At Ulaan Baatar
The War of the Guides—
And a Happy Ending
I can’t believe I’m in the middle of the Gobi Desert trying to get back
to civilization---the capitol of Mongolia, Ulaan Bataar---And in the heart of
this barren land, my nine traveling compatriots and I are caught squarely between the classic conflicts of culture between China and Mongolia.
Because that’s what this war of the guides was primarily about!
Cheer (our Chinese Uniworld guide) feels clearly that she’s lost face (for
good reason)! Rimaa, our increasingly sullen local Mongolian guide,
has nothing but contempt for her clearly “unwanted, undesirable,
unknowledgeable (about Mongolia),” inscrutable Chinese colleague. War seems
inevitable.
As we journeyed back to Ulaan Baatar via the uncertainties of Mongolian
Airlines, the atmosphere between the two grew from cool to icy to sub Arctic
freezing! We, the innocent bystanders, tried to keep out of the direct
line of fire.
We had checked into our Chinggis Khan (four star Mongolian) Hotel back in UB, and some decisions had to be made. With Cheer deliberately taking
a background position, Rimaa led us through a day of sightseeing. We visited
several colorful historical sites—the winter palace of the Bogd Khaan
where Mongolia’s eighth Living Buddha and last king lived for 20 years, the city
observation tower on a hillside with a beautiful view of the entire city, and the city square with its statue honoring Sukhbaatar, the “hero of the
revolution,” and the one who declared Mongolia’s final independence from
the Chinese in July 1921.
But the best moment of the day came as lunchtime approached.
We were booked for lunch at a Korean Buffet restaurant Rimaa had
chosen---and you could have almost pictured our group as wild American
ten-year-olds invading our first McDonalds’ in a year! Why?
The buffet unexpectedly featured REAL WESTERN food---and, embarrassing as it may seem,
we all dove happily into the spaghetti and meatballs fare as though it were the last supper!
Familiar food aside, the really memorable experience of the day occurred in the early evening when we attended the city’s traditional folklore
festival. The dancers wore brilliantly colorful costumes, musicians played fascinating
music on the traditional Mongolian instrument, the unique horse-head violin (the morin khuur), and two young girls, perhaps 10 or 12 years old,
performed incredible feats of contortionism with their extraordinary
double-jointed bodies. These performances were even more outstanding
than we had imagined—but the highlight of the evening, for me, at least, were
performances I had been waiting for of the Mongolian throat singer.
Khoomi, or throat singing, which I had only heard about previously, comes from the
vast steppes of central Asia and the remote Siberian forests.
The male
singer produces incredible harmony ranges from deep in his larynx, throat, stomach and palate---which has the effect of producing two notes and
melodies simultaneously—one a low growl and the other a strangely high whistling sound---all of which seems impossible until you actually hear it
in person. Our performer was a noted throat singer---perhaps even the
star performer at the Silk Road performances taking place this past summer in
Washington DC. In any case, his throat singing was remarkable—even
more than I had expected it to be.
Sidebar: I have neglected to talk about the fascinating history of
Mongolia that we learned about during our day to day journeys—from the great
Chinggis (Genghis to westerners) Khan and the rise to power of the Mongolian Empire
which eventually stretched from the Caspian Sea to Beijing --to his
grandson, Kublai Khan, who completed the subjugation of China and established his winter capitol in Beijing. It is incredible to realize
that at the height of its power, the Mongolian Empire stretched from Korea to
Hungary and as far south as Vietnam---the largest empire the world has ever
known. (You’d never think this could be remotely possible as you
wander through the vast barren little-populated regions of the Mongolia of today.)
Ulaan Baatar itself was a fascinating city to visit. It was founded in
1778and called the City of Felt. In 1911 when Mongolia first declared its
independence from China, the city became the capitol of Outer Mongolia. In1918 it was invaded by China and three years later by the Russians. From the1930s on, under Russian control, buildings in the “Russian style” were
built and the Soviets destroyed almost all the monasteries and temples in the
nation. We found UB, therefore, a “young” city, with few remnants
of its ancient history remaining except in its interesting museums and the few
temples that had been allowed to exist. But our walks through several natural history and fine arts museums
revealed a rich history of the nation.
But back to current power struggles.
That evening, though we thought we had lived through the worst of the warfare between our guides, we realized a peace treaty had not been drawn
when open warfare broke out in the most unlikely of places—the Chinggis
Restaurant in downtown Ulaan Baatar. This was obviously the “main
event” of a protracted world class boxing brawl---and like it or not, we were drawn
into battle. Without reliving all the lurid details, suffice it to
say, Cheer and Rimaa had words, LOUD words, each attempting to draw us, the
reluctant victims, to their side of the battlefield as we ate dinner—at along table in the very middle of the large restaurant. We refused to
take sides. The “local” tour manager who had subcontracted Rimaa for
Uniworld
arrived to negotiate a peace treaty; more talk; he failed; and the fight
resumed!
In the middle of all this, the bizarre incident of the coveted
Chinggis beer mugs escalated the battle.
Two of us (I being one) wanted to buy a CHINGGIS label beer mug to take
home. (My son Doug is a beer mug collector, and I thought this would
be the perfect addition to his collection.) First, we tried to negotiate with
our
waiter to buy the mugs. (We needed an interpreter since he spoke only
Mongolian. Cheer tried to help, to no avail.) The waiter then asked
the manager if we could purchase mugs. At first, he agreed. Then
Rimaa came along and saw what we were doing—and she shouted that we absolutely could
not have the beer mugs. The waiter was confused and recanted the
purchase. We gave up reluctantly.
But as we left, someone came along and said we could buy them. We
paid, carried the mugs out openly and got into our van. Then all hell broke
loose. The restaurant manager ran out to the van. He said we had
stolen the beer mugs. We said we had paid. He said we stole them. We stood
our
ground hanging on to the mugs. Finally, he drifted away. Rimaa started
shouting at us that we had “no respect for Mongolia” and a few other
choice words and that she wanted nothing more to do with us! She had been
saying
that for several hours now.
As we returned to the hotel, Rimaa, seated in the front, and Cheer at
the back of the van shouted insults, with us caught in between. Once
there, we tried to pay Rimaa for the work she had done for almost three days
(this tipping is the travel custom) because she said she was refusing to return
for our final day in Ulaan Baatar. Her response was to shout that she
didn’t want our “filthy money” and threw it down on the hotel floor. We were
at a loss.
Hardly a peaceful ending to a very unsettling day!
Without elaborating, the rest of our stay in Mongolia was incredibly peaceful (as it always should have been) after this bizarre situation.
Gala, our new Mongolian local guide, showed up the next morning. He
squired us around that day with great knowledge, intelligence, sensitivity, and calm
to a wonderful fine arts museums where we examined magnificent historical
tapestries, embroidered, appliqued, and painted on incredibly beautiful fabrics—dating back to the 17th Century and telling the stories of the
history of Mongolia and its religions. And, what I haven’t mentioned
for some time— he took us SHOPPING at the Gobi Cashmere Factory and State Department store.
On our final day in Mongolia we took a farewell journey up into the exquisitely beautiful Terelj National Park in a high mountain valley at an
elevation of 6,000 feet. We saw ochre and red-hued mountains on all
sides, a peaceful river winding through the valley, precipitous peaks covered with
birch forests, sheep, goats, yaks, and herds of horses grazing at the base of mountains that displayed brilliant stretches of white barked birch trees
stringing across the mountain sides in yellow and red stripes of changing
color. This was a serene, yet spectacular contrast between nature at
its most peaceful and the vibrant colorful spectacle of busy, noisy city life of
Ulaan Baatar.
As we departed Mongolia to remain for two more days in Beijing, my thoughts kept leaping back and forth to the extreme differences and similarities I
had seen between China, Mongolia, and Russian Siberia in this all-too-short
(and sometimes physically painful) train, land, and air journey. Sharp
and often startling contrasts of people, culture, geography, history,
technology, and diverse ways of living of the three countries that throughout history have been so closely tied together-- most often
unwillingly and unhappily—kept surfacing to haunt me at unexpected
moments.
I have a good deal of reading and thinking to do now about all three.
But despite my unexpected physical stress and violent illness on this
once-in-a-lifetime journey to this remote region of the world, I loved every
minute of this trip. And one thing is certain. I want to return,
perhaps only vicariously to Mongolia and Siberia, to experience more deeply the
color, shape, and richness of the history and cultures of this fascinating corner of the globe.
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