Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Wildflower Alert

Alert! Alert! Alert! Alert! Alert!

The first wildflowers of the year have been sighted on Bogd Khan Uul above my lair! Saw some tiny white primroses and minute yellow buttercups. After the sighting I sat by Khiimoryn Ovoo until 10:00 pm, an hour and a half after sunset, and was treated to the sight of the planet Mercury in the west-northwest sky, not far above the horizon. How lucky am I?

Map courtesy of Sky & Telescope

Mongolia | Khovd Aimag | Ja Lama and the Siege of Khovd

By the end of the year 1911 the Qing Dynasty in China was in its death throes. Mongolia, which had been part of the Qing Empire since 1691, soon declared its independence. On December 29, 1911, the Eighth Bogd Gegeen and twenty-third Incarnation of Javsandamba was named Bogd Khan and placed on the throne of the sovereign country of Mongolia. Two hundred and twenty years of Qing rule was over.

8th Bogd Gegeen

At the same time a badarchin, or wandering holy man, named Dambijantsan, a.k.a. Ja Lama, Ja Bagsh (teacher), Dambija, Khoyor Tsagaan Temeet Lam (Two White Camel Lama), etc, was in what was then the Khovd Border Region, now Khovd Aimag, some 700 miles west of the Mongolian capital of Örgöö. According to the famous Mongolian monk known as the Diluv Khutagt, head of Narobanchin Monastery in western Mongolia, on December 29 Dambijantsan did a “strange, magical thing." According to the Diluv Khutagt:

The Bogd was declared Khan of At the same time a badarchin, or wandering holy man, named Dambijantsan, a.k.a. Ja Lama, Ja Bagsh (teacher), Dambija, Khoyor Tsagaan Temeet Lam (Two White Camel Lama), etc, was in what was then the Khovd Border Region, now Khovd Aimag, some 700 miles west of the Mongolian capital of Örgöö. According to the famous Mongolian monk known as the Diluv Khutagt, head of Narobanchin Monastery in western Mongolia, on December 29 Dambijantsan did a “strange, magical thing." According to the Diluv Khutagt:

The Bogd was declared Khan of Mongolia at the time of the Mongol Revolution in 1911. Long before the news of this event reached Western Mongolia, Ja Lama called the people around him, and said, “The time for rejoicing has arrived.” He then touched the barrel of his gun to the top of each man’s head, in the way a lama gives a blessing with his prayer beads, and said, “Go to the east and pray.” Later is was discovered that this was the exact day on which the Bogd had been declared Khaan.

In the months to come this wandering badarchin known as the Ja Lama would lead the attack on the Khovd Fortress, the last outpost of Manchu authority in Mongolia, and within a year he would become the most powerful man in western Mongolia. He would achieve fame all over Mongolia for his alleged magical feats and become notorious for his cruelty. Worshipped and feared in equal measure, he became the subject of any number of legends which continue to be retold down to the present day.

Mongolia at the time of the Mongol Revolution in 1911. Long before the news of this event reached Western Mongolia, Ja Lama called the people around him, and said, “The time for rejoicing has arrived.” He then touched the barrel of his gun to the top of each man’s head, in the way a lama gives a blessing with his prayer beads, and said, “Go to the east and pray.” Later is was discovered that this was the exact day on which the Bogd had been declared Khaan.

In the months to come this wandering badarchin known as the Ja Lama would lead the attack on the Khovd Fortress, the last outpost of Manchu authority in Mongolia, and within a year he would become the most powerful man in western Mongolia. He would achieve fame all over Mongolia for his alleged magical feats and become notorious for his cruelty. Worshipped and feared in equal measure, he became the subject of any number of legends which continue to be retold down to the present day.

Dambijantsan, the Ja Lama

But who was Dambijantsan, the Ja Lama? All of his life he was a mystery and he remained even more so after his death. The Diluv Khutagt was six years old when he first met Dambijantsan, would encounter him many times in later life, and was eventually involved in the plot to assassinate him. In his Autobiography he included an entire chapter about Dambijantsan, the only individual to warrant such attention, and yet even to him the Ja Lama remained an enigma. “He called himself a lama, but nobody knew if he really was one,” the Diluv Khutagt wrote, “No one knew his real age. No one knew the real truth about him.”

While traveling through Mongolia and China in 1927 George Roerich, son of famous artist, mystic, and Shambhalist Nicholas Roerich, attempted to gather information about Dambijantsan. In his book Trails to Inmost Asia, he, like the Diluv Khutagt, included an entire chapter about Dambijantsan. Here he noted:

. . . no one knows exactly where he came from or what his ambitions were. It is extremely difficult to piece together all the existing information about his life, so varied were his activities and so extensive were his travels. The arena of his activity was the whole of Asia, from Astrakhan to Peking and from Urga to distant India. I succeeded in collecting information about him and his life from Mongolian and Tibetan lamas and laymen whom fate brought into contact with the dreaded warrior-priest. This singular personality for some thirty-five years hypnotized the whole of Greater Mongolia. At present, some six years after the death of the man, Mongols feel an unholy dread of him, and worship him as a militant incarnation of one of their national leaders.

George Roerich’s arguably more famous father Nicholas noted in his own book about the expedition: “Ja-Lama was no ordinary bandit . . . What thoughts and dreams fretted the gray head of Ja-Lama? . . . All through the Central Gobi, the legend of Ja-Lama will persist for a long time. What a scenario for a moving picture!” Indeed, a movie was eventually made about Dambijantsan, and it is still occasionally shown on the Mongolian State TV.

Nicholas Roerich

Many others, including I. M. Maisky, later Soviet ambassador to England; Danish colonist and explorer Henning Haslund, author of Men & Gods in Mongolia; Swedish explorer Sven “the Desert Wanderer” Hedin; and famous Mongolist Owen Lattimore, would attempt to piece together what little was known about Dambijantsan’s life. From their accounts and others we can attempt a tentative biography of the enigmatic Ja Lama.

Oddly enough Dambijantsan was born in Europe, on the Caspian steppes along the Volga River north of the Caspian Sea. Ethnically he was a Dörböt Mongol, one of the several tribes of the people known as Kalmyks. The Kalmyks were Oirat, or Western, Mongols, who back in the 1620s and 30s had left their homelands in what is now western Mongolia and the current Chinese province of Xinjiang and migrated en masse westward to the Caspian steppes, where they became nominal subjects of the Russian Czar. By the 1760s many Kalmyks had become disillusioned by life under their Russian masters, and on January 5, 1771 over 150,000 Kalmyks suddenly packed up and left the Caspian steppes on what would be a long and fateful trek to Xinjiang, China. Only about 70,000 survived the journey.

Some Kalmyks, in particular members of the Törgöt tribe, remained behind and were eventually accorded Russian citizenship. It was among these people that Dambijantsan was born, according to several sources, in 1860. From 1860 to 1890 we have only rumors and legends about Dambijantsan’s life. At the age of seven he supposedly entered a monastery of the Jangjya Khutagt in Dolonnuur, in what is now the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, and began religious studies. He is also said to have studied many years in Gomang College at Drepung Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet. According to George Roerich:

It is generally said that he killed his roommate in the monastery because of a dispute and had to flee from Lhasa in order to escape from the stern monastic law. This fact is generally known in Tibet and Mongolia. It seems that the murder was a crucial point in his life for from then on begins his life as an errant warrior-monk, full of wonderful adventures, messianic prophesies, and cruel deeds.

Drepung Monastery in Tibet, where Ja Lama supposedly studied

Perhaps it was after this unfortunate episode that he turned up in India as a wandering holy man. Already well-versed in advanced Buddhist metaphysics and tantric teachings, in India he may have encountered fakirs from whom he learned more of the mind-reading and the other paranormal skills for which he would later become famous. In the years prior to 1890 he also found time to work as a guide and factotum with various Russian scientific expeditions, including N. M. Przhelvalsky’s 1883–1885 trip to Central Asia and Tibet. Bizarrely, it was said that at some point in his wanderings he even turned up in St. Petersburg and studied law with the Faculty of Jurisprudence at St. Petersburg University. This may have simply been a rumor spread by himself to burnish his own reputation.

Dambijantsan’s life prior to 1890 might be termed his apprenticeship period. In 1890 he suddenly appeared in western Mongolia, where he began in earnest his career as a fighter for Mongolian independence. Here he first met the boy who would become known as the Diluv Khutagt. The latter wrote:

When I was only six years old . . . Ja Lama made a trip through Outer Mongolia going from east to west, and he stayed one night at the tent of my father and mother. He was riding one horse and leading two. He let his horses out to graze, and in the morning did not have to catch them, he just went to the top of a little hill and called, and they came to him.

Dambijantsan soon unveiled a startling revelation. He was, he claimed, the descendant of Amursanaa, the great Oirat freedom fighter, the leader of the last Mongol uprising against the Qing Dynasty, come to free the Mongolian people from their Manchu masters. He quickly managed to involve several noblemen and high-ranking lamas in anti-Manchu-Chinese protests. The Qing amban in Uliastai soon became aware of Dambijantsan’s presence in western Mongolia and ordered him to appear at the Qing headquarters for questioning. Here he was arrested for entering Mongolia without any passport or other documentation. Two Mongolian officials serving under the Manchus, Nanrad and Avari, were called in to interrogate him. According to the Diluv Khutagt, Dambijantsan spoke to the two officials “in a very supercilious manner.” Dambijantsan:

Although I am a Russian citizen, I am a Mongol—and what does it matter to you whether a Mongol has documents or not, traveling in his own land? You two, being Mongols, would do well to pay attention to the affairs of your own people, whose time is coming to arise, instead of oppressing a comrade of your own people on behalf of a foreign people [the Manchus] whose time of decay has come . . . I am sure, in this huge land of your great people, you have nothing to fear from a solitary pilgrim priest. Since I have done nothing wrong, the most you could do would be to send me back to my homeland.

Nanrad and Avari were completely taken aback by this bold speech and could make no reply. Then two Russian merchants residing in Uliastai came forth and after they offered to post a bond Dambijantsan was finally released.

According to one account he may have traveled on from Mongolia to Tibet, his earlier crimes and misdemeanors there apparently forgotten by then. In the fall of 1891 he reappeared in western Mongolia, riding on one white camel and leading another. It may be at this time that he acquired the name Khoyor Tsagaan Temeet Lam (Two White Camel Lama). A year later, in 1892, the Russian ethnographer A. M. Pozdneev visited the Monastery of Amarbayasgalant in north-central Mongolia, and by that time the news of the Ja Lama’s appearance had spread throughout the entire country. Pozdneev:

. . . for at least an hour I listened to stories of how, during Dambi Jantsan's journey over the post road, the people, with secret fear and hope, had greeted him everywhere, paid him the most heartfelt obeisance, and brought him rich offerings. Others told me that Dambi Jantsan himself had scattered gold among the poorer Mongols, and there was no end of entirely legendary tales.

Once again Dambijantsan’s anti-Manchu agitations brought him to the attention of the Qing amban in Uliastai. In the late fall of 1891 he was detained and taken to Uliastai, where he was interrogated by Qing officials. He refused to answer any of their questions and demanded, since he was a Russian citizen, to speak to someone in the Uliastai Russian community. The Russian merchant P. I. Kriazhev was summoned. Dambijantsan, who had been handcuffed, asked Kriazhev reach into the folds of his deel and find a key concealed there. With the key Kriazhev opened the lock on an iron strongbox which Dambijantsan had with him. In the box Kriazhev found a pass allowing “Astrakan Kalmyk Jambi-Jiantsin” to travel through Mongolia. Fortunately for Dambijantsan the officials did not further examine the contents of the iron box. Hidden inside were proclamations in Mongolian “urging the overthrow of the Chinese yoke.” Had the proclamations been found Dambijantsan might well have spent the next years of his life in a Manchu prison. Instead he was let go for lack of evidence. Dambijantsan’s audacity in the face of the Qing authorities and his narrow escape became part of the myth about his invincibility. Had the magician who according to legend could control men’s minds mesmerized his Qing interrogators? In any case, the Qing amban had him in his hands and then simply let him slip away.

By this time Dambijantsan had also attracted the attention of the Russian consul in Mongolia. The consul, whose powers of extraterritoriality gave him authority over Russian citizens in Mongolia, finally had him brought to Örgöö and interrogated. Whatever Dambijantsan was up to, he was clearly a trouble-maker. Hoping to be finally rid of the unruly Kalmyk, the consul had him deported back to Russia through the northern border town of Kyakhta.

After his expulsion from Mongolia, we hear no more of Dambijantsan for twenty some years. How does a man like Dambijantsan, who had electrified the populace of Mongolia during his sojourns there in 1890 and 1891, almost immediately becoming the stuff of legend, and whose charisma, will power, and apparent magical abilities had left an indelible impression on almost everyone who met him, simply disappear for twenty years? This is just one of the many mysteries of Dambijantsan’s life.

In 1910 Dambijantsan suddenly appeared in the town of Karashahr, in what is now Xinjiang Province, China. Here he sought out the Brothers Kriazhev, Russian merchants who were operating in the area at the time. Karashahr, now known as Yanqi, was in an area inhabited by Torgut Mongols, many of them descendants of the Torgots who took part in the great migration of Kalmyk Mongols from the Caspian steppes back to China in 1771. Dambijantsan, himself a Dörböt, like the Torguts one of the tribes which made up the Kalmyks, would have found himself at home here among the descendants of the migrants from the Caspian steppes where he was born, and he ended up staying in the Karashahr area for over a year. He must have had his ear to the ground and his political senses no doubt told him that the tottering Qing Dynasty was about to come to an ignominious end. Perhaps he was just biding his time in among the Torgut Mongols near Karashahr, waiting for the proper moment to make a dramatic return to western Mongolia.

According to Diluv Khutagt he arrived back in the Khovd area in late 1911 in the company of “a man got up like a lama, and they had two riding camels. He visited the Torguud (Torgut) and Ööld banners one after another and everywhere caused everyone, great and small, to have faith in him. . .” He also traveled to what is now Uvs Aimag, where he met the Russian colonist A. V. Burdukov. According to Burdukov, Dambijantsan’s “entire body showed extraordinary vitality and mobility. He was dressed in a brown cloak of Chinese cut, under which one saw a rather incongruous collar of a European military tunic; he wore high Russian boots. He spoke in the Oirat language, and talked about India, China, Tibet, and Russia, where, he said, he had traveled a great deal.”

He also repeated his assertion that he was the descendant and/or reincarnation of Amursanaa. The Russian researcher I. M. Maisky, who traveled through the region a few years later, wrote:

One can . . . easily imagine the sensation Ja Lama created among the Durbets [Dörböts] when he let them in on the “secret” that he was none other than a descendant and reincarnation of the renowned Amursanaa and that the last hero of Mongolian independence had become incarnated in him so that he, Ja Lama, might lift the Chinese yoke from his native land. There was great excitement among the tribes of the Khovd region. The name of Ja Lama was on all tongues. Everyone saw him as the savior of the fatherland. Princes, lamas and plain folk came flocking to the newly-risen leader and donated livestock, silver, cloth, etc. In a short time, the bold monk became in fact the ruler of the Kobdo Mongols. He now began his activities in earnest.

Dambijantsan soon set up a military camp on the Dund Tsenkher Gol near the current day town of Mankhan, then as now the territory of the Zakhchin people. According to men who fought with Dambijantsan, interviewed by Professor Basaakhüü of Khovd in the 1970s, upwards of 4500 men flocked to Dambijantsan’s camp here on the Dund Tsenkher. Dambijantsan, who did not like disorder, had his men pick up all the loose rocks in the area of their camp and put them in piles. These piles of rocks can still be seen here today.

Campground of Dambijantsan’s men at Dund Tsenkher Gol,
with small piles of rocks they placed there.

Several skirmishes broke out during next the two months, but the Mongols were unable to dislodge the Chinese garrison, in part because they lacked adequate weapons and ammunition. Many were armed with ancient flintlocks, and some had only bows. That changed when the Mongols ambushed a relief column sent to the besieged garrison and seized eighty camel loads of modern Japanese rifles, ammunition, and other supplies. Dambijantsan’s role in the ambush is unclear. Some sources say he lead the ambush or at least took part; others maintain Magsarjav organized and led the attack himself.

Shiriin Khötöl, the site of the ambush, 9.6 miles from Khovd City. When the relief column emerged from the mouth of the canyon it was attacked by men hiding in the cliffs above.

Under Dambijantsan’s leadership the assault on Khovd was renewed. On August 6 the city surrendered and most of the Chinese shops and warehouses were plundered. The following day the fortress itself surrendered. According to one source 500 Chinese soldiers were killed over a thousand soldiers and civilians were taken prisoner. The Manchu amban too was seized. Dambijantsan wanted to kill all the prisoners, including the amban, but the Russian consul intervened and the amban and his entourage were given safe passage to Russia, from whence they eventually returned to China.

Ruins of the wall of the Khovd Fortress. This is the southwest corner where the Manchu amban’s residence was located.

Ruins of the Chinese Fortress on the right

With the fall of the Khovd fortress and the eviction of the Manchu Amban and the Chinese garrison, the vast last vestige of foreign rule was removed from Mongolia, and the Khovd Frontier Region—the current-day aimags of Khovd, Bayan-Ölgii, and parts of Uvs—was effectively brought under the control of the Bogd Khan’s government in Örgöö. As a reward for the role Dambijantsan had played in the Mongol victory at Khovd the Bogd Khan gave him two titles: Dogshin Noyon (Ferocious Prince) Khutagt and Erdene Bishrelt Khüchin Tögöldor Noyon Khutagt Nomin Khan (Jewel Pious Perfect Strength Prince Khutagt, Lord of Scriptures. He was also named Baruun Khyazgaarig llben Tokhinuullakh Said (Minister for the Pacification and Settlement of the Western Frontier). The wandering badarchin who first appeared on the scene with only two white camels was now the most powerful man in western Mongolia.

Dambijantsan spent the winter of 1912-13 at his camp on the Dund Tsenkher Gol. The site of his ger can still be seen today near the base of the mountains where the Dund Tsenkher emerges from a canyon (at N47º13.783' E091º59.841', 56.4 miles from Khovd City).

Site of Dambijantsan’s ger at Dund Tsenkher Gol

The soldiers who had fought with him and an ever larger contingent of disciples and followers who had fallen under his charismatic spell camped a half mile or so further down the valley. While living here he kept a thirteen year old boy in his ger as a servant. Treated as a virtual slave, the boy wanted to escape, but he lived in mortal fear of the dreaded Ja Lama. Soon he devised a plan to kill Dambijantsan. Every morning Dambijantsan would go out and inspect his soldiers and then come back and sit on a stool behind the stove and drink tea. The boy decided that when Dambijantsan sat down he would hand him a cup of tea with one hand and with the other grab the axe that was kept in the woodbox beside the stove and break open his skull with it. Dambijantsan came in and sat down, then grabbed the axe himself and hit the boy along the side of the head with the flat side, knocking him down. “Did you really think you could kill me with an axe?” he asked the boy. The boy was sure he was about to die, but instead Dambijantsan handed him a Buddhist scripture wrapped in a yellow cloth and said, “Our paths in life are quite different. You must go your way and I will go mine. Take this book and go to Khovd and became a monk. But never let me see you again or I will kill you.” The boy did as he was told, and eventually he became a well-known lama famous for blessing new jeeps. Before he died in the late 1980s he told people in Khovd that Dambijantsan had known his intentions because he had been able to read his mind. This one just one of the many stories of Dambijantsan’s mind-reading abilities which continue to be told down to the present day.

In the summer of 1913 Dambijantsan and his followers moved to a place called Munjaviin Ulaan, along the Khovd River sixty miles north of Khovd City (at N48º49.098' – E091º19.164').

Munjaviin Ulaan. Now nothing remains of Dambijantsan’s city.

Ovoo at Munjaviin Ulaan

Here he established a monastery known as Shashin Badrakh. The monks he recruited were subject to the strictest discipline; those who failed to live up to his expectations were beaten or sent back to their families to become herdsmen. “Few lamas, but good ones,” became Dambijantsan’ motto. But the monastery was just the beginning. Now styling himself after Peter the Great, who had created St. Petersburg as a window to the West, he envisioned a new city which would be the capital of an ideal community. He would start schools, introduce agriculture, Western technology, and in general reform society along modern lines, all the while maintaining Buddhism as the dominant religion. It was said that his ultimate goal was to create a new Western Mongol State which would eventually incorporate Xinjiang Province in China and even part of Tibet into a new Buddhist-based Inner Asian empire, the dream which had earlier been squandered by Galdan Bolshigt. Unfortunately, in order to realize his vision he soon instituted a reign of terror on anyone opposed him. According to the Diluv Khutagt:

He governed all matters on the Western Frontier dictatorially . . . sometimes he sent troops to seize and carry off people who did not obey him or went against his ideas, and inflicted all kinds of lawless torture and suffering and murder. His ferocious behavior exceeded anything told in legend and became a great cause of suffering . . . The result was that the stupid creatures who had praised everything about him and had faithfully believed in him more than if he were a true Buddha or Bodhisattva, now hated and feared him . . .

His sadistic behavior had careened out of control. It was said that he took pleasure in skinning people alive, and that he even used the skin of a Kazakh man as a meditation mat. Somehow the Ja Lama had be be reined in, but the Mongolian authorities seemed powerless against him. Finally local people appealed to the Russian government, since Dambijantsan was still technically a Russian citizen. A detachment of eighty heavily-armed Russian troops was sent to the Khovd Region and they finally managed to subdue Dambijantsan and take him into custody. One chapter of the Ja Lama’s life was over.

He was imprisoned first at Tomsk in western Siberia, then near Irkutsk, just west of Lake Baikal, and finally exiled to Yakutia, in the far north of Siberia. With the collapse of Czarist power in Russia his exile was commuted and he returned to the city of Astrakhan, on the Volga River, near where he had been born. In 1918 he returned to Mongolia and began rounding up disciples in current-day Gov-Altai Aimag. His dream of establishing a Buddhist realm in Inner Asia had not died. The last and most notorious chapter of his life was about to begin . . . to be continued . . .

Mongolia | Khentii Aimag | Burkhan Khaldun Khora

Inspired by the khora, or circumambulation, of Mount Kailash in Tibet, which I made in the Year of the Horse 2002, I decided to do a khora around 7,749-foot Burkhan Khaldun (also known as Khentii Khaan Uul), the mountain in Khentii Aimag worshipped by Chingis Khan and now perhaps the most important site of the present-day Chingis Cult. Making a clock-wise circuit around sanctified mountains, temples, ovoos, and other holy objects is a common practice in Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism, but I must point out that doing a khora of Burkhan Khaldun is, to my knowledge, not a traditional Mongolian practice. When I discussed this subject with a herdsman from the upper Kherlen River Valley, a man in his late sixties named Zevgee, he allowed that he had always wanted to make a pilgrimage to Tibet and do the Mount Kailash Khora, but at his age he seriously doubted if he would ever have the chance. He was quite intrigued, however, by the idea of doing a Burkhan Khaldun khora, even if it was not a traditional activity. If he could not do a khora around Mount Kailash he would like to attempt one around Burkhan Khaldun.

Mt. Kailash in western Tibet

I had walked around Mt. Kailash, a distance of some thirty miles, in two and a half days, but since walking is of course not a traditional mode of travel in Mongolia I did the Burkhan Khaldun Khora on horseback. Zevgee provided the horses, and from Zevgee’s ger on the Terelj River (a tributary of the Kherlen, not to be confused with the better known Terelj River north of Ulaan Baatar) we proceeded up the west bank of the Kherlen River, soon passing by 7,556-foot Erdene Uul, which has been identified by Mongolian researchers D. Bazargür and D. Enkhbayar as one of the three Burkhan Khalduns in the Khentii Mountains. The other two are Khentii Khaan Uul, the mountain we would do the khora around, and 9,186-foot Asralt Khairkhan, the highest peak in the Khentii Range. It was on Erdene Uul, according to these researchers, that Temüjin (Chingis Khan) hid from the Merkits after they had kidnapped his wife Börte, one of the crucial incidents in Temüjin’s early life.

Entering Chingis Country in the Kherlen Valley
Valley of the Kherlen River

We continued up the west bank of the Kherlen to its confluence with the Shiregt Gol, then up the Shiregt valley, camping that night in the upper reaches of the river. The next day we crossed Baga Davaa (Little Pass), which marks the real beginning of the khora. Here we stopped while Zevgee made offerings of burnt artz, incense made from a species of dwarf juniper. He would repeat these offerings at all the passes we crossed and on the summit of Burkhan Khaldun itself as a way of sanctifying our khora. Dropping down from Baga Davaa to the Elüür River we got our first view of the black-crowned top of Burkhan Khaldun looming up straight ahead. We followed the Elüür to near its headwaters, all the while keeping Burkhan Khaldun to our right, then crossed 5,843-foot Ikh Davaa (Big Pass), between the Kherlen and Onon River watersheds, and dropped down to Davaa Creek, which we followed to its confluence with Tsonj Chuluu Creek. We camped near where Tsonj Chuluu Creek and Öngöljin Creek combine to form the Onon River. This is the beginning of the Onon-Shilka-Amur river system, which according to the National Geographic Atlas of the World measures 2,738 miles in length and ranks as the ninth longest river system in the world.

The trail to Onon Hot Springs
Onon Hot Springs

The next day we rode down the Onon River valley to Onon Hot Springs (N48º57.240' – E109º00.668'). Also known as Khaluun Usny Rashaan (Hot Water Mineral Springs), the hot springs complex is the half-way point on the khora, and travelers may want to spend an entire day here enjoying the anodyne waters. Here are at least fourteen different mineral springs, some of them with boiling-hot water, and several bathhouses. Two of the larger springs, both enclosed by bathhouses, are called Ikh Tsenkher and Baga Tsenkher (“Big Blue” and “Little Blue”), names reportedly given to them by Zanabazar (1635–1723), the First Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia, who visited the springs many times and studied their medicinal properties. The springs are famous for treating diseases and afflictions of the lower body: knees (mud packs taken from near the springs are especially good for knee joints), lower back pain, kidney and liver problems, and also rheumatism and sore muscles in general. There is also a large log cabin nearby which serves as a guest house, as well as a small Buddhist temple made from logs. (For more on Onon Hotsprings see Guide to Locales Connected with the Life of Zanabazar.)

Bathing pools at Onon Hot Springs

A good horse trail runs the whole way to Onon Hot Springs, but to continue on the khora from here requires some serious bushwhacking through thick stands of willows, swamps, boulder fields, and thick larch forests with lots of down timber. Crossing the Onon River and heading up an unnamed creek valley, we eventually camped for the night at N48º44.119' – E109º02.643', with the massif of Burkhan Khaldun looming up directly in front of us, although the black-crowned summit was not visible from this vantage point. The next day we followed another small creek to 6,743-foot Ikh Gazriyn Davaa, just east of Burkhan Khaldun at N48.47.215' – E109º03.616'.

Ikh Gazriyn Davaa

Then we dropped down to the Bogdyn Gol and followed this creek downstream to an informal campground at N48º44.119' – E109º02.643', right at the base of Burkhan Khaldun. This campground is on the site of a temple reportedly built by Zanabazar, for pilgrims coming to Burkhan Khaldun. According to local informants it was destroyed in the late 1680s by Zanabazar’s arch nemesis, Galdan Bolshigt, during the war between the Khalkh (Eastern) Mongols and the Zungarian (Western) Mongols. Today nothing whatsoever remains of the temple; only a wooden post draped with prayer flags marks the place where the temple was said to have been.

As noted, the temple had originally been built for the use of Buddhist pilgrims who came to Burkhan Khaldun. As far back as the thirteenth century Chingis Khan had been recognized as an emanation of the Buddhist deity Vajrapani. According to the lama Choiji Odser (1550-1321):

Many eons ago, among the innumerable Buddhas, the bodhisattva Vajrapani made a powerful prayer to be born in Mongolia and to spread the Holy Dharma around the world. By the power of his mighty prayer he took birth as the great Temüjin on the shore of the Onon River, with the purpose of pacifying the world. Later he became famed as Chingis Khan. He went on to fearlessly tame arrogant beings, and to disseminate the enlightenment way.

By Zanabazar’s time in the seventeenth century Chingis Khan was firmly ensconced in the Buddhist pantheon and many Buddhists made the pilgrimage to the mountain. Shamans also may have continued to worship on the mountain, although there is little documented record of this.

According to tradition, women were not allowed to ascend Burkhan Khaldun. Instead, they visited the temple at the base of the mountain and then went to the shores of nearby Talkhit Lake and took refreshments there while the men went to the summit. This prohibition against women going to the summit is somewhat relaxed today, although some Mongolian women still refuse to make the ascent. Zevgee’s wife, a woman in her sixties, got a special dispensation from a local lama allowing her to make the ascent. She had lived in the area most of her life but had never before gone to the summit.

Ladies resting at Talkhit Nuur

The trail to the summit of 7,749-foot Burkhan Khaldun begins at the campgrounds, with an elevation gain of about 2,175 vertical feet. The first part, climbing up the ramparts bordering the valley of the Bogdyn Gol, is quite steep in places. Part way up this steep section is a flat bench where Zanabazar had built another temple to be used by pilgrims. Here they stopped, made offerings, and refreshed themselves with tea before continuing on up the mountain.

Ovoo at ruins of temple built by Zanabazar

This temple was later destroyed, according to local informants, not by Galdan Bolshigt but by iconoclastic communists in the late 1930s. Broken bricks and roof tiles can still be found scattered in the underbrush. The site of the temple is now marked by a huge brush ovoo at the foot of which are bricks of tea, dairy products, currency and coins, and other offerings made by present day pilgrims. A huge metal pot at the site is said to have belonged to the now-destroyed temple.

The ridgeline leading to Burkhan Khaldun

After ascending the steep ramparts the trail continues on across a treeless ridge to the black-crowned summit of the mountain. At the top of this crown is a large ovoo. This is where, according to tradition, Chingis Khan came to pray for guidance before launching his great military campaigns. Here he beseeched Tenger, the Eternal Blue Heaven, for guidance. According to tradition, in 1211, before he began his campaign against the Chin Dynasty in China, Chingis climbed to the top of Burkhan Khaldun and here, “his belt hanging around his neck, communed with the Eternal Heaven.” He spent three days and nights meditating and on the morning of the fourth day descended, proclaiming, “Heaven has prepared for me victory. Now we must prepare ourselves to take vengeance . . . .”

The summit of Burkhan Khaldun

Today Burkhan Khaldun is one of three sacred mountains officially recognized by the Mongolian Government, the others being Bogd Khan Uul south of Ulaan Baatar and Otgon Tenger in Zavkhan Aimag, the highest peak in the Khangai Mountains. Once every four years the President of Mongolia , accompanied by a large retinue of officials and lamas, comes here by horse to make offerings. Each year lamas ascend the mountain to perform ceremonies, accompanied sometimes by hundreds of people. Shamans also reportedly hold ceremonies on the mountain.

The campgrounds at the base of the mountain can be reached by all-terrain vehicle via the road up the Kherlen Valley from Möngönmort if there have to been no recent rains and the road is dry. Thus it is possible end the horse-part of the khora here if previous arrangements to be picked up have been made. We continued by horse down the valley of the Bogdyn to its confluence with the Kherlen and then followed the dirt track on the west side of the Kherlen River back down to the mouth of the Shiregt River, thus completely circling Burkhan Khaldun and completing our khora. In this way we hope that we paid our respects to the spirit of Chingis Khan.

From our starting point at Zevgee’s ger on the Terelj River we rode a total of 109 miles, measured between thirty-five checkpoints. Since this included backtracking down the Kherlen to the Terelj River the actual distance of the khora around the mountain, by the route we took, was probably about 80 miles. This we did in seven days, including one rest day at Onon Hot Springs.

For more on Burkhan Khaldun see Guide to Locales Connected with the Life of Zanabazar and Travels in Northern Mongolia. The logistical details of the khora were handled by Urnaa and Terbish at Great Genghis Expeditions.

Mongolia | Baga Nuur | Tsagaan Sar

Popped out to the town of Baga Nuur to see Zevgee and his family for Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian New Year. This used to be a fairly tedious trip, but now that the road is paved the whole way it takes only an hour and forty-five minutes to get there. This is the first winter Zevgee has lived in Baga Nuur. Before he lived at his winter camp about forty miles up the Kherlen River valley. This winter he has left the care of his livestock to one of his son-in-laws and has retired to a comfortable log cabin in Baga Nuur. I first met Zevgee eleven years ago, as described in my book Travels in Northern Mongolia. Since then I have done seven horse trips with him and two camel trips, including horse trips to Burkhan Khaldun and Onon Hot Springs and Khargin Khar Nuur, and several other locales in Töv and Khentii aimags. In Bayankhonger Aimag, where he was born and his brothers still live, I did camel trips with him to Segs Tsagaan Bogd Uul and also on the old Amarbuyant Khiid–Shar Khuls Oasis–Ekhin Gol caravan route. Accompanying me to Baga Nuur was Mojik, who once went with us to Khargiin Khar Nuur.

Zevgee, Mojik, and Zevgee’s wife Tumen-Olzii
Traditional plate of boov, or ceremonial cakesSheep back and tail

Zevgee and Mojik
Mojik and Tumen-Olzii

Mongolia | Ulaan Baatar | New Year | Tsagaan Sar

Today is the first day of Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian New Year. (See Tsagaan Sar 2005 and Tsagaan Sar 2007) Welcome to the The Earth Mouse Year, which is the 22nd year of the 17th Rabjung, according to the Kalachakra Calendar. As you may know, Aniruddha, the 21st Kalkin King, is now reigning in Shambhala.

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Tsogt

On the way back from Eej Khairkhan Uul we stopped at the village of Tsogt, high on the wind-swept plateau between the basin of the Gobi Desert to the south and the Biger Depression to the north. The village itself is at an elevation of over 7500 feet. Once an important way-station on the Uliastai–Shar Kuls–Gongpochuan–Suzhou Caravan Route, it also figured prominently in the life of Dambijantsan. He recruited several disciples here and two of his wives. The wives’ names were Myadag and Nyamaa. Myadag reportedly was responsible for making Dambijantsan’s boots and Nyamaa his deels. Myadag and Nyamaa both returned to Tsogt after Dambijantsan was killed. Nyamaa apparently lived until at least the 1960s. Nyamaa claimed that she made Dambijantsan a deel of yellow silk which opened on the left instead of the right. She could not explain why she did this. According to local legend this was the deel Dambijantsan was killed in.

There was also a man named Saaral Jamsran who lived in Tsogt. One day in late 1922 a local official, apparently at that time a Bolshevik commissar, called him in and introduced him to three men who asked if he knew the way to Gongpochuan in Gansu Province. He said he did, and they said “Good, now you are our guide. You must take us there.” He asked why they wanted to go to Gongpochuan. “It’s none of your affair. Just serve as our guide,” one of the men said. Saaral Jamsran agreed. Unbeknownst to him the three men had been sent to assassinate Dambijantsan. One day before they reached Gongpochuan he asked again what they were going to do there. This time one of the man explained that they were just on a hunting trip, hoping to bag some wild sheep or ibex. Saaral Jamsran offered to tell their fortune by reading the patterns on a scorched shoulder blade of a sheep. He did so and then said, “Well, I can see your hunting trip is going to be very successful and that you will find your prey.” The next day they arrived at Gongpochuan. After the assassins killed Dambijantsan, it was, according to local legend, Saaral Jamsran who killed his famous white dog. Saaral Jamsran lived in Tsogt and died in 1960.

While in Tsogt I was able to met with eighty-two year oid Sodnompil and his seventy-four year-old wife Tsiideleg. Tsiideleg says that while at Gongpochuan Dambijantsan sent a message to the head of Tsogt village asking that he send him a “pretty young woman” and “a pretty boy.” She was unable to explain why Dambijantsan wanted a “a pretty boy.” The official was afraid of Dambijantsan and did in fact send him a woman named Otgon and a twenty year-old youth—perhaps pretty but not a boy—named Lavig to Gongpochuan. After Dambijantsan was assassinated they both returned to Tsogt. She also said that her father saw Dambijantsan’s head when it was brought by his assassins from Gongpochuan. One day, she says, he was out looking after his herds when he saw a small caravan of sixteen camels led by two men approaching Tsogt. He rode over to chat with the caravan men. They said they had just come from Gongpochuan and that Dambijantsan had been killed. As proof of this statement they showed him Dambijantsan’s bloody head. Tsiideleg’s father said it was “a horrible thing,” and he quickly rode away without asking anymore questions.

Sodnompil and Tsiideleg

Sodnompil was able to add some information about Lama Ravdan at Eej Khairkhan Uul. He says his father once gave Ravdan a horse. Everyday Lama Ravdan would take this horse and water it at a small rivulet known as Tsoojiin (“Lock”) Gol, on the south side of Eej Khairkhan He also says Lama Ravdan was well-known for producing rain. He says there was a herdsman on the west side of Eej Khairkhan Uul who also farmed some small fields. There was a drought one summer and his crops were dying. Lama Ravdan came and offered to make it rain. He sat down and began various meditations. Although there was a perfectly clear sky a dark cloud soon appeared from beyond Eej Khairkhan Uul and then drifted above the farmer’s fields. Soon it rained and then the cloud disappeared. Lama Ravdan, Sodnompil claimed, became very well known after this incident.

Tsogt was also the site of a monastery known as Tsogtiin Tsogchin Chas. It was destroyed in the late 1930s. The ruins were once surrounded by numerous gers. Then people started noticing lights hovering over the ruins at night and hearing strange noises. This continued for several years. Finally the people got spooked and began moving their gers to the other side of town. Today there are no gers anywhere around the ruins of the monastery.

Just visible foundations of the temples at Tsogt. The area around the temples is now completely deserted.

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Eej Khairkhan Uul

Six days after leaving Ülzii Bilegt we were back in Bayan Tooroi, where we checked into the comfortable guest house of the Gobi Protected Area A Administration. There was no running water in the guest house but there is a separate shower building with solar-heated water. The girls washed their clothes, took showers, slathered themselves with a host of creams and unguents, applied their makeup, and emerged with nary a trace of their fourteen days in the Gobi remaining. The next day we went to the famous mountain of Eej Khairkhan Mountain west of Bayan Tooroi.

Eej Khairkhan Uul

I recalled the legend I had heard when I was here several years earlier. It seems that once, a long time ago, Eej Khairkhan was married to Aj Bogd Mountain far off to the southwest. But Aj Bogd was old, his head was topped with white year round, and his wife was not happy. Far off to the northeast she could see Burkhan Buudai Mountain. Burkhan Buudai was so handsome, standing tall and proud against the torquoise sky. Aj Bogd’s wife could not take her eyes off of him. With each passing day she liked Aj Bogd less and felt more and more desire for Burkhan Buudai. Finally she decided she must flee to Burkhan Buudai. But Aj Bogd became suspicious of his wife. Every night after she went to sleep he would hide her deel so she would have nothing to wear if she decided to run away. One night his wife woke and decided the time had come to run off to her heart’s desire. But she could not find her deel. In her haste she put on Aj Bogd Uul’s deel and ran off to Burkhan Buudai. Her husband woke up and saw her fleeing across the desert. In his anger he grabbed a big handful of sand and threw it at her. His deel was much too large for his wife and the hem was dragging on the ground behind her. The sand landed on the tail of the deel and held her down. She could not move. She has remained to this day in her present location halfway between Aj Bogd Uul and Burkhan Buudai Uul. The sand which fell on the tail of her deel can still be seen as the big dunes to the southwest of the mountain. But fate was not entirely unkind. Her past was forgotten and she is now longer remembered as an unfaithful wife. Her beautiful form standing alone in the desert brought succor to countless lonely caravan men who could see her from far off and eventually she became known as Eej Khairkhan (“Mother Dearest”) Mountain.

The two breasts of Eej Khairkhan Uul. The cleft below, in the middle, is thought to be the entrance to her yoni: the two hills on either side of the cleft may be seen as her labia majora.

Strange rock formations at Eej Khairkhan Uul

More strange rock formations

Still more strange rock formations

The most famous natural feature of Eej Khairkhan is a series of nine cascading pools of water known as the Pots.

One of the Pots

The Pots

The Pots

Near the base of the mountain is the hermitage of the monk known as Ravdan. Ravdan, a Torgut Mongol, was a disciple of Dambijantsan’s who lived at Gongpochuan. After Dambijantsan was assassinated in 1923 he came here and settled at Eej Khairkhan Uul. He kept one white horse and one white camel and soon became known as the “Lama with One White Horse and One White Camel,” perhaps an echo of Dambijantsan’s nickname of the “Two White Camel Lama.” Ravdan lived alone at the hermitage he built but there was a woman named Munidari who lived nearby and brought him food everyday. Some say the two got married; others say not. Ravdan died in 1928. Munidari went on living by herself for many years. Ravdan’s hermitage is now a much revered pilgrimage site.

Ravdan’s Retreat

Ravdan’s Retreat

Interior of Ravdan’s Retreat

Uyanga could not contain her exuberance at Ravdan’s Retreat

Mojik cogitating at Ravdan’s Retreat

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Ülzii Bilegt

I had the GPS coordinates for Ülzii Bilegt and Sükhee had been here six or seven years ago with some scientists studying Gobi bears, so I did not anticipate any problems finding the place. It was just three miles as the crow flies from the mouth the canyon. The canyon floor was from fifty to 300 feet wide, and on either side rose unscalable cliffs. Sükhee said that the canyon was the only access to Ülzii Bilegt. If anyone had wanted to flush Dambijantsan out of his lair they would have to come this way. And the whole time they would be fully exposed on the barren canyon bottom. On a crag to the left we see a small stone tower. This was one of Dambijantsan’s lookout posts. Guards were stationed here to warn of the approach of soldiers or other unwanted intruders.

Canyon leading to Ülzii Bilegt

A little farther on a group of six ibex stood at the top of the unscalable cliffs. I suddenly had the odd notion that they only appeared to be ibex, but that they were actually sentinels standing guard over the approach to Ülzii Bilegt. Then I had the even odder notion that the Gobi Bear had been intended to scare us away but that we had not heeded the warning. My imagination was clearly running away with me. I starting shivering slightly. Was I catching a cold? In order to get a grip on reality I checked my GPS. We had been traveling for over an hour but Ülzii Bilegt was still two miles away as the crow flies. We had taken several hairpin turns and seemed to be just doubling back on ourselves. I asked Sükhee how much farther we had to go. He did not reply and I had to ask him again. Finally he said, “I do not know. Everything looks different from last time.”

Continuing up the canyon to Ülzii Bilegt

We rode for another hour and went around several more hairpin turns. Still no sight of any tooroi trees or ruins. Finally Tsogoo told us to stay put and he would scout on ahead by himself. The ridge to our right was climbable, and after Tsogoo left Sükhee said he would climb to the top of the spine of rock and try to see where we were. About fifteen minutes later Tsogoo reappeared about 500 yards up the canyon and shouted for us to bring the camels. Then Sükhee shouted from the top of the ridge that Ülzii Bilegt was right on the other side. The canyon had doubled back on itself again.

But now the camels refused to budge. They craned their necks and peered nervously around the ridges on both sides of the canyon. When we tried to pull them by their lead ropes they simply refused to move, bawling and shrieking the whole time. Did they sense a bear, or wolves, or something else? I did not know. Finally Uyanga lost all patience. She had been born a country girl and had grown up around livestock and she had clearly had enough of these obstreperous camels. She grabbed a good-sized tooroi limb and wading into the camels swinging left and right, whacking away at their flanks. With much bawling and caterwauling they finally started moving forward. We rounded the last hairpin turn and there in front of us was a stand of tooroi trees. This was the oasis of Ülzii Bilegt. Sükhee had come down the ridge on foot and met us there.

The oasis of Ülzii Bilegt

Grove of tooroi trees at Ülzii Bilegt

We lead the camels to the north side of the grove and start unloading them. Tsogoo said something to Sükhee and suddenly they had a furious exchange of words. They stopped for a bit, glowering, and then Sükhee said something. Now Tsogoo was furious. I thought for a moment the two men might get in a fist fight. Tsogoo and Sükhee had known each other all their lives and seemed to have been on the best of terms on the trip so far. I could not understand what was going on. Mojik explained that Tsogoo had told Sükhee he should stay with us and the camels when he himself had ridden on ahead, but instead Sükhee had decided to climb the ridge by himself, leaving us alone to deal with the camels. That was true, but it hardly seemed like an issue worth fighting over.

We got a fire going and Uyanga starting making a late lunch. I noticed there was something wrong with her. So far on this trip she had always seemed to be in good spirits, always laughing and joking with the camel men and Mojik. Even after the camel stampede and through the difficulties of cooking in the cold and wind she always seemed unperturbed. I myself had come to always expect her big radiant smile in any situation. Now she hunched by the fire, her mouth drawn down at the corners. She kept glancing up furtively at the surrounding ridges, as if afraid of what she see might see. “What’s wrong with her?" I asked Mojik. “She doesn’t like this place. She says there is something wrong here. She doesn’t want to camp here tonight. She wants to leave.” Not knowing what to make of this I went to pick out a place to sleep that night. Suddenly I hear Mojik and Uyanga yelling at each other. Uyanga is clearly angry. Mojik stomped off and begin to set up her own tent. I went over and asked what was going on. “Well, all I said to was that the food bags and cooking gear were thrown all around the camp and wouldn’t it be better if she tidied up a little bit. She yelled at me that she was in charge of the camp and cooking and that I should mind my own business.” Mojik and Uyanga had been on the best of terms up until now and the behavior of both girls seemed to be entirely out of character. Now it appeared the whole camp was out of sorts. It was almost as if there was something in the atmosphere that was discombobulating people.

We ate our dinner in silence. At one point Tsogoo got up, walked about fifty feet away and stood there peering at the surrounding ridges. He came back and sat down. “There’s something wrong with this place,” he said. After our meal I walked over to a slightly raised level area between the grove of tooroi trees and the cliffs. There I discovered a curious stone design laid out on the ground. A square had been outlined with black stones. On one side there was a opening with rocks on either side. In the middle of the square was a flat rock that looked like an altar of some kind. I remember reading that Dambijantsan made his people at Gongpochuan construct mandalas out of rocks laid out on the desert. Was this some kind of similar construction? I called Tsogoo over and asked him what it was. He approached to within fifty feet, took a look, said “I don’t know, ” then turned and walked away. I had the feeling he did not even want to come close to this rock design, whatever it was.

The stone design

Leaving the camp to stew I went off to find the ruins of Dambijantsan’s house, which were supposed to be up the valley a half mile or so. I tried to analyze my feelings. I remembered the strange sensation I had riding up the canyon, the feeling that we were being watched by the ibex, and it was true that the black crumbly hills on either side of the valley seemed foreboding, somehow menacing. What had Dambijantsan done here? What thought traces still lingered at this place? I knew from informants I had talked to earlier that summer in Bayankhongor that some people believe Dambijantsan’s spirit still exists and to this day haunts his former hangouts. I had dismissed these tales but here in this strange place they suddenly take on a new meaning.

I remembered what I had read about Dambijantsan’s fortress at Gongpochuan. Owen Lattimore, who visited there in 1926, wrote,

“In the fortress itself there is a cramped and sinister feeling. I did not feel happy. Withered in the light of the noonday sun almost to the dingy color of the hill on which they stood, and lying so empty and quiet in that utter emptiness of marsh and hill, brief patches of living land and long stretches of desolation, the rifled ruins seem to be oppressed by something uncanny. I did not wonder that the few frequenters of the wilderness should avoid them and whatever ghosts they harbor.”

The Roerich Expedition visited the ruins at Gongpochuan in 1927. The Roerichs were also struck by something sinister. Their camel men would not even approach the ruins of Dambijantsan’s fortress. Roerich wrote:

“The men who were usually quite disciplined, made a flat refusal. They said they were ready to fight Chinese, Tibetans, or Mongols, but they would never enter the fortress of Ja Lama or fight with his men.”

I finally find the ruins of Dambijantsan’s stone cabin. It was here that he had lived while robbing caravans. Nearby are some ovoos of exactly the same barrel-like construction we had seen on the trail here.

Ruins of Dambijantsan’s house

Above the cabin, along the face of a black cliff, is a stone fortification which overlooks the approach to Dambijantsan’s cabin. His men were stationed here to protect him. I sit for an hour at the fortifications overlooking Dambijantsan’s house, trying to imagine what had happened here. Crows wheel in the air above the ruins. Dambijantsan had two pet crows which he had trained to talk. Zeskhüü in Ekhiin Gol had told me about a legend that Dambijantsan could travel through the air with the spirits of his crows. The assassins who had killed Dambijantsan had also killed his crows. After the assassins had left some of his followers put the dead crows under the armpits of his body so that their spirits could continue to ride together on the winds of the Gobi.

Fortifications against the base of the cliff

Fortifications

Looking down the valley from the fortifications

Curiously enough that night I slept the sleep of the Just. I did not dream anything nor did I wake up during the night. The others reported that they had heard rocks falling off the nearby cliffs and Tsogoo noted that the camels had been restless all night. It turned out to be a warm day, with a faultless dome of azure sky overhead. We had a big lunch of khorkhog, mutton cooked in a pot with stones which had been heated in the fire. It was probably the best meal we had on the trip. This raised everyone’s spirits. Yesterday’s disagreements and arguments seem to have dissipated. I for one did not want to leave so quickly. After all we had ridden seven long days to get here. Tsogoo pointed out that the camels were tired and could use a day’s rest too, so we decided to stay another night. Uyanga did not looked 100% pleased, but her radiant smile was slowly returning.

Khorkhog

There is no spring here at Ulzii Bilegt but Tsogoo says that in the old days there were several wells. Sükhee went up to Dambijantsan’s cabin and dug a hole, hitting water at about three feet deep. This watercourse here was probably once reason why Dambijantsan built his cabin where he did.

The small well dug by Sükhee

The next morning we left early. Uyanga and Mojik were all smiles. The moment we turned and headed down the canyon the camels with their uncanny perception knew we were on the return leg of our journey and stepped out at a sprightly gait, their heads held high, even though we had six more days to ride. Even they looked happy. Two hours later we had emerged from the canyon leading to Dambijantsan’s hideout. I could only hope that whatever we found there had been left behind.

Mojik and Uyanga all smiles as we are about to leave Ülzii Bilegt

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Shar Khuls to Ülzii Bilegt

Since we only had 14 mlies to go to Ülziii Bilegt we did not leave our camp at Shar Khuls until ten o’clock. As we rode through the oasis I wondered about the whereabouts of the Gobi bear that is supposed to live at the oasis. Gobi bears are extremely rare. Sükhee says there are perhaps only twenty-five or thirty in the entire south Gobi of Mongolia. One of his jobs as nature preserve ranger is to monitor the Gobi bear population. The Gobi A Nature Preserve also had a program to feed the bears and Sükhee takes part in this, so he knows quite a bit about Gobi bears. The last time I was at Shar Khuls there was a bear here. We encountered its tracks everywhere and saw numerous piles of still steaming dung. The camels were completely spooked and refused to stay in the oasis itself. We had to camp a hundred yards out in the desert. But now there was no sign of the bear. Sükhee says they are extremely elusive and are very seldom seen under normal conditions.

South of Shar Khuls Oasis

We emerged from the southern end of the oasis and continued south through a wide valley. This was the route of famous Amarbuyant Khiid–Anxi caravan route that went past Dambijantsan’s Fortress at Gongpochuan, described to me by Shukee in Shinejinst. At one point we encounter a group of five ovoos. Now ovoos are hardly unusual in Mongolia, but these are the first we have encountered on our trip here in the south Gobi. And they are of strange design. They are no just heaps of rocks like most ovoos but barrel-shaped constructions of fitted rock. The insides of the barrel-like ovoos are filled with sand and gravel. Tsogoo says that local people have never been quite sure who made these ovoos or why, but there has been speculation that they were built by Dambijantsan. Why here at this place remains a mystery.

Ovoos on Amarbuyant Khiid–Anxi caravan route

Trail south

We ride on through a place where the valley narrows. As usual the camel men and the girls and our one pack camel are riding in a bunch out front and I am trailing about one hundred feet behind, fingering my mala as I repeat mantras. As the group passes by a spur of sandstone that protrudes into the valley I notice that everyone suddenly stops. Tsogoo shouts something and jumps off his camel. Mojik shouts at me, “Don, get off your camel!” Mojik, Uyanga, and Sükhee turn their camels to the right and start frantically beating them with the taishirs. Sükhee shouts “Mazaalai,” and then to my utter astonishment I see a huge Gobi bear come loping full speed around the corner of the spur of rock. Tsogoo has his camel by the lead rope and is running off on foot off to the right. My camel has apparently not seen the bear and I jerk its head around to the right and whip it with my taisher. I have to get out the path of the bear. When the bear is no more than seventy or eighty feet from Tsogoo it suddenly stops in its tracks, does a 180º degree turn and runs off over a ridge to the right. I get a good look as it runs away. Gobi bears, known as mazaalai, are not supposed to be big, but this one appeared to be about the same size as a large black bear, lean and rangy, but over four feet high at the shoulders and weighting upward to 300 pounds.

Mazaalai tracks

We regroup near the spur of rock. Tsogoo is so shaken he is hyperventilating. In all their years in the Gobi neither he nor Sükhee had ever had such a close encounter with a bear. “Bad, very bad,“ he keeps muttering. “We could have been killed.” Finally he has to sit down to catch his breath. Mojik keeps saying, “I don't believe this, I don't believe this.” Uyanga has a different take on the encounter: “This is a story to tell my grandchildren.”

Why did Tsogoo jump off his camel, and then tell the others to jump off? I wondered. Mojik explains that he was afraid the camels would see the bear, go completely berserk and throw their riders, maybe right in the path of the bear. He thought we would have a better chance on foot. I for one was going to take my chances on my camel. Oddly, the camels in the group in front never seemed to have seen the bear. I know mine did not. Even more oddly, the wind was blowing straight into our faces. Why had our camels not scented the bear? We spend a half an hour catching our breath, retelling the episode over and over again, and then finally move on.

We regroup after our bear scare

Soon the valley widens into a vast expanse of desert extending off to the southeast. Off to the left is a range of light colored ridges with stark black mountains looming behind. Soon we come to the mouth of a narrow canyon leading into the mountains. Scattered among the gravel outwash from the canyon are trunks and huge roots of tooroi trees, carried here by the torrential flash floods which sometimes occur here in the Gobi. Somewhere up the canyon there has be a stand of tooroi trees. This is the entrance to Dambijantsan’s secret hideout of Ülzii Bilegt. We turn out camels and head into the canyon opening.

Entrance to the canyon leading to Ülzii Bilegt

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Shar Khuls Oasis

The next morning we round the easternmost spurs of Zaraa Khairkhanii Nuruu and by ten o’clock we could make out to the southeast the Shar Khulsnii Nuruu. Shar Khuls oasis is somewhere on the northern side of these mountains. I had been to Shar Khuls before, but I had approached the oasis from Amarbuyant Khiid directly from the north. Tsogoo and Sükhee had also been there before, but not by this direct camel route, and now they were not sure where the oasis was. Carelessly I had not bothered to bring the GPS coordinates for Shar Khuls since I did not anticipate any problems finding it. Now we sit on a high ridge and study the Shar Khulnii Nuruu for an hour before making out an opening in the mountains about ten miles away which Tsogoo concludes must be Shar Khuls Oasis. We ride on and an hour later can just make out through binoculars dark patches of vegetation which must be trees. These would be the first trees we have seen since leaving Bayan Toroi 115 miles to the north.

Thus our experience was very similar to that of the Roerich Expedition which arrived at Shar Khuls on May 5, 1927. George Roerich noted in his Trails to Innermost Asia:

“Towards four o’clock in the afternoon . . . we noticed several dark spots at the foot of the mountains and at the entrance into a narrow gorge hidden behind a long spur. Someone in the caravan column cried out ‘Trees!’ We could not believe our eyes, for most of us were firmly convinced that at best, we would see only miserable juniper shrubs. But there in the distance were actual trees, desert poplars (Populus euphratica) that grew along the banks of the river. How refreshing it felt to enter the coolness of the forested gorge, and camp on the green meadows.”

The Roerichs—painter, mystic and hard-core Aghartian-Shambhalist Nicholas Roerich; his wife Elena, who had translated The Secret Doctrine of Madame Blavatsky into Russian; his Harvard educated son and Tibetan translator George; and various factotums—had left India in March of 1925 for what would be a three-year sojourn through Inner Asia. As I noted in an earlier post, “Nicholas Roerich claimed he was looking for inspiration for his paintings, and his son George was supposedly engaged in various ethnological and linguistic researches. From the three books churned out by Nicholas Roerich about the expedition it is pretty clear however that they were actually looking for the kingdom of Shambhala.” It was Madame Blavatsky who in The Secret Doctrine had posited the idea that Shambhala might be found somewhere in the Gobi Desert. (Apparently the Roerichs were not aware of Khamariin Khiid in Dornogov Aimag, now considered by many to be a Portal to Shambhala.) From India they had traveled north into the Tarim Basin in what is now Xinjiang Province, China, visiting the Rawak Stupa near Khotan, and then traveled north to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. After a brief detour to Moscow where they had attempted to entangle the Soviet Secret Police in a plot to establish an actual state modeled on the Kingdom of Shambhala in Central Asia they proceeded first to the Russian Altai Mountains and then to Mongolia, arriving in Ulaan Baatar in September of 1926. Here Nicholas Roerich presented one of his paintings entitled “The Ruler to Shambhala”—this may or may not be painting now known as the Red Warrior in the Zanabazar Fine Arts Museum in Ulaan Baatar—to the Mongolian government. They left Ulaan Baatar by motorized vehicle on April 13, 1927 and arrived at Amarbuyant Monastery in Bayankhongor Aimag a week or so later. Here they hired camels and continued south on their sojourn through Mongolia, China, and Tibet, eventually ending up in Sikkim, India.

A few years earlier I had followed their route from Amarbuyant Khiid to Shar Khuls by Camel, a distance of 105 miles which took six days to cover by camel. This was also the route taken by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1904, when he fled to Mongolia to escape the Younghusband Expedition which had earlier invaded Tibet. The 13th Dalai had himself camped at Shar Khuls Oasis and stayed at Amarbuyant Khiid for ten days.

The northern end of Shar Khuls Oasis

Shar Khuls Oasis

We reach Shar Khuls at three in the afternoon, set up camp on the gravel bars at the northern end of the oasis, and are soon tucking into a big meal of boiled mutton and homemade noodles. The wind has died completely and in the afternoon sun it is quite warm. Compared to the last three days the conditions are downright luxurious. Nearby a spring issues forth a six-inch wide stream of water which flows for maybe one hundred feet before disappearing beneath the sands. This is the main water source for Shar Khuls. Tsogoo, Sükhee, and the girls all decide to wash their hair and get cleaned up.

Sükhee helping Tsogoo with his ablutions

Tsogoo has a nasty bruise on the side of his chest and is still convinced he broke somewhere. I had kept him dosed down with prescription painkillers and when these ran out gave him Advil. Oddly, he claims the Advil offers more relief that the supposedly more powerful painkillers. He has Mojik prepare a huge poultice from tea (Yunnan Gold black tea, which I am only too happy to sacrifice to this cause) which he places on the bruise, holding it in place with a wool scarf wrapped around his chest. He says he still has some pain but he will be fine. He even decides he needs a haircut.

Uyanga shearing Tsogoo

Shar Khuls was once the crossroads of two important caravan routes. One ran north-south from Amarbuyant Khiid and across the Black Gobi and Maajin Shan to Anxi in current day Gansu Province. This route passed by Dambijantsan’s Fortress at Gongpochuan. The other route ran east-west from Hohhot in what is now Inner Mongolia, China, to Gucheng (now known as Qitai) on the northern side of the Tian Shan in Xinjiang, China. (I had visited Qitai back in May but could not find a trace of the caravanserai for which the town had once been famous.) Because of its important as a caravan crossroads it had not escaped the attentions of Dambijantsan. George Roerich:

“Situated not far from the Mongol border, the gorge was always a favorite haunt of robbers. Ja Lama maintained outposts here to look after the caravans coming from China, Tibet, and Mongolia. Even after Ja Lama’s death, the gorge was still visited by robber bands. Only a month before our passing a big camel caravan en route for Ku-ch’eng [Qitai] was plundered in the gorge and one of its drivers killed. Our Mongol guides advised us to be very careful and to keep watch in the night.”

Dambijantsan’s hideout while plundering the caravans using these routes might well have been at Ülzii Bilegt, our next destination.