The old guy had his prayer wheel going, and the grannie had the beads counting and boy, if you had seen the roads you would have been happy for all the prayers flying around.
This picture really got Tibetan China for me, in a number of ways. The way these three were instantly yakking, even though they didn't know each other, they just casually and joyously pass the time - and the cookies - to each other and even the strange camera wielding tourists behind them.
I was also struck how these are seriously handsome people. Maybe ti's the buddhism love light, I don't know, but I have yet to see a Tibetan that ain't good-lookin'
The little boy is wearing a pair of the famous kids pants: these are split all the way open on the bum (!) and on younger kids up the front too, allowing the kids a total fresh air experience. He belonged to someone on the bus. Not sure who. He was very friendly - although eyeing the open bum flap, I declined to give him a seat on my lap.
The elderly two managed to cram onto our already full bus by simply perching on the floor and motor. Country passengers just flag buses as they go by, and I was bemused more than once by how people flagged buses going in any direction whatsoever. As iif they were just so desperate to get out, they'd take any ride!!
Unlike elsewhere in China, the outward symbols of (tibetan) Buddhism are worn and displayed prominently in this area of China. The beads, the bracelets and whenever they can get them, pictures of the Dalai Lama are displayed proudly. Even newspaper cutouts of the Dalai Lama are put into lockets, and I was kicking myself for not bringing some out as gifts...
For myself, I was reminded of Poland in the late 80s. Back then, as a sign of protest and yes, solidarity, people would display and carry any symbol of Catholicism that they could find. For many, I am sure, this was beyond religious commitment and was a strong political statement.
Just the other day, I wandered into a big excited crowd in a wee tiny village about the Chinese equivalent of Wishart - really small. There were all these happy people clustered and flustered in front of a posh (well, for that village) hotel. Turns out there was a real live Lama staying there, and the word was out. It was as if Elvis was in town.
And sure enough, later on squad cars with flashing lights and a cop videotaping the crowd, followed by riot coppers on big ass bikes went up and down this tiny one street town until people got the message and stopped waiting for the Lama.
The last three weeks have seen us traipsing through some seriously obscure parts of the country. Xi'an was the last big city we were in, and in many ways, the last Chinese place we were in.
We have been in the North western provinces and the Tibetan Plateau - the traditional TIbetan regions - not the actual country, but the areas of China where the tibetans actually live. Everyone tells us that TIbet, and especially Lhasa, is so regulated and watched by the Chinese government that it is no longer where tibetans live in their traditional manner. Thanks to Beijing's migration and population movement programmes, 90% of the people living in Tibet itself are not of Tibetan descent...
We travelled to Lanzhou, former Silk Road destination, and more recently the world's most polluted city, and then an equally quick flyby to Xining. Both places were remarkable to me mostly for having more and more tribal or Tibetan or Muslim people - and also people who don't stare!! It's been interesting to see how different this part of the country is from 'China proper'. And how friendly and open the people are here.
All we get are smiles and nods and greetings, and proud grandparents who want pictures taken of their beautiful grandkids. Just like everywhere, it seems, the kids go to the big city and are leaving their children with Grandpa and Grandma to raise...
As we get further and further into the TIbetan part of the country
Ah, the famous Terracotta Army.
Leaving Pingyao, we made our way to Xi'an, where Chris had last been in 1989, and is the home of the Terracotta Warriors.
It was really awesome to see the site, and also to be able to get up close to some of them (as seen here) to really appreciate the level of detail...Famously, each one has a different face (although the bodies often look like they are of a similar cast), and here you can see how detailed they are.
And wow there are lots of them! with most still under the dirt, waiting to be revealed. Rumour has it there is a contingent of female warriors too (traditionally, Qing dynasty archers were young women firing light, but equally lethal, long range arrows) but they aren't excavated yet.
We made our way there under our own steam (eschewing the overpriced guided tours that are really only an excuse to take you to the local jade sourvenir factories :)
It was a great day out, and the way home really entertaining. There were road works on the way back into town, so our bus driver just meandered off into the country. And promptly got lost. So we got to see all kinds of teeny farms and villages with puzzled looking farmers watching our big city bus roaring by driven by an increasingly crazed maniac with mutinous passengers. We even got to go to a restricted Chinese military facility and see all the fancy fighter planes! That was cool, I must say, and I felt like a real spy
Anyhow, we got back, and - tiring of the big city - decided to bugger off into serious country side.
Well, after a week in Beijing, we finally managed to get a ticket out.
What more can I say about Beijing? It's all about the 2008 Olympics here. The city organises "Queueing Days" where citizens are compelled to actually stand in a line (!!!). Suddenly, things like spitting, gobbing and blowing your nose onto the street are frowned upon. TV commercials are hilarious - showing citizens what to do if an old lady falls over in the street (like, you help her up, imagine that!).
Old icky (fabulous and popular with tourists) neighbourhoods are being torn down and replaced by, according to the Chinese, lovely instant shopping malls. Old trees and gardens bulldozed for parking lots. China, as per usual, overdoes it.
ah, the world's most polluted city. 100 people a day killed in road accidents. A day in Beijing equals 40 cigarettes smoked. And so on.
Chris played it quiet, while I went to see the Transformers, the Forbidden City (a let down, actually, just swarming with tour groups and not as atmospheric as Shenyang) and I even bought the brand new Harry Potter the day it came out, so I was good to hop on the Hard Seat 13 hour train to Pingyao.
For you who don't know, Hard Seat is just that. You get a seat and you sit, crowded in by all the people who have standing tickets. Imagine, they stand all night - in the toilets, the aisles, everywhere. Me, I can sleep good in these situations, but we did end up across from the one dickhead who talked - loudly, in typical operatic full Han shouting - all night. Usually to himself. It's amazing I haven't strangled anyone yet
PS Pingyao was nice. I had a bad cold (thank you Beijing/hard seat train) and spent my birthday moping and watching it rain.
Well, after a month in Mongolia, it was time (thanks to an expired visa) to pick up our backpacks and move on. Chris was delighted to get a new backpack in UB, and after 20 years hard service, bequeathed his old one as seen in myriad travel photos to Ganbaatar's kids.
After Nadaam, most foreigners were in a panic because the twice weekly international trains were booked. Boneheads. They just had to do what the rest of the country was doing and go to the Mongolian town of Zamyn Uud and then cross the border into China, 4km away. Which we duly did, accompanied in our VERY dusty Gobi-crossing carriage with 2 youngsters who were so overexcited to be on their first ever train trip
Borders are always interesting places, and border towns are invariably a neat amalgamation of two cultures. Not here though. I truly think the Mongolians have a pathological mental block about China. Right at the border and not a Chinese word spoken or sign anywhere. Interesting.
Anyhow, after the train arrived we found a lone Mandarin speaking Australian photographer and piled into one of the many extremely beaten up jeeps over to the border. There is where I found out why the vans and jeeps are so beatenup looking. It was a bloody demolition derby! Dozens of maniacs trying to get over a 2 lane crossing, crashing into each other and drivers literally fist fighting. It was the most entertaining ride ever.
Safely into Erlian, in China, naturally there was no train that day to Beijing, so we took the next bus out to Hohhot - the exact opposite direction. What the hell, the kabobs were good and Richard was a great companion in our adventure!
Ganbaatar's name means ";Iron Hero" in Mongolian, and he was certainly a hero to us. We hooked up via Ms. Cathy Kmita, my saskatoon video artist friend who had spent an eventful time living in Ulaanbaatar (which, by the way means Red Hero - a great name for a capital city, say I)
We wanted to book him for a guided tour of the Gobi all to ourselves but as he was already spoken for, we decided to squeeze in with his two budget conscious American customers. And very glad we are that we did so, too.
There are a million and one tours out to the Gobi for dusty travellers rocketing through on the Trans-Mongolian Russia - Beijing train that need to tick that 'I Visited the Gobi in Mongolia' box.
From what we saw and heard though, they were pretty hit-and-miss. On our trip out, Ganbaatar more than once had to stop and give a bemused looking city boy guide directions back to civilization, and that would be a very, very sobering thing to have happen. Stories of 'guides' that could say Hello! in english, or drivers that didn't have spare tyres or enough water were enough to my curl my hair. We went through 3 tyres in a week - there are not roads in any sense of the world out there in the countryside.
Having been a full-time hunter in the area for 35 years, and being famous enough to take the President of Mongolia out hunting and fishing, man, were we all confident with Our Hero around.
He'd drive all day, take us to crazy little spots he had discovered himself - Neolithic pictographs, prehistoric tombs, etc - show us all the wildlife you could name or imagine, regale us with stories and legends, find an amazing camping spot and then set it all up for us. I pretty much had to insist that we share the cooking and dishes otherwise he would never have had any rest at all
He knew the locals well enough to just roll up and ask for water to top up our supplies. Or just for a visit. The Mongolians don't just drive up, chat and leave. No, we go in and get seated and we share tea and goodies. Then we chat and trade stories and then we leave. It was so sweet.
Oh, and did we ever see a lot of wild stuff. Every single moment there was different land, different animals and birds. It was really incredible. And Troy and Terry, all the way from Atlanta Georgia were fantastic travelling companions.
Did I mention Ganbaatar is also a photographer? This was an extra special bonus for us tourists, because he had no problem stopping for photos and would often have his Canon out first!
We salute you.
Wearing nothing but bikini briefs, a lovely hat and this strange jacket that was only sleeves with cords to wrap around the waist, the big guys come out to play. And boy are some of these guys BIG.
I tell you what, the country seems to be mad about Man Flesh. Sumo wrestling is as popular here as in Japan. And big wrestlers are the Big Men in town.
Wresting is probably up there with horse racing as the most popular sport and maybe is even more accessible for the general public to get in on. All you need is the will and you get a chance to muck in.
Here's how it goes - more or less - and please, Mongolian friends, excuse any inadvertent gaffes!
Spurning anything like weight divisions or individual fights, the wrestling begins with all 512 fighters trooping out and getting grouped only into two sides (blue and red, as far as we could figure out) as the referees (or possibly coaches) are wearing long blue or red robes.
Each fighter has his lovely hat taken by the referee/coach of his side, and well, that's it, they just start to fight! There's no formal beginning, but even more disconcerting for me was that the fights all carry on simultaneously. it's a full-on melee where everyone just tucks into their partner and starts wrassling.
As there are no weight divisions, some are over in a flash. Day two had a jaw dropping upset when a 98 pound weakling took down a Goliath, so feistiness seems to matter a lot too.
The fight is over as soon as the elbow or knees of one fighter hits the dirt. Then, in a beautiful tribute, the winner runs to the podium (where the state ceremonial yak banners where, being guarded relentlessly by army dudes as seen in another picture). Once the winner gets to the podium, he 'flies' around it with his arms out, imitating an eagle.
Then he runs (well, some lumber) back to the vanquished opponent, who formally concedes by holding out his arm for the winner to pass under (again like a bird). Then, and only then, does the fighter get his hat back from the ref. For the loser, he puts it on himself. The winner crouches and has it placed on his head, at which point he then usually does a ritualistic thigh and ass slapping and shouting (both of us thought of the Kiwi haka).
It whittles down quickly, and by Day Two, we were down to 128, and thanks to a time limit of 20 minutes per fight, were quickly down to 32. Then, they all lined up again and had a beautiful ritual with two referees of each side (red/blue) singing long and haunting tributes and taunts to the other side, with the biggest fighter doing the eagle dance around him, and the other fighters leaning on or swaying with their own refs.
Then it all kicked off again. Melee time.
The referees/coaches intrigued me. They seemed to genuinely encourage each fighter and I honestly think they were there just to slap the ass of the fighters when they took too long. And i mean, SLAP those big asses! We could hear the crack on the crack right up in the stands!
They also arbitrated fights that a fighter would contest the result of. And twice they resolved this in typical Mongolian diplomacy - they just let the fighters both go through to the next round.
By the way, legend has it that the lads now wear the cut away 'jackets' that only cover about 9 inches of their back because some big Amazon mama came out one year and kicked their asses and won the tournament. So they came up with a jacket that would not be so easy for a chick to wear, but somehow this is in unconfirmed.
OK, it's taken as given that Mongolians are actually centaurs. These people ride like nothing I have ever seen, and their teeny little sturdy horses just power away like the wind....
Speaking of the horses, I was intrigued to find out that the native Mongolian 'takhir' horse is the only one with 66 chromosomes (all other horses have 62), so maybe there is something to the claim of being the Land of the Horse.
I am going to try to explain the way that the Nadaam Festival went down. It means 'homecoming' and happens more or less in mid-July, and takes place everywhere
We managed to attend a small Nadaam and caught several communities in the hot and heavy throes of preparation. Most riding like this kid who had given us a small demo when we passed him along the road....
Damn can they ride
Anklebone shooting! I mean...wow! flicking bits of sheep bone around is a national pastime, i love it.
The level of preparation these guys go through was breathtaking. Flexing the flicking finger and getting in the zone, placing a flat bone on a level grooved board then flicking said bone (NOT using the index finger, mind you, only the fourth one will do) across the room to where a row of tiny other bones are lined up, waiting to be knocked over in turn, with dozens of intense people watching.
It looked like great fun, and I especially liked this round of competition.
I really loved the way that when there was a good shot, the other competitors would be over the moon. They seem to really appreciate skill here. As in this picture, from the final rounds of the Anklebone shooting, the lad on the left just made a great shot. Note how his competitor here is just delighted for him, even though he'd have lost to the better shooter.
Meanwhile, all the other guys - because of course, like it seems in all Mongolian competitions, there were no limits to entrants and gosh there were lots - would yodel and call encouragement to the shooters. It was an eerie, beautiful sound, with the tent filling with this gentle coaxing sound....
Somehow, interestingly, there were seven first prizes. Don't ask me how they figured that out!
The horse races take place out in the country and man, this is a race unlike any other.
No tracks, no fancy railings: just as many horses that can be fielded and tiny little young (5 to 9 years old) brightly dressed riders latched on them.
There are actually divisions in the races - the only ones I noticed in Nadaam - with horses of different age grouped together. After being checked by the judges (counting teeth, mostly, to confirm the horses age) the riders all ride off to the starting line - 20 (yes, twenty) kilometres away. Then, the race starts and they all just ride hell for leather en masse to the finish line.
The first five win, and get to wear white clothing to the closing ceremony, accompanied by their Herald. This is a grown-up who carries the winning youngsters colours, and his long rod as they all ride up to the podium and get awards. Then they get sung to by the National Storyteller of Mongolia, who praises their skill and the speed of their horse.
But then, but then....is the beautiful bit. Up comes the last horse of the race, and his young rider, in his own colours and with his Herald beside him.
The last rider and his mount are brought in to the stadium and paraded. And once again, the national Storyteller sings for them, praising the horse and rider and telling them that they are young, and will do better next year. After the rider responds, and gets given prizes, the crowd applauds them and wishes them better luck next year.
Dammit, is that nice or what?
