This title sounds like preaching ... shiaks... but this was exactly how i felt in the recent road trip to Ulaanbatar again ... yes yes... wuu lannn duno how to spell ok fine, me neither....

 

The clear starry sky still very much well-kept in my memories of this vast mysterious land... the land of the blue sky.

The roads still unkempt, dry sandy and still retaining the post-war looked with Russian styled houses & seemingly looked make-shift (but not !!) geyers at the most unexpected places. One year has passed and perhaps the only thing that has changed is more & more cars, as well as, greater & greater greed.

 

The country, slashed across the inhibited Gobi dessert, but buried deep beneath its soil, gold & precious metals. While the luxurious bungalows were nearing its completion, more mining caves are dug & perhaps more locals are made to do the job.... Somehow, while the houses looked very much european styled & extremely fancy, it spelt of haunted hollowness...

 

It's strange contrast to see some ladies claded in sexy tight clothes & high heels or gentlemen in suits while others in torn & tatters ... or kids with cookie tins where they stuck a sticker - please give money in Mongolian or Russian.

 

As i dine in wine & beers with occasional unwanted guests like houseflies & grasshoppers baptising it as onsen, can't help not noticing the glares across the panels of cracked dusty windows. 

As i walked, i got threatened or supposed to be made afraid by the security guards flashing their electric rod, making the uncomfortable zapping sound of sheer electric power. The irony of having these beret capped guards, to protect or empower them to harm? For a long while, i haven't felt that vulnerable.

 

As i take a cab, mr hunk driver well decorated with bodily art picked me by the hotel - hey this guy is honest, at least he points to the meter and give me back my change !! The others, just give a girlish smile that says "Sorry no change." as u hand them the bbq-beef smelling Mongolian Turgs. One of the cabbie, even got stopped by the local police man and fined him (or should i say fined me) for doing an U turn ... erh u must be asking - is there any road/ regulation in the 1st place? well there are traffic lights that make no sense... cars still moving everywhere in strange directions. The air-con always look like an antique ornament - u get natural air - sorry, except coupled with the dust that created a havoc on my face.

 

Seems like its wedding month or so, as my room, just next to the restaurants get bombarded with music. The bride in white mongolian silk dress while the groom - a white guy?!?? yes, plenty it seems. And my mongolian friends tell me, hey lucky girl for her then, if she marries a white. Can't seem to understand why white man equate to happiness, even in Japan, this thinking seems prevalent or this is a FJ theory ?!??!!

 

Met up with some of the mongolian friends, these are the people riding in cool cars & flashy hippie life-styles.... But one of them told me that he prefers to escape into the countryside alone - back to the Mongolian grassland, riding horses, hunting the wild bears and boars, fishing in the streams and lying on the ground to see the stars. And he said that the countryside is the real Mongolian Spirit. Here, its so shallow. The next thing he said was, hey i do para-shooting & flight glides, good to die now, young & handsome. Die Handsome, was his motto. Sounds strange, indeed, for a young man who had been extensively educated in the states & well-travelled (btw, he even know singlish !! can or cannot !!), has a bright future ahead in the booming country of motherland, tells me that he wants to die ??!!? He says he bears the Mongolian blood, his genes from Genghis Khan, a proud Mongolian -- and like his ancestor, he prefers the countryside & the wild, although he has full command of an established bank.

 

On the plane, was reading abt Genghis Khan & how little was known about him except that he suffered extreme emotional upheaval from killing his brother and being bullied from young and being afraid of dog. Little was known about him except for his survival skills & optimism as he escaped while being a child slave from another tribe. When he died, he died in the warm & love of family, friends & counterparts. The most amazing thing is that no one knows where he is buried and that no text actually wrote and no painters ever drew his portrait when  he is alive?!?!? Usually with such man of immerse power, pride & also the desire to leave behind a legacy of records is common. He didn't, he just returned to Mother Earth even without a burial plaque. Cool rite...

 

My final cab ride to the airport - in the comforts of a hotel car with finally a working aircon , the radio was playing mongolian songs. As the traditional folklore music went on coupled with the horse headed violin or morin khuur, i felt sad actually, that the city is being raped of it's innocence every day as the miners dug deeper & deeper into the goldie mines ...