Tradition, Modernity and the Great Bustard: Mongolia Part One

Mongolia: A Traveler’s Handbook, by Battulga Tumurdash, contains a piece of unarguable wisdom: “Saying Mongolia’s roads are in very poor condition is somewhat misleading, because the drive to many destination [sic] will involve no road what so ever.”

It’s a truth that rattles the bones of travelers traversing the country in any kind of vehicle and a joy we had yet to discover when we arrived in the capital Ulaan Bataar late on a Thursday night to find a tour representative holding a card with our names on it.

When attempting to leave the airport parking lot, we encountered the first and only Mongolian road rule: there are no rules. People park wherever they can find a space and the exit to the carpark was blocked by an assortment of vehicles. Our driver managed to find another gap and squeeze his van through it with some impressive manoevring before bumping off towards the city. Despite our advance booking, the hotel staff seemed confused by our presence and rang our room repeatedly in the next two days, asking, “When are you closet?” which we took to mean, “When are you leaving?” We later discovered most of our fellow tour members had similar experiences and several rooms had no hot water so despite being regarded with constant suspicion, we got off lightly.

Two free days was enough time to get a decent look at Ulaan Bataar, that cheerful jumble of shiny glass high-rises, concrete communist boxes and crumbling brightly painted facades. Modernity has arrived with a vengeance in the form of giant department stores filled with international fashion labels. The city people are well dressed and the women negotiate incomplete pavements with gaping open manholes in improbably high heels. There was even an enormous Twilight poster covered in Cyrillic script proving that a country where yaks roam the street unimpeded still isn’t immune to terrible pop culture.

The Natural History Museum is a haven of the unintentionally comical. Along with housing an astonishing collection of dinosaur bones and fossils, there’s a bird whose name has been translated into English as the Great Bustard and a small deer with an unlikely pair of giant fangs. Killer Bambi looked more like a taxidermist’s prank than a bloodthirsty killer roaming the steppes but the biggest laugh came from the inflated blowfish which sported a pair of plastic googly eyes usually found on cheap toys. On closer inspection of the other sea creatures, it appeared the taxidermist in charge of the fish display had done a quick run down to Geoff’s Emporium to accessorize his creations. The National History Museum and Zanabazar Fine Arts Museum provided more appropriate and sedate displays but in all three establishments the staff followed us discreetly, as if they expected us to rip open a cabinet and make off with a giant golden Buddha the moment they turned their backs. Considering we were occasionally the only visitors in the room, it was a little unnerving.

Perhaps the wariness is a result of Mongolia’s lack of experience with tourists, something which is refreshing for travelers who can walk down the street unimpeded by toothless children trying to sell them bookmarks or postcards. The only places we were asked for money were at attractions like the central city’s Sukhbaatar Square, which borders Parliament House, the Gandan Monastery and Bogd Khaan’s Winter Palace. Even then, it was more polite inquiry than the kind of hassling common in other tourist cities. The monastery, Mongolia’s largest, features a 26-metre-tall golden Buddhist Migid Janraisag statue and a range of different temples. We ducked quietly through doorways to discover colourful wall hangings, Tibetan pray wheels and a monk in maroon robes chatting away on a cellphone in one corner. The palace has a kind of shabby genteel look with overgrown lawns and uneven floors. It houses the beautifully preserved art, belongings and furniture of Mongolia’s last king, Javzan Damba Hutagt VIII.

Ulaan Bataar is an easy city to navigate even for those who don’t speak Mongolian and the locals still look at tourists as people rather than dollar signs. Sure, western culture may have a toehold and it’s probably only a matter of time before Mongolia works out how to harvest the tourist dollar. There’s Tommy Hilfiger nestled alongside tacky souvenir shops, but refreshingly, there’s still no McDonald’s.