Category
- Agriculture
- Automobiles and Machinery
- Bank, non banking financing, investment
- Blasting
- Construction
- Consumables
- Education
- Energy
- Engineer , Architecture and Geodesy
- Finance, Audit,Accounting and Brokerage
- Food
- Foreign Trade
- Geology Exploration
- Health
- Information Technology
- Insurance
- Labor Safety
- Legal and Business consulting
- Lighting
- Mining equipment
- Mining Services
- Other product and service
- Road
- Sewing and textile products
- Transportations
- Travel
Events
Lost in remote Mongolia, I found a serendipitous warm welcome in the steppe www.thestar.com
As soon as the driver of our uazik, a Soviet-era off-roading vehicle, stops in the middle of the steppe for the third time, I know it: We are lost. Together with my guide, Soyolo Baljinnyum, they take out a large paper map with well-worn corners, tracing roads with fingers stiffened in the cold. If the 24-hour flight from Chicago hadn’t already instilled a sense of distance, it sinks in now. I’m far from home.
Earlier in the day, we’d left Ulaanbaatar, an ever-growing metropolis where monasteries coexist with megamalls and residential highrises. Nearly half of Mongolia’s 3.3 million residents live in the capital; more arrive every year, driven away from their nomadic herder lifestyles in part by the changing climate. (Drier pastures in summer make animals more vulnerable to harsher winter conditions, and livestock losses are often irrecoverable for many families.)
But as soon as we exit the city, we’re in a different place. Mongolia has one of the lowest population densities on the planet, and I feel the rush of excitement. I’m finally seeing the terrain I’d dreamed about for so long. We drive across the wind- and snow-swept landscape for hours without encountering another vehicle or human.
An uazik, in the middle of (seemingly) nowhere.
The Land of the Eternal Blue Sky, as the country is often called, stretches on both sides of the road. Herds of horses roam freely and shaman statues laden with cartons of milk and stacks of cookies — offerings to the spirits — punctuate our journey. We stop at several of these ancient signposts and ask the spirits for a safe passage: in order to continue our trip north, we’re about to get into the dangerous off-roads.
I’ve tapped Baljinnyum, owner-operator of Adventure Rider Mongolia, to take me to Lake Khuvsgul, Mongolia’s deepest lake, on the border with Russia, where a festival of ice takes place every spring. To get there, we zigzag across northern Mongolia’s grasslands and steppes, taiga forests and rolling hills, and I relish the opportunity to see this kaleidoscope of landscapes (despite the heavily bumpy drive).
As we stop to let a flock of sheep cross the barely visible dust road, I think of the wild ride Mongolia has been on over the recent decades. The country was transformed in the 1990s when the socialist system gave way to a rapidly growing market economy.
Coal, copper, oil and gold mining fuelled the run, and while it lifted many out of poverty, it introduced challenges: environmental concerns, reliance on volatile global commodity prices, and an overdependence on resources that have a tendency to … run out. The government recently announced plans to diversify away from mining in the new decade, making tour operators like Baljinnyum hopeful.
I step outside the uazik to stretch my legs and watch the last sun rays disappear behind the nearby hill. As soon as they do, the temperature drops sharply and the incessant wind of the steppes picks up. “We are lost,” Baljinnyum tells me, echoing my own instincts. And even though I don’t see another soul around, he continues, “We’ll have to spend the night here.”
The spirits must be looking over us: A few minutes later, a stranger approaches from afar and, after a short exchange with Baljinnyum, gestures to follow him. Our uazik turns the corner and we arrive at a modest family settlement: two solar-powered gers huddled together amid the flat, treeless land.
Before we enter one of the gers, Baljinnyum explains the rules of engagement. “Once inside, step to the left — that’s the area for the guests; the host always sits on the right. Please be polite and accept whatever is offered to you.” In our case, it’s tobacco snuff passed around in a jade green bottle and a cup of suutei tsai, a buttered, salty milk tea that soothes my joints after a daylong tumble of a ride.
Later, I leave the ger for a second and pause in awe. The dusk sky has turned a shade of violet I’ve never seen in my nearly four-decade-long peripatetic life. There’s no light pollution and the early stars are sparkling on the horizon. The silence feels so unfamiliar, I wonder if there’s anyone else left in the world.
At dinner, we’re treated to horse meat dumplings, a rare delicacy from a recent Lunar New Year celebration. A few motorbikes whiz up to the gers outside. As we pass around shots of homemade vodka, more people crowd in to welcome us, the visitors. To me, this is the deeply binding part of travel that’s vanishing from our world: finding oneself at the mercy of strangers and their kindness on the road.
After the morning’s breakfast of tsai and sizzling hot noodle soup, we bid our goodbyes outside. The two generations of Mongolian nomads — mother and father, their son and daughter-in-law — wave until I can no longer see them in my rearview mirror. We keep due north and eventually arrive at Lake Khuvsgul for the festivities, but the unexpected night in the steppe is the singular gift I won’t soon forget.
Mongolia has ambitious plans to receive 1 million visitors a year in the near future, and while this goal has been paused with the pandemic, the country is gearing up for a travel boom when borders can safely reopen. A new airport south of Ulaanbaatar, for example, will triple existing capacity. With the tourism infrastructure set to grow, impromptu encounters in the wild may become far more fleeting. As Mongolia opens up to the rest of the world, I quietly hope its adventurous essence will stay intact.
Published Date:2021-05-30
