Scale and Scope

This past weekend I took the train down to Sainshand to visit Khamriin Hiid, a spiritual landscape centered around the figure of Danzanravjaa (the Lama of the Gobi). My friends and I came prepared with rice, juniper, incense sticks, hadags (prayer cloths), milk, and vodka to make offerings at the various sites and to ask for blessings for ourselves and our loved ones. I had visited the area in 2007 and seen the Danzanravjaa Museum, but it was a real pleasure to experience the train again (very comfortable sleeping, rocked to sleep by the clack of the wheels on the tracks) and to get to know the landscape and the traditions better.

While telling my family about it, I realized it's very difficult to talk about the scope of the landscape in Mongolia and travelling. A lot of sightseeing in Mongolia isn't looking at "sites", it's just experiencing nature- land under the big blue sky. And because it's such a geographically large country, there's a lot to experience.

I made a map of the locations (outside of UB) that I've visited this spring- Terelj National Park (and the nearby Chinggis Khan Statue Complex/Tsonjin Boldog and the 13th Century Camp), Amarbayasgalant Monastery in Selenge Province, and Sainshand and Khamriin Hiid in Dornogovi Province.

(modified from this map: http://www.vidiani.com/maps/maps_of_asia/maps_of_mongolia/large_detailed_administrative_map_of_mongolia.jpg)


Heading south or north from UB is certainly a sizeable trip, but to head east or west is even longer- one reason why I've only been as far as Kharkhorum and that was only once. Overall I'm pleased with the amount (and expense) of travel I've taken here, and who knows- I'm still here for five more weeks and another opportunity might turn up. But for now, I'm glad to be back at my apartment in UB.