river's beauty and the fact we were quite relieved we'd found a way to get to it!  The bank of the river was dotted with abandoned buildings, some of which had been occupied by some errant pigs (I saw more pigs in one weekend in Selenge than I have in the whole time I've been in Mongolia)!

Pig

Pig

Approaching the river

Pigs near the abandoned buildings

How's the serenity? 

We walked and sat, sat and walked and just enjoyed the general quiet that surrounded us. We crossed back across the tracks and continued up a hill where a giant silver statue beckoned us to pay a visit.  The statue, we later learned, was of Chinggis Khaan's wife. On our train journey back to UB on Sunday night we got chatting to a Mongolian girl who'd grown up in Sukhbaatar but had been in Taiwan the last few years studying at University.  She said that the statue was new and when she learned who it was of she commented "Of course! Only a great king would have a wife with such big boobs!" a feature we'd all commented on when we'd seen her ourselves.

Boobs big enough for a king

View of the valley from Chinggis' wife's perspective

On Sunday after a mercifully late checkout (12pm should be a worldwide standard), we negotiated for a taxi to take us to see Ээж Мод ("Eej Mod")or Mother Tree about 10km out of town. Eej Mod is a place where Mongolians go to seek solace and advice and make offerings of vodka, milk and khatag - a blue ceremonial scarf symbolising the bestowal of blessings and good-luck wishes upon those who receive it. Like the ritual when one encounters an ovoo, visitors ask for a wish to be granted and circle the tree clockwise three times.  Legend has it that a pregnant woman, seeking shelter from a heavy storm sought refuge under this particular tree and gave birth - hence the name. I should go there now and thank Google for that pearl of wisdom. 

In all honesty we hadn't expected much, maybe a tree with a few blue khatag tied around it.  But we arrived and it seemed like there were hundreds of people surrounding an enormous cascade of khatag which entirely covered the tree and its surrounds.  There were other trees - some covered in BRAS and STEERING WHEEL COVERS of all the sacred weird things...A little further out, groups of people who looked like they'd camped the night before were gathering around about half a dozen shaman. It was curious and awesome!

Offerings

Sacred bras

Sacred steering wheel covers

Our train wasn't leaving Sukhbaatar till 9 that evening so we had quite a few hours to kill.  We looked around the town, already having seen most of it twice, and decided we'd climb the first of a series of fairly high hills behind the town and crowned with an ovoo.  We walked through a small ger community and past some little boys entranced by their friend's hammering of a rusty pipe. "Sain bain uu!" we said in our best Mongolian. They looked up, mouths agape. Did those whities just say "hi" in MONGOLIAN? GET OUT!  

I could hear them muttering amongst themselves...something about Russians, English...American? "Uugi, bid Auvstralaas irseng!" (No, we're from Australia!) I shouted.  The next thing we knew we were surrounded and had ourselves some escorts who ran ahead of us to the first of two ovoo. The boys chattered away whilst we caught our breath and surveyed Sukhbaatar from above. The clouds had lifted and it was a beautiful sunny afternoon. "Chinni ner hem be?" (What's your name?) I asked.  The smallest one blurted something out then corrected himself "Chinggis Khaan!" he proclaimed. "Tiimuu?!" (Really?!) I said. "Chi jijig Chinggis Khaan!" (You're little Chinggis Khaan!) to my delight, he and his friends burst with laughter. 

We went through my entire conversational repertoire.  How old are you? My name is Anna, I am from Australia, I am 28, I am a Social Worker, these are my friends. The boys reciprocated; my name is..., I am 9 (10,11,13). How old is your mother? How old is your father? My mother is 35. How old is your grandmother? How old is your grandfather? Look at this! They showed us their amazing (no, really!!) rock throwing skills off the side of the hill. The trick is to skim it as though the air were a river. Then they sang for us. At this point I thought I'd die of happiness.

1st Ovoo looking up to the second

Our companions

Jijig Chinggis - singing his heart out

The boys motioned for us to follow them up to the highest ovoo.  We hadn't been sure if we could go up there, often ovoos are sacred places reserved for men.  But given the green light we followed, one of the boys gave me small handfull of rocks to make an offering. More chatter then, through a combination of mime and our limited Mongolian, the boys said they'd take us to find 'jijig jimce' - little fruit, just a little further behind the mountain.

We were 10 again and the coolest kids in town had made us their friends!  We stopped for an interactive demonstration of wrestling. They picked wild flowers in great handfulls and gave them to us.  They held our hands to help us across an escarpment of rocks leading to the 'little fruit' trees.  They climbed the highest branches and offered us the fruit (tiny cherry-like things that tasted like bramble apples - really, really sour!).

2nd Ovoo overlooking Sukhbaatar

Wrestling!

Jen giving her best

Jijig jimce trees

Jimce!

Team work and safety first

My wildflowers 

The boys walked with us back towards the ovoo, temporarily distracted by a man who they could see was shooting at a target a little further down the hill; "how fickle" I thought.  But they soon returned.  "Can we play tomorrow?" a boy asked. My heart broke a little as we explained that we had to catch the train and go back to UB that night.  

We hit a fork in the path, one leading down he hill to the town, the other back up to the ovoo and to the boys' homes.  Bayartei! Bayarlala! Tani iltsnda ta ta bain! (Goodbye! Thank you! It was nice to meet you!). It didn't really seem like enough, but it was all we had left.  They waved and shouted down to us all the way back into town. We could still see them (and they us thanks to Jessy's bright red jumper) when they'd crested the hill and were back at the first ovoo.

We quietly clutched our flowers, slightly withered, at the train station as we queued to purchase our tickets.  "Do you think anyone would notice if we didn't go to work tomorrow...or the next day?"

Ax