Mongolia | New Book | Wanders in the Khentii Mountains of Mongolia

In 1997 I did a ten-day horse trip to the Onon Hot Springs and the beginning of the Onon River in Khentii Aimag, northeast of Ulaanbaatar, as described in my book Wanders in Northern Mongolia. On the return leg of the trip I ascended 7,749-foot Burkhan Khaldun, also known as Khentii Khan Uul, arguably the most sacred mountain in Mongolia. The mountain is mentioned in the Secret History of the Mongols, a thirteenth-century account of the rise of the Mongols under Chingis Khan, and it was here, according to the Secret History, that Temüjin—the future Chingis Khan—hid from the Merkid tribesmen who had kidnapped his wife and wanted to capture him. According to legend, Chingis Khan also came here to pray before embarking on his military campaigns. Later the mountain would be inextricably bound up in the cult of Chingis Khan and also become a pilgrimage site for Buddhists. Still later some would claim that Chingis Khan was born near Burkhan Khaldun and was buried on its summit.

Not long after my trip two Mongolian historians, D. Bazargür and D. Enkhbayar, published a book entitled Chinggis Khaan Atlas. The Atlas contained thirty-seven maps (including insets) depicting in great detail the locations of many places and events mentioned in the Secret History of the Mongols. After I had studied the Atlas in detail and interviewed Bazargür and Enkhbayar I decided that I would return to the Burkhan Khaldun area and visit some of the places shown on the maps.

 

In the meantime I had made a pilgrimage to 21,778-foot Mount Kailash, the sacred mountain in Tibet worshipped by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Bönpos (followers of the Bön religion), shamans, and others, and by then also a favorite destination for adventure tourism. No one is allowed to climb to the summit of Mount Kailash, but thousands of people a year circumambulate the mountain via a thirty-two-mile-long path. A pilgrimage circuit of a sacred place like Kailash is known as a khora. Khoras are always done clockwise around the sacred place or object, unless you are a contrarian Bönpo, who do khoras counter-clockwise (I encountered several Bönpos walking counter-clockwise around Mount Kailash). The Kailash khora, the high point of which is the 18,200-foot Drölma Pass, is a strenuous endeavor. The week I was in the Kailash area at least ten people perished while circumambulating the mountain. Several, reportedly, were elderly Hindus from India who may have come here, consciously or unconsciously, to transmigrate at this sacred place. Some hardy Tibetans, however, do the khora in one day. Most people take two or three days (I made it in two and a half days). 

Mount Kailash

After returning from Kailash I got the idea of doing a khora around Burkhan Khaldun, which without stretching the imagination too much could be considered Mongolia’s equivalent of Mount Kailash. I would of course not do the khora on foot but by horse, the traditional mode of travel in Mongolia. From what I could determine in Ulaanbaatar from talking to knowledgeable people, including several lamas familiar with sacred mountains, there was no tradition of doing a khora around Burkhan Khaldun. I was assured, however, that there was no law, custom, or tradition forbidding a khora of the mountain. Burkhan Khaldun was within the boundaries of the 4,740 square-mile Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, the Mongolian equivalent of a national park, and permits were needed to make extended trips in the area, but these could be easily obtained from the Strictly Protected Area offices in Ulaanbaatar. 

I had no sooner decided upon this course of action than I got a call from the translator I had used on my first trip to Burkhan Khaldun. She said that Zevgee, the Kherlen River herdsman from whom I had rented horses and who served as my guide on my first trip, was in town and wanted to talk to me. I met with Zevgee and his wife Tümen-Ölzii at a local pizza parlor. Zevgee wanted to know if I had any more horse trips in mind. By then in his early sixties, Zevgee was semi-retired, having turned over his herds to his sons, and had a lot of free time on his hands. I knew he enjoyed doing horse trips in the Khentii Mountains and I suspected he also needed the extra money from a horse trip to see him through the upcoming winter. I explained to him the khora I had done around Mount Kailash in Tibet and suggested that we do a khora around Burkhan Khaldun by horse. He was of course familiar with the concept of khoras. They are often done around sacred places and objects in Mongolia. 

I had been told by several knowledgeable people that in the nineteenth and early twentieth century there was a khora route around Bogd Khan Uul, the huge massif that looms up to the south of Ulaanbaatar, although admittedly I was never able to get details of its exact path. Also, pilgrims would routinely do khoras when visiting Erdene Zuu, the monastery founded in 1685-86 by Avtai Khan (1554–1588), the great-grandfather of Zanabazar, the First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia (now a museum located on the outskirts of Kharkhorin, in Övörkhangai Aimag). First they would circumambulate the wall surrounding the monastery, which measures roughly 1350 feet on each side. Then they would circumambulate the three Zuu Temples at the southwest corner of the monastery complex. Entering the Central Zuu Temple, they would then circumambulate the famous Jowo statue, the centerpiece of the temple, passing behind it via a corridor along the back wall. 

Erdene Zuu 

Mini-khoras are also often done around ovoos, or stone cairns, that mark passes on highways and other auspicious places. Passing such an ovoo, many drivers will stop and circumambulate it three times. Some drivers, passing an ovoo on a pass, just honk their horns and claim that this counts as a khora. 

While a khora around an ovoo at a highway pass can be completed in ten or fifteen seconds, some khoras take considerably longer. It has long been believed in esoteric circles that the 1925–28 Roerich Expedition through Inner Asia, led by artist, mystic, spy, arch-intriguer, and hard-core Aghartian-Shambhalist Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947), was actually a khora around the mythical kingdom of Shambhala, believed to be located somewhere in Inner Asia. The expedition began in Srinagar, India, and made a vast clockwise circuit through India, East Turkestan, Russia, Mongolia (passing through Ulaanbaatar), China, Tibet, and back to India. The several books written by the Roerichs about the expedition did not mention that they interrupted the khora by making a side trip to Moscow, where they attempted to enlist the new communist government in a quixotic scheme to establish a new kingdom of Shambhala in Inner Asia. For more see my In Search of Shambhala: The 1925-1928 Roerich Expedition in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

After discussing these various khoras, Zevgee, like my other informants, says he is unaware of any tradition of doing khoras around Burkhan Khaldun. Although born in Bayankhongor Aimag, in southwest Mongolia, he has lived in the upper Kherlen River Valley since his early twenties and is recognized as a fount of local lore. His wife, Tümen-Ölzii, was born and raised in the Kherlen Valley and is also very knowledgeable about local traditions. She too has not heard of any tradition of doing khoras around Burkhan Khaldun. Both concurred, however, that there was no prohibition against it. Zevgee was quite excited about the idea and had mapped out a rough itinerary on a paper napkin even before we finished our pizza. Continued.

For more see:

Mongolia | Zanabazar | First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia

Zanabazar (1635–1723) was, according to most reckonings, the sixteenth incarnation of Javsandamba. The first incarnation is believed to have appeared around the time of the Buddha. As a small boy he was recognized as the spiritual leader of Mongolia and awarded the title of Bogd Gegeen. He would go on to play a role in the religious and political life of Mongolia analogous to that of the Dalai Lamas of Tibet. Zanabazar built temples and established monasteries, including one at what is now the site of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, and was a polymath who invented new scripts for writing the Mongolian language, designed new clothes for monks, studied the medical properties of hot springs, and much else. He is most famous for his bronze statues which are now the centerpieces of three museums in Ulaanbaatar. “During his lifetime, he was the greatest Buddhist sculptor in Asia,” opines art historian K. Youso about Zanabazar.” Indeed, he is often called the Michelangelo of Mongolia. Zanabazar was the first of Mongolia’s nine Bogd Gegeens. The Ninth Bogd Gegeen transmigrated on March 1, 2012.  During a visit to Mongolia on November 23, 2016, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama announced that the Tenth Bogd Gegeen had been born and that attempts were being made to identify him. Update: The Tenth has now been named. See Tenth Incarnation.

See The Life of Zanabazar

United States | Maryland | Great Allegheny Passage | Cumberland | Mount Savage | Frostburg

In Cumberland, Maryland, the Spring, or Vernal, Equinox occurred at 11:06 p.m. on March 19, according to the Gregorian calendar imposed on the Occidental world by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The Equinox marks the astrological astronomical beginning of the spring season in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s often said that the Spring Equinox is when day and night are of equal length. Actually, due to an astronomical quirk, the date when day and night are equal, known as the Equilux, is usually a few days before the Equinox. This year March 15 has eleven hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-five seconds of daylight. The next day has twelve hours, two minutes, and thirty-one seconds of daylight, so the pendulum has already swung toward longer days. The day of the Equinox has twelve hours, ten minutes, and twenty-four seconds of daylight. The next day has twelve hours, thirteen minutes, and zero seconds, making it two minutes and thirty-six seconds longer than the day before. The procession is on to the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, on June 20. I have decided that between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice I will wander on the Great Allegheny Passage, a bike and hiking trail built on the roadbeds of now-abandoned railroads that extends 150 miles from Cumberland to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Another trail, the C&O Canal Towpath, runs 184.5 from Cumberland to Washington, D.C, making it possible, in season, to ride a bike—or hike, if you are so inclined—334.5 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington. No motorized vehicles (except for electric bikes) are allowed on the entire path. Before proceeding on the GAP I will first explore the city of Cumberland . . . Continued.

U.S.A | Maryland | Pennsylvania | New Book

The 3,294-foot Big Savage Tunnel north of Frostburg closed for the winter on November 30, 2023, and would not reopen until March 28, 2024, thus effectively ending the biking season for through-trips between Cumberland and Pittsburgh. I spent the winter holed up in Frostburg, Maryland, which I am using as a base for my wanderings on the GAP. After the November 30 tunnel closing a few brief snow squalls laid down an inch or less of snow that quickly melted and occasionally rain would freeze at the higher altitudes, making the trail treacherous, but other than during these brief episodes the GAP remained open to the tunnel for much of December and early January. In late January and in February a few heavy snowfalls closed the GAP completely. The last big blizzard, which dropped close to six inches of snow, hit just before the Spring Equinox on March 19. It took almost a week for the snow to melt off the GAP north of Frostburg. As soon as the trail was clear I rode up to Big Savage Tunnel . . .  Continued.

USA | Allegheny Mountains | Trout Season | Ramps

Trout Season opened last Saturday. A local Waltonian stopped by my Retreat and dropped off two rainbow trout he had caught. True, they were hatchery-raised and stocked in a stream for sports fishermen, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Rainbow trout and ramp leaves (click on photos for enlargements)

I also pickled the bulbs and the lower stems of some ramps in a brine of one-half water and one-half vinegar with one teaspoon of turbinado sugar, one teaspoon of pink Mongolian sea salt, and two sassafras leaves (used as a substitute for bay leaves; both sassafras and bay belong to the same botanical family). 

Pickled ramps

As a side dish to the trout I made some lentils and Basmati rice with steamed (not boiled) ramp leaves and pickled ramp stems and bulbs as a garnish. 

USA | Allegheny Mountains | Ramps

Ramps Season has begun! For many foragers ramps (Allium tricoccum) are the Holy Grail of edible plants. I located a dozen or more small colonies of ramps along a small tributary of the Casselman River.

Tributary of the Casselman River (click on photos for enlargements)

A nice colony of ramps next to a convenient brooklet for washing them.

A small colony of ramps

Another colony of ramps

Ramps

Ramps

Most ramp plants have two leaves. One leaf can be harvested from a plant without killing it.

The whole ramp plant. Authorities recommend harvesting no more than 10% of a colony to ensure its long-term health. I never harvest more than 5%. The leaves and bulbs can be used in any way you would use onions.

Iran | Yazd

Wandered by Yazd, a city of about one million people located near the middle of Iran. It is known as one of the hottest cities in the country. As with many cities in the desert water is held in high regard. 

 Main square of Yazd (click on photos for enlargements)

 Main square of Yazd

 Main square of Yazd

Kids playing in the main square of Yazd. The city’s famous wind-catchers, which catch cool breezes and funnel them down into the buildings below, can be seen in the background. The wind-catchers were an early form of air-conditioning. 

 Skyline of Yazd with more wind-catchers

Wind-Catchers

Streets of Yazd

 Mosque in Yazd

 Detail of mosque in Yazd

  Detail of mosque in Yazd

 Hotel where I stayed in Yazd

 Courtyard of hotel where I stayed in Yazd

  Courtyard of hotel where I stayed in Yazd

Courtyard of hotel where I stayed in Yazd. The perfect place for sipping a saffron tisane as the air cools off at twilight. 

Iran | Esfahan | Abbasi Hotel

Wandered down to Esfahan, south of Tehran. I was especially looking forward to visiting Esfahan since I had booked a room at the legendary Abassi Hotel, which if not the city’s best hotel is certainly the most historic and picturesque.

Location of Esfahan (click on photos for enlargements).

The Abbasi Hotel was originally a caravanserai built during the time the the Safavid Sultan Husayn (1668—1726). It was restored and remodeled in the 1950s into an upscale hotel. Film buffs may recognize the hotel as the set for the 1974 movie Ten Little Indians starring Oliver Reed and German bombshell Elke Sommer. I had read some on-line reviews that groused about the small size of some of the rooms at the hotel. This was certainly not the case with my first floor room, which opened directly onto the courtyard. A troop of dancers, had one been available, could have bivouacked in the room with space left over for a camel or two. 

This etching was made in 1840. 

The basic layout of the building itself has changed very little since 1840. The two-story arched alcove near the right edge of the etching now hosts a charming little snack shop. The dome and minaret of the mosque seen looming over the top of the building are unchanged. Oh how I would have loved to have been in that courtyard when it still hosted camels! Note that the camels shown are Two-Humped Bactrians, the most noble of the world’s four-legged creatures, and not one-humped dromedaries. I would have had second thoughts about staying at the caravanserai if they had allowed in dromedaries, unless, of course, dromedaries were restricted to their own watering troughs.

Camels (Bactrian). You can’t help but love them.

Lobby of hotel. I took this photo at five o’clock in the morning. During the day and evening the lobby was a madhouse of milling tourists from England, Germany, Italy, Spain, China, and elsewhere. As far as I could tell I was the only American. 

Courtyard of hotel

Courtyard of hotel

Courtyard of hotel

Courtyard of hotel

Courtyard of hotel

Courtyard of hotel

Courtyard of hotel

I spent my late afternoons in the courtyard enjoying glasses of refreshing hibiscus tisane with rock sugar. Clinically proven to lower your blood pressure!

Hotel lobby coffee shop where I got my morning caffeine fix. In the afternoons it was jammed with Chinese tour groups.

Mongolia | False Lama of Mongolia: The Life and Death of Dambijantsan

Who was Dambijantsan?

A Buddhist monk; a freedom fighter for Mongolian independence; the descendant of Amursanaa (1723–1757), the Western Mongol who led the last great uprising against the Qing Dynasty of China; the incarnation of Mahakala, the Buddhist god of war; bandit, torturer, murderer, or evil incarnate? During his lifetime no one was sure who he really was, and even today the controversy about his life continues.

Born in what is now the Republic of Kalmykia, part of the Russian Federation, Dambijantsen traveled throughout Tibet, India, and China before arriving in Mongolia in 1890 where he tossed gold coins to bystanders and announced to one and all that he had come to free Mongolia from the yoke of the Qing Dynasty of China. After disappearing almost twenty years he returned to lead the attack on Khovd City, the last Chinese outpost in Mongolia. Honored by the Eighth Bogd Gegeen, the theocratic leader of Mongolia, for his efforts in achieving Mongolian independence, he went on to establish his own mini-state in western Mongolia, which he hoped to use as a base for establishing a Mongol-led Buddhist khanate in Inner Asia. His dictatorial nature and unbridled sadism soon came to the fore and he was finally arrested and imprisoned in Russia. After the Russian Revolution he returned to Mongolia, gathered new followers around him, and established a stronghold at the nexus of old caravan routes in Gansu Province, China. He robbed caravans, grew opium, and once again dreamed of creating a new Mongolian khanate in Inner Asia. Finally the new Bolshevik government in Mongolia, fearful of his rising power, issued orders for his assassination. Dambijantsan transmigrated in 1922, but in Mongolia legends persist to this day that his spirit still rides on the winds of the Gobi and continues to haunt his former lairs.

For more on Dambijantsan see False Lama of Mongolia: The Life and Death of Dambijantsan. 

USA | Allegheny Mountains | Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) | Flora | Coltsfoot

Biked from Meyersdale south to the Big Savage Tunnel. Still no word from the GAP panjandrums on when the tunnel will open. When I arrived at the rest stop a guy in his mid-twenties was just packing up his camping gear. He had spent the night at the rest stop. He wanted to continue south on the GAP and asked if I knew any detours around the tunnel. Actually I do. At Mile Post 23, less than half a mile from the rest stop, a steep road turns off to the right, if you are coming from the tunnel, and drops down to Shirley Hollow Road. This road crosses Laurel Run—a beautiful little babbling brook at this point—and proceeds another 2.2 miles (up 240 vertical feet) to the tiny hamlet of Pleasant Union on Route 160. Truly determined GAPers can take this route to travel from Pittsburgh or points east to Cumberland when the Big Savage Tunnel is closed. (For more on the detour see my Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage: Frostburg to Garrett.) At the intersection of Route 160 and Shirley Hollow Road turn right. After .65 of a mile the road drops down the side of Big Savage Mountain 3.7 miles to the Mason-Dixon Line (1,282 vertical feet) at the village of Wellersburg. The famous surveyors Mason and Dixon camped near here in June of 1766, the furthest point west they surveyed that year. They would return the next year and continue the survey of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border westward.

In Maryland the road, now Maryland Route 47, continues another 1.7 miles to Barrelville, on Route 36, the Mount Savage Road, with a drop of another 200 vertical feet. Turn right here and proceed .6 of a mile to Woodcock Hollow Road. It’s another 1.6 of a mile up the road, with a vertical altitude gain of 303 feet, to the GAP at the Woodcock Hollow Road Crossing. From here you can proceed on the GAP to either Frostburg or Cumberland. Doing this trip in reverse, with the 5.6-mile climb up Big Savage Mountain from Barrelville to the Shirley Hollow Road cutoff, with a vertical altitude gain of 1516 feet, is certainly doable on electric bikes (I did it), but it would test the endurance of Olympian athletes on regular bikes. If you are traveling south and are hell-bent on getting to Cumberland as fast as possible this detour is 3.85 miles shorter than the GAP between the same two points (Shirley Hollow Road cutoff and the Woodcock Hollow Crossroads), eliminating as it does the big loop around Frostburg, You can also make excellent time flying down off Big Savage Mountain, your speed limited only by how fast you dare to go.

I told the young man it was possible to this but that I was not necessarily recommending that he try. This is fairly easy ride on electric bikes but the climb from Laurel Run up to Route 160 might be difficult for someone on a regular bike. Also, I did not know the current condition of Shirley Hollow Road, which is unpaved. It might still be muddy and difficult to navigate. The guy said he was going to try it, however. I hope he got through.

I walked up upstream on Laurel Run, the stream the GAP crosses just north of the tunnel. I was looking for golden saxifrage, blood root, and various trilliums, all among the first plants to appear in the Spring. I found nothing in bloom. Jack-in-the-Pulpits also occur here, although not of course until the end of spring and the beginning of Summer.

Laurel Run

I rode back towards Meyersdale and was startled to see just before the Continental Divide several clumps of coltsfoot. I had scanned the right-of-way of the GAP very carefully riding south and they were not here when I passed by three hours earlier.

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot

These are the first flowers I have seen in bloom the GAP this year. Riding on I saw numerous clumps of coltsfoot the whole way to Meyersdale. None had been in bloom that morning. They had appeared in the space of three hours.