Text and photos by Ino Manalo
The mention of Mongolia would, for me, evoke images of a thousand horsemen thundering across vast plains . What a disappointment then to arrive in the nation’s capital, Ulan Bator, with its nondescript structures of steel and concrete. Since the Soviets had once been so influential in Mongolia, people observe that Ulan looks like so many of the smaller cities in the USSR.
Walking around at dawn as is my custom, I found myself in the midst of bland apartment blocks. I was getting the impression that everything was so grey, so unremarkable, and then I saw a pack of dogs. There was an air of primordial power about them, an arresting, mesmerizing vitality. Clearly, I shouldn’t judge the vibrancy of Mongolia based on my views of its capital. After all, this was a nation whose forbears had ruled an empire that stretched all the way from Asia to the very gates of Europe itself.
Only by driving out of the metropolis does the country in one’s mind come to life. The plains are astounding indeed: dry, empty, never-ending. It is easy to forget that oceans exist and that the earth’s surface is covered mostly by water. In Mongolia there is only land.
I had to ask our driver to stop so that I could savor the view. Being from an archipelago embraced by seas, it was actually disorienting to survey this boundless terrain. Everywhere one turned was a trackless, empty wilderness. It had snowed the night before and the gleaming white landscape that now stretched before me could not be more alien to my equatorial perceptions.
I suppose it was the emptiness that was so novel, so disconcerting. For Mongolia is a largely uninhabited place. With a population of just 3 million occupying territory ten times larger than ours, there are whole areas where one would not encounter another soul for miles around. For that matter, one would not find trees or houses too, just a huge flatness.
So flat is the land, in fact, that motorists have no qualms about traversing it without the benefit of asphalt. At one point, the highway we were on was blocked due to repair work. Suddenly, I found that our vehicle had simply charged into the open plain. For what seemed like hours we drove, surrounded only by the featureless desert, accompanied by armies of tumbleweeds rolling with the wind. Other cars passed us nonchalantly. People here were obviously used to the idea that the plains were one vast roadway without roads.
Finally we reached our destination: the Orkhon Valley, site of Karakoram, former capital of the Mongol empire. Unfortunately it was very dark when we arrived so I would have to wait till the next day to take in the sights. It was also bitterly cold. That night I had to beg for two heaters just to keep soul and tropical body together.
After breakfast , I was asked by my kind hosts what I would like to eat for lunch. I brightly suggested “Mongolian barbecue”. Back in the Philippines after all, this meant a delicious dish of rice fried with the tastiest morsels of one’s choosing. My hosts were puzzled. They had never heard of such a thing. Yet, amused that such a bizarre concoction could bear their name, they gamely agreed to give it their best shot. I would be served increasingly creative versions of Mongolian barbecue everyday for the rest of my stay.
Climbing a hill, I at last got to see the main objective of our trip: the great temple of Erdene Zuu. It was here that I was to conduct a seminar on UNESCO World Heritage and Education for Sustainable Development for Mongolian teachers. From my elevated vantage point, I gained an understanding of how large was the sacred precinct surrounded by a massive wall. But I also saw the empty spaces indicating how so many of the buildings within the complex had been destroyed. Sadly, during the height of the Soviets’ influence there had been a campaign against organized religion.
Coming closer one cannot help but marvel at the rows of towers that mark the perimeter of Erdene Zuu. How proud they look, gleaming white against the impossibly blue sky. One falls silent pondering the centuries of devotion and drama that this enclosure had witnessed.
The Orkhon Valley had been at the crossroads of the commerce of ideas and goods between many peoples. One can still see in Erdene Zuu, marks of these international exchanges. The temple complex boasts of images and architectural features that reveal linkages with India, Tibet, China, Korea and Japan. There are stones carved with Mongolian, Tibetan and Indian writing.
Surveying the surviving pavilions one gets a sense of the many craftspeople that must have come together to erect this marvelous compound. Carpenters, masons, painters, embroiderers, sculptors – all would have been busy for years. One also gains an insight into just how an ancient monument is really a testimony to the environment that produced it. Acres of earth had to be dug up and transformed into bricks, whole forests had to be felled for the beams and columns. Often it was no longer possible to reconstruct an old building simply because it was so difficult to find trees big enough to fashion pillars as massive as that of the original.
The walls of Erdene Zuu are covered with illustrations of the complex beliefs of the Mongolian people. One image I found quite compelling was a picture of a sky burial, with the entrails and limbs of the deceased hung out for vultures to consume. I was admiring the everyday scenes filled with horses and sheep when I caught sight of something vaguely familiar: a pack of dogs. The painted canines looked so much like their flesh and blood counterparts that I had seen a few days before. So it was: Erdene Zuu and its murals are testaments to the continuity of Mongolian life. Yet in the courtyard one will also see the bases which had once supported the columns of structures that had probably been demolished under the Soviets. Heritage buildings, after all, help us realize that our histories are as much marked by absences as by presences.
The high point of my visit was meeting the Grand Abbot. He allowed me to sit with his monks during their prayers. He told me of his mission to rebuild Erdene Zuu. Though solemn at first he lightened up as we got to converse more. He interrupted our discussions periodically to sip tea from a white bowl which I noted was quite lovely with its subtle decoration.
The Abbot even joined in quite wholeheartedly during our seminar exercises. I was quite nervous when I had to deliver a presentation on Erdene Zuu. Perhaps the audience, led by the temple’s venerable elder, would find what I had to say preposterous. Fortunately, my lecture was enthusiastically received. When it was time for me to go, the Abbot presented me with a gift wrapped in a scarf. I would learn that it was the bowl that I had admired.
During our trip back to the city, I asked about some stupas on a hill in the distance. Sensing my interest the driver once again cavalierly drove our vehicle into the desert. It turned out that the cluster of stupas actually marked the very center of Mongolia.
Standing there, in what was in effect the navel of this land, I surveyed the grand vistas around me. One knew that beyond the horizon lay the many regions that had all been part of the Mongol realm. I fell to thinking about the people that I had spent many days with. I recalled how I had asked them during the workshop to create a large mural of their vision for the future of the Orkhon Valley. I remembered how they had foreseen that someday there may be more factories and more tall buildings. Someday there may even be an airport. Yet what I found most interesting was how everyone agreed that, whatever else happened, Erdene Zuu would be restored.
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