Steel Horses In the Land of

Transcription

1 Steel Horses In the Land of Mongolia, a place of myth and legend, offers some of the planet s best off-road touring adventures The young Mongols whipped their horses into a frenzy as they galloped wildly in a tight circle around our tents, kicking clouds of dust into the air and swinging their tashuurs just over our heads. It was all we could do to sit and wait for them to grow tired of this game before they paused to demand vodka something they d obviously had plenty of before we arrived. They just couldn t fathom that the clear liquid in our water bottles was nothing but water. Eventually they stopped when another group of horsemen came over and fist fights broke out between the two groups. Unfortunately, the bullies won, smoked some more, and flicked the stillflaming butts of their cigarettes on our tents. We decided their patience was greater than ours and under a hail of stones we made our escape, frantically peddling our mountain bikes back toward town just as the sun was setting. Sometimes escape is the best option when you re a long way from home. Back in town we wearily knocked on the door of the local shopkeeper a friendly young woman who listened to our story, fed us mutton soup and let us camp in the yard in front of the store. Her generous reception was more typical of our travels in Mongolia. A few weeks before, an old Mongol friend had patiently listened to me go on and on about our plan to mountain bike 1000 km across part of the country rarely seen by travelers. When I finished he shook his head and said we were crazy. He predicted that we would have trouble, and said we should either camp near herder s gers (traditional felt tents) or make sure that we hid our camp well at night. His words came back to me that night as we cycled away from trouble. Yet, up to that point we had absolutely no problems on the trip. In hindsight, I guess it was a little optimistic to think that independent travel in Text and Photos by Nathan Taylor Ward Mongolia would be without pitfalls, especially when traveling with two blond Australian women through a land of wild horsemen the descendants of the horsemen who once sprung Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan on the world. Rosie and Jen had immediately agreed to go on the trek when I proposed it to them in a smoky Hong Kong bar in Tsim Sha Tsui, one of the most densely populated places on earth. Our imaginations, heightened by a few pints, ran wild, and the promise of adventure sounded too good to resist. A few months before, I had skied

2 of Genghis Left: With no shelter in sight, Rosie Johnson sits out a summer hail storm. Later, the author and Johnson try to warm up (bottom left). through part of central Mongolia and recognized a land prime for off-road touring. The Mongolians long history of nomadism and traveling by horses has created a landscape full of trails. And as we all know, horse trails make perfect singletrack. Our plan was simple, fly to magnificent Lake Hovsgol in northern Mongolia and ride the singletrack back to the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. Simple. The whole plan fit on the back of a bar coaster. The reality of nonexistent maps, sketchy food, staggering bureaucracy and horrific roads didn t enter the picture. The promise of adventure and the thought of open spaces was all that ran through our heads. Rosie quit her job at an adventure travel magazine, Jen quit planting trees around Hong Kong housing developments, and we soon found ourselves sitting outside the tiny airport near the town of Mörön in northern Mongolia, faced with three bikes, a pile of gear and an open road. Three hours later, we stopped riding for the night, already having tasted the reality of cycling in Mongolia. We rode straight from the airport down a rutted, sandy road into a stinging hailstorm followed by a steady uphill and a killer headwind. Then, as evening grew close, a young woman on a horse who had been watching our efforts with a smile, pointed to a distant ger and made eating motions. Half an hour later, we sat on a hillside with cups of salty milk tea in our hands, our tents overlooking a huge steppe dotted with white gers, green hills and herders bringing their flocks home for the night. As the sun set and golden light slid across the land, it was perfectly clear to us why we were there. Mongolia remains one of the few places in Asia largely untouched by the West. It is a land filled with open steppes, vast deserts, and high mountain ranges, where people in the countryside still lead nomadic lives, living in tents and traveling on horseback. Of course, many Mongolians paid a steep price to retain this isolation. In 1921, Mongolia became the second communist nation in the world when it allied itself with Russia to drive a Chinese warlord s forces out of the country. From 1921 to 1990 Mongolia remained intimately tied to the Soviet Union. This alliance created a society of economic dependence on the Soviets and resulted in collective farms, not to mention

3 The third rider, Jen Cowan, hunting for food after a snowstorm, leaves a kiosk in Karakorum. religious and political purges that threatened to destroy the Mongols traditional way of life. The Mongols experienced some benefits as well from their alliance with the Soviet Union, such as pension plans and better education for their children thus the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 threw Mongolia into turmoil. Suddenly the whole country faced a future without markets for its goods or a way to replace the hundreds of millions of dollars of aid that the Soviets annually funneled into the country. Protests and the first attempts to establish a democracy and market economy soon followed. For Rosie, Jen and me, the collapse meant that we now had the opportunity to travel in Mongolia a country that for 70 years was off-limits to everyone but people from the Eastern Bloc nations. We planned to see as much of the country as possible, riding south from the Saridag Mountains through the steppes to the ancient monastery Erdene Zuu in the town of Karakorum. Karakorum was the ancient capital of Genghis Khan s empire, but for us it meant the start of the silky smooth (everything is relative) paved road back to the modern capital of Ulaanbaatar. As we headed south, it took less than a day to realize that our maps were useless. The Mongols we met had never seen a map, so they would spin it around until Siberia was to the south and swear that was correct, choosing to give us the wrong directions rather than lose face. At some point in the past, they also gave different towns the same names, so unless you knew the proper suffix to attach to the particular town you wanted, people would point to three separate paths all leading in radically different directions. We soon learned to hide our map and follow the Mongol map which basically entailed asking everyone we saw, drawing pictures in the dirt, looking at the sun to ori- TransAm 2000 A new millennium cycling celebration Celebrate the year 2000 by cycling the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail with Adventure Cycling. Tour limited to 100 lucky cyclists in four groups of 25. Choose from eastto-west or west-to-east options. Festive celebrations on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, in Missoula, and when the groups meet on the trail. For a TransAm 2000 information packet, call the Adventure Cycling Tours Department at (800)

4 ent ourselves and pedaling out on the busiest looking trail that headed south. We knew that if we traveled far enough south we would hit the big road that led to Erdene Zuu. Some people would call it being lost. But we always had faith in the big road, even if it was still 500km away. Pedaling and sometimes pushing our bikes over the horse trails that cross the mountains we traveled through a wildly changing landscape. At first, we rode in a part of the country inhabited by the Darkhad people, who herd cattle, sheep and horses. In these areas, it was easy to find food like fatty mutton, bread and potatoes. Mongolian nomads travel without food for weeks at a time, knowing that they will be fed at any ger they come across along the way. People accept this because it s very likely that at some point in the future the same people will stop in at your ger and expect you to return the favor. The Mongols reputation for being extremely hospitable people stems from this age-old tradition. We chose to travel like the nomads and carried only enough food to get us through an emergency. Since we had no way to return the favor, we carried with us a variety of gifts to trade for food things like sewing kits that are useful in a rural society. It proved an effective way to travel, although if you are a vegetarian or a picky eater, starting off the day with a bowl of rice mixed with pieces of sheep lung might not be your thing. Luckily, you can wash it down with countless cups of salty milk tea garnished with lumps of rancid yak butter. We rode farther south, steadily downhill as the land changed from high alpine meadows to desert-like red sandy valleys. We pedaled the length of the Hovsgol Aimag (state) out of the hills into Arkhangai. If you ve never traveled here, Arkhangai looks exactly like the stereotypical pictures that pop into your head when you hear the word Mongolia. It s a land of wide-open, sparse rolling steppes. Both the physical and culture landscape differs radically from the northern part of the country. The Khalkh and Oold people inhabit most of Arkhangai; they are a group of tough, horse-herding people, who subsist mainly on airag during the summer months. Airag is fermented horse milk, a frothy, thick, alcoholic spoiled milk that fueled Genghis Khan s warriors and still remains a local favorite today. Mongols who like airag will drink up to 20 liters of this liquid in a single day. When you pull your bike up to a ger in Arkhangai, the first thing they hand you is a big bowl of airag, followed by a shot of arikh a kind of vodka made by boiling off the potent element of rancid yogurt. It may have done a lot for Genghis, but this firewater just wrecked us for cycling. After a few wobbly afternoons and Ever slept with a dead marmot under your bed? How about with five dead marmots? Rosie Johnson and Jen Cowan have. In Mongolia, marmots are a cash crop. queasy mornings we decided to carry some food rather than endure the nightly drinking fests that ger visits entailed. A short way into Arkhangai we rolled up upon a scene that looked absolutely medieval. Carcasses of small animals lay strewn around a ger while dozens of eagles, hawks and steppe buzzards circled in the air or sat on the ground eating the offal. We stared at it, not knowing whether or not to go on. Jen whispered, This place looks just what I imagine a plague-infected area to look like.

5 Right: Cowan and Johnson cross the steppes of Arkhangai Aimag; Middle: a view of Ward s feet, and the road, after another snowstorm; Far right: Rosie Johnson filters water from a herder s water hole. The black plague remains endemic to Mongolia, so we all felt a little nervous. We had antibiotics for the plague, but only enough for one person. Just then a man came out of the tent and shouted Airag! waving us to come over. He looked healthy enough, so we slowly pedaled over, taking care to leave lots of distance between us and the buzzards. This was our first introduction to marmot hunting all the men in the area hunt marmots and sell the pelts for cash. Besides herding, marmot hunting provides the main cash crop of the area. From then on it Cut this out and put it in your wallet before you take off on your summer tour and when things go wrong on the road call our Toll Free Tech Line 1 (888) for roadside parts (overnight shipping), advice & sympathy We build stout 40-spoke touring wheelsets using Mavic rims and White Industries hubs. Call for details!! THE BIKE DOCTOR MISSOULA, MONTANA became common to see men on horses or motorcycles, rifles slung over their shoulders, and a few bloody marmots hanging from the saddle. Arkhangai gave us our most in-depth look at modern Mongolian society. We passed through towns full of dormant, decaying factories, plagued with unemployment places where alcoholism had become a way of life. For 70 years the Mongols had listened to the promises of communism, just to watch it all fall apart around them. From here on, we camped near gers or hid ourselves well at night, lest the town bullies find us again. Once outside the towns, Mongolia once again turned into a magical place with friendly and generous people. Everywhere we turned we found another amazing view, or another smiling face, although we did spend a few hellish days riding through several barren, dusty, 40-kilometer-long horse pastures. By the time we reached Karakorum, fall had come to Mongolia. We spent most of our time in the ancient capital looking out of the window of a cheap hotel at a snowstorm that threatened to end our trip early. For amusement we went to one of the old Soviet bars where we were bathed in pulsing

6 disco lights and sat at a table surrounded by red curtains, like a private little love nest. The only problem was that the stools were only a few inches off the ground so the table was at chin height. At least it made it easier to drink the tea. When it finally stopped snowing, we wrapped our feet in old plastic bags held together by duct tape and pedaled out into the wet slushy snow to Erdene Zuu. Erdene Zuu is still the second most important monastery in the country, although it s now just a shadow of its former self. Abtai Khan started to build the monastery in 1586 and construction continued for the next 300 years. At its height, Erdene Zuu consisted of up to 100 temples and 300 gers, which housed up to 1000 monks. The Manchus first sacked the monastery in the 18th century. The communists razed Erdene Zuu and executed all the monks in the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. In the last six years, since religion became legal again, the Mongolians have started to rebuild the monastery. Standing in the middle of the huge walled complex, we could only imagine what it must have once looked like. We hit the big road a few muddy kilometers out of Karakorum and spun our way back to Ulaanbaatar. People along this road had tasted the fruits of tourism and were hungry to get their hands on all the togrogs (Mongol currency) they could. We dubbed it the end of the hospitality trail as the hip young Mongols, dressed in Chicago Bulls track suits, tried to sell us their old, ragged traditional clothing. It didn t mean the adventure was over. Despite the promise of smooth sailing on the pavement, the weather made life interesting, battering us with icy rain and strong headwinds that made us ride so slowly that we could watch the individual spokes in our front wheels go round. The road also presented us another challenge police checkpoints. Normally it would be no problem, but Jen and Rosie s visas had expired a week before. We had visions of being caught and being put up as guests in one of Mongolia s finer rural jails. Our plan to get around the checkpoints worked well; just ride through the middle of them, smiling and waving, and keep riding. As we dropped back into the Ulaanbaatar Valley, the pollution and traffic overwhelmed us. What had seemed like a sleepy country town after living in Hong Kong, now felt like a very busy city. It was clear to us why people in the countryside see the city as a place of pride, it s the epicenter of all the change that is radiating through Mongol society. Just as we were approaching a busy intersection, an old man yelled Stop! Stop! The old man asked us where we had ridden. As I told him in my broken Mongolian, he reached into his coat for a fresh loaf of bread and handed it to us with a grin, saying Good ride. Then he disappeared into the bus stop crowd, once again leaving us in awe of this ancient land. Nathan Taylor Ward will soon leave his Colorado home for a tour in Baja.