Be like snow, cold but beautiful (Lana Del Rey)

UB

As most of you might know it is winter in Mongolia and not just one of the relaxed weeks with just minus 25… no…. around this time is the coldest period of the year which means temperatures below minus 35 and more. Nevertheless this does not shock us to plan a trip to Sainschand, a city founded in 1931, which is around 450km southeast from UB. We means, Stefan, a german teacher from School 38, Johannes, who just arrived for a business trip and has never been to Mongolia, Jessy, volunteer from school 38, Kirsten, volunteer from school 1, Denise, intern at the GIZ, Sigrun, the wife of Christoph who is teacher at the Goethe School and me. Not to forget Tseegii as our guide and Naraa our driver, whom Kirsten, Jessy and me welcomed with a joyful “Naraaaaaaa”! We all had to fit in the lovely Russian bus фургон and then off we go.

Saturday

On the way to Sainschand we had to talk a lot we most of us didn’t know each other. Johannes had to survive his jetlag a bit and after half of the journey we stopped for a late lunch, predinner meal in the middle of nowhere. It took us in total around 9 hours to get via Choir to Sainschand. Unbelievable. And you have to imagine that the car does not get warm, this is why we sat inside with all our jackets, scarfs and gloves on… Brrrrrr.  We tried to warm up with summer songs 🙂  You have to imagine just a straight-tarred road (Australians will know how it looked like, despite everything frozen and snowy). The evening we just had a quite one, sitting together and chewed the fat about this and that.

Sunday

Sunday was the actual sightseeing day. Because the museum in Sainschand was closed we went straight to a monastery sight called “Khamariin Khiid”. This monastery is around 40km south of Sainschand and was founded in 1820. In the 1930s it was destroyed and re-constructed. This place was also admired as “energetic center” and site of pilgrimage. It is closely connected to the meditation traditions of the monks. In former times around 500 Lamas lived here. The actual energetic center was calles “Shambala” and consists of a bell tower and 108 Stupas (108 is a hollow number in Buddhism religion). There are also meditation caves in immediate environment.

At the monastery we had the chance to attend a special ceremony which is held once a day. This ceremony should fill us with energy. Yeah great start! Then we went to the place where we would liked to immolate rice, vodka, milk, aruul (dried curd – a Mongolian treat) and blue scarfs. Furthermore we would like to burn a bad experience and make a wish for the future. Due to the coldness the lighter was not working… Unfortunately we could not burn our bad experiences 🙁 Instead of burning our wishes we lay on the ground and absorbed as much energy as possible and it was not even too cold on the ground.

Additional Information: The blue scarf is in Mongolian tradition known as “khadag” (speak: chadag). Blue is the colour of the eternal sky and is given in addition to a special gift. It is also used with other ceremonies such as Tsagaan Sar. (source: DUMONT Mongolei).

Next stop – it was already pretty cold, the feet were frozen- was a cave where you could crawl through and were reborn. This was quite fun and made me really looking forward to climb again so soon! It got colder and we ran around in order to get our feet warm, which did not help very much but better than nothing.

Last stop was the “Bayanzurkh Uul“. On top of this hill is a Ovoo. Just men are allowed to go up to the top. Us girls weren’t to sad about it because it was not just cold but also very windy. The wind felt like thousands of grains of sand in the face and after a few minutes the cheeks got frozen. We went up to a temple, where we immolated cookies and aruul. Some goats were in front of the temple and I tried to let them not into it. But suddenly in an unnoticed moment one of the goats got into the temple and pitched into the whole cookies-aruul stuff. Finally ,Tseegii had to carry the goats out of the temple. Funny moment!

Way home

At the drive back home to our hotel we decided to eat something and head back to UB, as Johannes had his first meeting Monday early afternoon. No sooner said than done. We had lunch, packed our stuff and were on the road again.

Unfortunately, it was not only cold but all of a sudden it really stank in the car as a fried cable. Yuk! Naraa our driver stopped, found the problem and after 20 minutes of fixing it we continued our way. It was pretty windy outside, ok not just pretty but it was a kind of a snowstorm, you could not even see 10 meters far. This was kind of scary and lucky me that I sat opposite to the traffic. Then a second time the car made really strange noises. Naraa stayed cool tried to find the problem again while phoning someone. Finally, nothing helped: we definitely needed a spare part. He knew some people in the next Sum and so we all had to get our of the car and were welcomed in a very hot ger, got some warm tea and something to eat. And the most hillarious thing was: we watched the Mongolian version of Mamma Mia, with Gesu (the Director of the Drama Theatre) as one of the actors. At the sime time the old guy and Naraa drove off to get the spare part and Naraa fixed the car. It took quite a long time and we were a bit afraid that it would be too cold for him fixing the car outside in the coldness (around minus 35 I guess) but finally he came in with a big smile in his face, washed his hands, had a tee and then “Jaouiii” back on the road again. Finally at 4:30am in the morning we arrived in UB. Kirsten and I stayed at Jessys new flat and after we slept until noon, had a great Gambir brekkie I headed to the fitness club to go swimming. I guess this was my last greater adventure here in Mongolia. #5weekstogo

Stay tuned and be always on the go!