U.S.A., North Dakota

Drove a tractor around in circles on Sunday, raking mowed hay into winrows in the hayfield.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Nice night out here, in nowhere.

Canada, Saskatchewan, Moose Jaw

Moose Jaw is famous around the world because it is named “Moose Jaw.”

U.S.A., North Dakota

In the past two weeks, I've been at the Mississippi River in Minnesota and in the Rocky Mountains in Montana, and now I'm back in between. In North Dakota.

U.S.A., Montana

Driving in Montana, just east of nowhere: hit the “scan” button on the radio, and the radio just scans and scans and scans.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I've been through Regina. I might have gotten a speeding ticket in Regina.

Canada is mildly different from here, but at least it is different.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Last weekend, my uncle J and I set a camper up on the hill at the ranch at which one can now enjoy a drink and listen to the coyotes and watch the sun set over all of North Dakota. It overlooks lots and lots of emptiness. The plains. River trees. Big sunsets.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I spent today fixing fence and watching the sky.

U.S.A., North Dakota

It smells like spring in North Dakota. Wildflowers.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Worked cattle with Uncle J and Uncle David. Moved cattle to summer pasture.

Hauling a calf in the back of J's Chevrolet Blazer, the calf pissed. J said, "We'll just get a bucket of soapy water and scrub it out. Or do the usual: roll the windows down for the rest of the afternoon to let it dry out and then forget it forever."

Driving through the pasture, saw the windmill lying on its side. "Last spring, the wind blew the windmill over," J said.

The wind blew the windmill over.

U.S.A., North Dakota

The whole state is about flooding away.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Scandinavian Heritage Center
Radigan Neuhalfen

U.S.A., North Dakota

Saw the twilit sky to the west. Drove around a bit longer to remind myself of the turning of the planet.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I took the train out of Fargo on Saturday night.

Fargo restarted around-the-clock sandbagging efforts on Sunday.

U.S.A., North Dakota, Fargo

Radigan Neuhalfen

U.S.A., North Dakota, Fargo

The train crossed over the Red River twice, at four a.m. -- once going east into Minnesota, and then again on the same bridge as it backed into the station in Fargo. On the bridge, it looked like the train was rolling right on the black water, which is at the top of the sandbagged dikes. Treetops stick out of the water; it was eerily beautiful. Everything at four o'clock a.m. is eerily beautiful.

Walking from the station downtown, pass the Fargo Linoleum Co., which has a sign on the glass front door: “Closed Friday and Saturday for Flooding.” Sandbags stacked about a foot high around the doors of a restaurant. Eighteen-wheeled trucks are running downtown; they look commercial. It is cold, and there is snowpack.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Driving from work at 4:30 this afternoon, heard Fargo city officials on the radio stating that the water level had significantly dropped, and that consequently sandbagging operations were going to halt at 6:00 p.m. today. Going to Fargo regardless; I already purchased the train ticket.

At the train station, the conductor asked where I was going as he took my ticket. Fargo. Well, he said, at least the station in Fargo is this side of the river. This train might not be running any further than Fargo tonight, he said, the water's only six inches from the tracks.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I booked the Amtrak ticket, then joined the Fargo-Moorhead Flood Volunteer Network group on Facebook, which at that point had 4,716 members. I called the volunteer information line and said that I was going to volunteer, and she told me to go to the Fargo Dome. I said I'd be in Fargo on early Saturday morning, and she said, oh, call just before you go out to volunteer so that you can be sent to the highest priority location at that time.

U.S.A., North Dakota

And the blizzard just hit. The office closed at 11 a.m.; everything's closing. Snow day.

U.S.A., North Dakota

The American border guards shoot anyone who tries to escape from the Land of Freedom.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I have been to Canada on several memorable occasions. You know, it was funny, how as young kids in North Dakota, we thought of ourselves as living at the edge of the world, because the US map just ends at the border, and Canada, if anything, was that great unmapped space that you would have to drive through to get to Alaska.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I got very drunk last night and because I had visions of trying to walk home and ending in a snowbank and frozen solid because it is well below zero degrees Fahrenheit every night still and drunks freeze to death commonly as they always have in North Dakota, I called my brother to pick me up at the enormous nondescript cluttered house where DIY punk-rock shows are put on in the basement and he said he'd be there in eight minutes and he was there in eight minutes.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I look out the window directly at a snowbank.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Loaded and hauled cattle last week with J.

U.S.A., North Dakota

...a sea of snow. The land has been wiped featureless.

U.S.A., Montana

Stood on the lower level of the train car gazing out the windows on each side for fifteen minutes. Saw lots of deer. Dozens of deer, including two big groups of at least twenty deer each.

“BUSH” is scratched into one of the windows, the “S” replaced by a swastika.

U.S.A., Montana, Havre

Havre gets some wind. Every flag is whipping, and tattered at the end.

U.S.A., Montana

And now the strips of snow and the lines of fenceposts and the brown grass and the distant highline poles. I am not heartened by the sight of the empty wastes, but it is so familiar to me, as though long ago seared into my nerves.

U.S.A., Montana, Whitefish

Whitefish is a very picturesque little town. Even the “NO SKATEBOARDING” signs are tasteful and unobtrusive.

U.S.A., Rocky Mountains

Woke up to snow covering everything.

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

I'm going to Dakota tomorrow, on the Empire Builder, from Portland, through Spokane and all of Montana.

U.S.A., Washington, Cape Flattery

Radigan Neuhalfen

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

The roaring in my ears is memories of riding that motorcycle through the world and between the lanes of California cars at 24 years old, of the shotgun rips to the deaths of North Dakota geese at 14 years old, my ears damaged, my memory.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

It never gets dark in Portland, you never see the stars. The city lights are always reflecting back from the clouds.

U.S.A., Oregon, Lake Oswego

The snow melted fairly quickly.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

It is really snowing.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

I like the sound of the ice sleet slashing against the window.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

I took a train yesterday through the Cascade Mountains. Trees and gorges and lakes, the bridges, the tunnels. In the long tunnels, the train fills with diesel smoke.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

Rented a
room in
Portland in a
pouring
rain.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

Radigan Neuhalfen

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

Portland, Oregon, Obamamerica.

U.S.A., Oregon, Portland

As I got settled in my seat, I remarked inwardly how nice it was, on 2008 November 5, to be on Alaska Air Flight 32 from Boston to Portland, Oregon, because it must be a plane filled with people who voted for Obama. Then the attendant made an announcement regarding the flight’s continuation, after an hour’s layover in Portland, on to Anchorage.

Poland, Krakow

I'll tell you stories of cars and guns and motorcycles and cops; of Siberia and Mexico and New York City; of horses, Mongolia, archaeology, and invading armies; ships and danger; jungles and the cold, cold winter.

Poland, Krakow

Poland is Russia civilized.

Poland, Krakow

There’s a wind in Poland tonight.

Poland, Krakow

and the chocolates and the sausages and the beers and the cheeses and the stews and the breads and the peaches. Architecture. Medieval history (the Teutonic Knights, the Mongol invasion), WWII history (Resistance, Auschwitz). Polish literature, poetry, cinema.

Poland, Krakow

It is staggering how far you can travel in a day. You can’t get to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia from Boston in a day, but you can get to Krakow, Poland from Boston, in a day.

Costa Rica, San Jose

very tall cactus

Hostal El Chante Limitada

Costa Rica, San Jose

It rains every afternoon. My soul is buoyed.

Costa Rica, San Jose

Sitting on a stool in a corner of one of the common rooms of the tastefully decorated Hostal El Chante Limitada, which was opened in July by a group of fashionable Costa Rican women in their early 20's, is an electric IBM typewriter. Massive and metal and battered, its presence succeeds in giving the room an air of antique charm. It is the same model of typewriter upon which I learned to type in high school.

Costa Rica, San Jose

It’s the low season. There’s rum-and-Coke in the fridge and the “Drunkenness Prohibited” sign has fallen down and no one has bothered to hang it back up.

Costa Rica, San Jose

It is raining.

Costa Rica, San Jose

The Alliance Francaise has a giant, uncharacteristically diffident billboard in Spanish:
“Speaking two languages is not sufficient preparation for your future.
When are you beginning your French classes?”

Graffiti on the National Museum of Costa Rica, in Spanish:
“Land and Liberty
Zapata Lives”
Stepping closer for a better look, I unexpectedly glimpsed, concealed in a construction pit, an unkempt man, without pants, apparently just concluding defecating. I quickly turned and went away.

Costa Rica, San Jose

Casa Ridgway, Martin Luther King, Jr. room

Costa Rica, San Jose

I am arrived in Costa Rica.

U.S.A., Arizona, Phoenix

Storm in the desert. I watch the lightning snake through the sky.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Fixed fence yesterday. Cold here, just above freezing.

U.S.A., North Dakota

Burned part of a ditch yesterday with Uncle J in North Dakota.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I went by bus from Phoenix to North Dakota.

In Dickinson, in western North Dakota, the bus stopped for forty minutes. There was a little cafe next to the station, and I had breakfast there.

Getting back onto the bus, I found a woman sitting in my seat. I pointed this out, she reacted, and I said, "No, no, that's okay. I'll take this seat. It's no big deal. The bus is empty."

Of course the bus was empty; we were in North Dakota. Everything in North Dakota is empty.

When I had pointed at the seat and said my first words, her wide-eyed, bustling reaction, her movements, had made me think she was not American; I guessed she might be Japanese. As I sat down in the seat directly behind her, I asked, "Where are you from?"

She twisted in the seat to look at me. "Mongolia."

"What?" I said.

She spoke with effort, emphatically pronouncing the syllables: "I am from Mongolia."

I busted out laughing. I looked at her and opened my mouth and, as I tried to shift my mind into Mongolian, I couldn't say anything. Finally I managed, "Tiim uu?"

She looked at me with complete incomprehension.

"Ta mongol khun uu?"

"I am sor-ry."

"Ta mongol khel yaridag uu? Mongol khel?"

A bizarre expression seized her face.

"I live in Ulaanbaatar," I said, still in Mongolian.

And we fell to talking excitedly. Her name was Oyunaa.

She had come to visit her daughter, who was studying at Dickinson State University. I had come from (of all places) Mongolia to (of all places) North Dakota, to find (of all things) a Mongolian in my seat on the bus, and I couldn't stop laughing.

Before the bus got underway, her daughter got on and sat next to her. They were on their way to Chicago to visit more family.

"There's lots of Mongolians in Chicago," I offered.

"And in Denver."

"Yes, in Denver." Colorado resembles Mongolia geographically.

Western North Dakota does as well; the daughter said that twelve Mongolians were studying in Dickinson.

"North Dakota is a strange place."

"Yes. It's all white people."

Oyunaa had flown into L.A., and had already been through the Bay Area and Denver on the way to North Dakota.

"Well, there are the Sioux, and the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikawa. But they and the white people live apart from each other, and they don't like each other."

I thought then of the flak I have caught in Mongolia for daring to be a white guy in Mongolia.

But how many thousand Mongolians are living in the United States? Not counting the Peace Corps volunteers and international aid workers and missionaries, who are all temporary, the other Americans I know living in Mongolia I can count on the fingers of one hand.

I got off the bus in Bismarck, which is only an hour and a half or so from Dickinson. Oyunaa got off the bus with me and helped me with my bags. She bore an enormous, face-breaking smile as we said good-bye in the terminal.

U.S.A., Arizona, Goodyear

The suburbs of Phoenix look like they were built yesterday.

National Geographic magazine recently featured an article about the drying out of the western United States. The 20th Century was a wet century, with unusually high rainfall. Phoenix is built in a desert. And it has golf courses. And urinals that use 3.8 liters of water per flush.

Mexico, Quintana Roo, Cancun

Cancun is very loud, a constant roar in the ears of traffic and music through loudspeakers.

U.S.A., New York, Slaterville Springs

I don’t know why I even bother with the East Coast. Space and time are at such a premium; everything is crowded and rushed.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

There’s an okay pizza joint across from the big MobiCom center named Broadway Pizza. Last week, while going to eat at a Zochin Buuz on Peace Avenue, across from the Russian embassy, I had one of those sudden, embarrassing moments of comprehension about something that I had seen countless times but never mentally processed. Next to that Zochin Buuz location is a small entrance with a sign “Broadway Pizza,” in the same wood-beam style as the MobiCom location. So last night for dinner I stepped inside. A large staircase led down to a huge, posh subterranean bar, full of Mongolian yuppies and a few foreigners. I took a stool at the end of the bar and ordered my pizza. Off to my left was a table speaking Russian; off to my right, a table speaking French; in front of me, the bar staff were speaking Mongolian... and I couldn’t understand why English was so strong in my head, until I realized that the sound system was playing American pop-rock music. A waitress told me that a table had cleared, but I opted to stay at the bar so that I could continue exchanging glances with one of the French-speaking women.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Went to the Steppe Inne, the British embassy’s Friday night social hour, last night. I’ve been one other time this year. I think I went once last year.

Friday night is the worst time for flagging a taxi. Everyone’s going somewhere, and they line the sides of Peace Avenue, arms pointing into the street, a few meters from each other.

But last night wasn’t bad; I didn’t wait long. An old car pulled over, I got in the front seat, said hello to the old guy, and remembered that I had forgotten how to say “embassy.”

“To the British ‘posolstvo,’” I said, using the Russian word.

“Medekhgui,” he said. I don’t know.

“Zaa, zaa, just go straight.” I dug into my satchel and pulled out my pocket dictionary and looked up “embassy.”

“To the British elchin saidin yaam,” I said.

He laughed. “Medekhgui. Where’s the British embassy?”

“Zaa, zaa, just go straight.”

Playing on the radio was a rap-rock song in Mongolian, with an accordion squeezing out a rhythm in the background. After two verses, a voice broke over the tune and drawled in accented English:

“Khi everyone, you’re listening to Tatar’s new shit. This song is called ‘Message.’ Check it out.”

There were eight people at the Steppe Inne; ten including the two bartenders.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Went to the U.S. embassy today on an errand. At the gate, I told the Anglophone Mongolian guard whom I was there to see. “Do you have identification?” he asked, and added, “Are you an American citizen?”

“Yes,” I said quickly and without thinking, and surprised myself with the answer. I think I had forgotten that I hold U.S. citizenship. I have not identified myself that way for a long time.

Walking back to my apartment, in a glance, I saw a unkempt man eating something from a bowl with a spoon. As I walked past him, I looked again. He did not hold a bowl, but the hairless, discolored, weathered skull of a dog, and with a tiny metal teaspoon, he was spooning out and eating the remnants of the interior of the skull.

Mongolia, Khentii

Was Jon's birthday, and a number of us went out to the Kherlen River for the weekend.

On the way, saw something I hadn't seen before. A rolled, smashed car set up on a brick pedestal beside the highway, with a sign on each side of the pedestal reading: “KHURD = UKHEL”.

“SPEED = DEATH”.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Jack Weatherford is in town. Had lunch today with him and some other people, including two young Mongolian women whom I had not met before.

Talking with one of the young women, she asked me:

“Why do you live in Mongolia?”

“This is a nice nation, nice people.”

“I think America is nice.”

“It’s okay.”

“Mongolia is bad, dirty,” she said.

I never know what to say to that.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Rained almost all day yesterday. Nara came by the office with the next translated section of The Steppe. Jon came by after his work ended. Later, Burmaa and Tsendee came by and laughed at me. I had gotten drunk on wine.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

A dust storm blew all day yesterday and made the sky gray.

Went to Burmaa and Tsendee's ger shop. With five people, helped twist the toono of the ger.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Met Odbaatar at the History Museum today. Hadn't seen him for a while. He just got back from a trip to Germany not long ago.

We went to the cafe in the basement of the museum and drank beer. The cafe was full. It is usually full.

Odbaatar explained:
"Yes. It is because here the beer is cheap."

He continued:
"In Germany, the beer is very good."

He finished:
"There was cheap beer also in Germany, but I do not know why it was cheap, because it was very good."

Mongolia, Bayankhongor

Went to Bayankhongor aimag to visit Martin and Jonathan and Mongon at the new gold mine. Rode down with Yousaf in his Land Cruiser. Saw a ninja settlement of hundreds of gers spread over the bleak Gobi hills, and the ninja miners scrabbling in the pits.

Mongolia, Khentii

Spent the weekend at Jon’s girlfriend Aagii’s folks’ place out on the Kherlen River on the border between Khentii and Tov aimags.

On the drive out, saw the new giant metal Chinggis statue for the first time. On the drive back, saw it for the second time.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Went to Chinggis Khaan University today and met with Lkhagvasuren. With some teachers, we went out to lunch at Aura.

I had been to Aura once before with Lkhagvasuren. This time, the restaurant was almost full, and we went up to the second floor.

The second floor is more of a bar, with booths and low tables and some kind of decor. There are dolphins in bas-relief on the walls and seagulls in bas-relief on the ceiling. A thangka like mine hangs behind the bar.

Lkhagvasuren saw “American fried chicken” on the menu and naturally ordered it for me.

I had picked up a sniffle walking from my apartment to the university in the gray Ulaanbaatar air. Lkhagvasuren ordered vodka all around and told me to drink it for my nose. “Sto gram,” he said, speaking Russian to me. One hundred grams. “Drink, Radnaa.”

“That’s Russian medicine,” I said.

“It is medicine,” he said. “We are all the same, Russian, Mongolian, American. We all have two eyes, two ears, one nose. Medicine works the same.”

He also ordered soup for my nose. “You must drink the vodka and then eat the soup immediately after.” The soup was delicious—garlic, pepper, cabbage, potatoes, and tender meat. Lkhagvasuren clapped me on the shoulder, “It is horsemeat, it is healthy.”

The “American fried chicken” was a breaded chicken fillet, and it also was delicious.

Mongolia, Zuun Mod

Rode along with Marc and a gang of people on a Sunday drive to a couple small towns near UB. Driving, we could see the snow coming over the mountains. Ended up in Zuun Mod, the first time I've been there. Zuun Mod is a nice little town -- a big park, trees, a square, a downtown. Got hit with a snowstorm. It got cold.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Went to Ulemj’s birthday party last night at some Korean restaurant, nice restaurant. There were a lot of people there. Got to see Tulga, hadn’t seen him for a long while. Ended up at Zona, drinking and singing. Got back in at 06:00.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

On Sunday, went to Zaya’s holiday production at her tsetserleg (an abridgement of “khuukhdiin tsetserleg,” which is literally: “child garden”; used as “kindergarten,” which is literally: “child garden”).

Poor little kids, being forced to sing and dance for old people’s amusement.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

I stepped out to go to the Turkish place for some kebab at about 19:00. Crossing Peace Avenue, as I do every day, I was suddenly dazzled by the city: the sidewalks full of people, the streets full of cars, the buildings lit with store signs and billboards, and spotlights sweeping the sky off to the south.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Here’s an account of my day, which was fairly eventful.

Had an interesting meeting with Lkhagvasuren. Through the weight of his reputation and his impressive contacts, he has secured funding from the American Embassy for an ambitious archaeological preservation project concerning sites throughout Ulaanbaatar and Tov aimag. So I’m connected to another project for next summer, in this case as “field archaeological advisor.” Fortunately, I have been well-trained and know just what to do: as Prof. Michlovic said at the start of my field school so many years ago, “You guys’ job will be to move the dirt; my job will be to sit in the shade and drink gin-and-tonics.”

I stopped in at the law office. Tsendee asked me about the book I’m working on. I gave her the one-line pitch: “it is a philosophical novel about a man who lives alone in the steppe, fighting and eating mythical monsters.” She asked if I knew about Dalan Tav, a cemetery in the ger districts. Up until the 1960s, the bodies of deceased people were taken into remote areas and left exposed to return to nature quickly, similar to Tibetan practices. In the ’60s, they started interring bodies at Dalan Tav. The cemetery is entirely surrounded by gers now. She said I should go there and talk to people. She said they tell countless ghost stories.

While I was at the office, in came a Russian couple. Standing behind a partition with Jon, in full earshot of the front desk, he asked me if I could swear in Russian. “Of course.” – “Teach me some.” – “Not right now.”

The Russians were actually russophones from Kazakhstan. “Where is Kazakhstan?” Martin asked comically. “It’s right next door.” Which is accurate, though thousands of kilometers separate the capital cities of Ulaanbaatar and Almaty. They spoke of Kazakhstan as reverentially as people here speak of Mongolia. I have only ever heard good things about Kazakhstan. I would like to visit Almaty soon. It is a diverse city, with a Russian population of up to thirty percent of the total and significant populations of Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz, as well as the slim majority of Kazakhs. Kazakhstan is presently in the news in the West through the film Borat, which apparently depicts Kazakhstan negatively yet in such an over-the-top manner that the depiction is impossible to believe. The Kazakhstan government bought expensive ad space in the West to try to counter the film’s portrayal. In an article about the affair, it was mentioned that within one week of the movie’s opening, British travel agencies booked out all of their tours to Kazakhstan for next year.

Later, I noticed a new sign across the street from the Chinggis Khaan Hotel: “American Cafe.” I stuck my head in the door and asked if they had hamburgers. No. “How can an American cafe not have hamburgers!” I said, and they laughed. So I stepped inside and sampled their khar shol, which was above average. The Korean pop music they were playing on the stereo had an ’80s vibe, but they eventually put on some khoomii.

There were Foster’s Beer napkin holders on the tables, complete with blue silhouettes of Australia. Of course, they did not carry Foster’s Beer because Foster’s Beer is currently unavailable in Mongolia. The napkin holders are puzzling and I will have to mention them to Martin, because he still holds the exclusive license for Foster’s in Mongolia.

I tried to visit Marc and Saraa, but they weren’t home. As I was standing outside the security-controlled door to their building punching their number into the keypad, a young man came out. He saw me and immediately introduced himself, shook my hand, asked where I was from. His name was Purevdorj. He asked if we could speak in English. He told me that he is going to India next month to study, and he needs to improve his English. He is going to study some form of Buddhist meditation, I forget which one, I’m not familiar with them all. We talked for a bit. He lives on the first floor of Marc and Saraa’s building. He said that he used to study Buddhism in Tibet and that he speaks Tibetan, but that’s no good to him now because they speak English in India. Of course, his English was more than passable. He told me to drop by sometime to eat and speak English.

Walking home as it was dark and snowing, I passed Sukhbaatar Square. I saw that the new Chinggis monument is open, so I checked it out. I haven’t liked that the Chinggis statue is way out of scale to the other figures in the monument, but when I got up close to it, it was pretty awe-inspiring. Still, I think the best components of the monument are the mounted warriors flanking Chinggis. I was able to see now that the one on the right is carrying an enormous bevy of arrows – I have never seen so many arrows on a person, as a statue, in a picture, anywhere. I tried to count the arrows and I couldn’t because the shafts are so many that I could not clearly distinguish one from its neighbors, and when I changed position just slightly, new shafts would appear and others would disappear. The figure on the right is carrying far fewer arrows in his quiver and, interestingly, a war mace in his right hand. Both figures are wearing heavy armor. So, the monument is kind of cool, but I still don’t like to even think about it; I’m certain I will never agree with the decision to spend millions of dollars on it before investing in the transport, sanitation, and water systems.

Passing Chez Bernard, I stopped in and flirted with Tuya. I told her that I had just seen the “Tom Chinggis” (Big Chinggis) monument. “You just saw it?” she said. “It’s been open for a month.”

I took my dinner at the Turkish restaurant across from my flat. They had one of the Pierce Brosnan -as- James Bond movies on the tele. As I walked in the door, the first thing that flashed on the screen was the location identifier: “Kazakhstan, Central Asia.”

I just noticed that today is December 7th.

Mongolia, Selenge

Originally posted at Anak Ranch of Mongolia.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Went over to Burmaa's last night. It was her daughter's fifth birthday. Burmaa lives in a one-room apartment with her daughter and two younger sisters, in addition to another younger sister who just had a baby a month ago and is staying with them while her man is in the countryside.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Peace Avenue at night

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Met up with Ulemj and a couple of his buddies last night. We sat in a bar called "Zona" just north of the Parliament building and drank beer. Got drunk.

Ulemj is one of the first people I met after returning to Mongolia a year and a half ago. He teaches engineering at the Technological University.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Dashchoilon Monastery

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

children's playground

Mongolia, Selenge, Orkhon Jimsnii, Anak Ranch

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

I miss the bust of Lenin that I had on my desk in Moscow. I could rub his bald head for luck.

Mongolia, Selenge, Orkhon Jimsnii, Anak Ranch

Radigan Neuhalfen
Anak Ranch of Mongolia

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

statement to the police:

After working at my computer last night until 24:00 midnight and sleeping for a couple of hours, I awoke hungry and went to the 24-hour Zochin Buuz located approximately one-half block from my apartment in Chingeltei duureg, 3-r khoroo. I have dined at this restaurant nearly every day for the past six to eight weeks, occasionally late at night. I left my apartment at approximately 03:00 a.m. It was raining.

Arriving at the restaurant, I noted three Australian males seated together in the front room near the entranceway to the back room, and two or three Mongolians seated in the front room. I walked to my usual table in the back room, decided that it was hot there, and moved to the table next to the door.

From the young male waiter (O.Eyambatav), I ordered my usual meal of goulash and niislii salat [salad], with two Coca-Colas. The meal was soon brought out.

While eating, the Mongolians left the restaurant, leaving only the three Australian males with me as patrons.

Some minutes later, two Mongolian males, in their 20s, medium height, slim, dressed in black, entered the restaurant. They took seats at a table in the front room, behind me. As they sat, one of them said something in a harsh tone in Mongolian that I did not understand, though I heard the word “gadaad” [foreign], and then one of them made a loud banging noise on the table.

Approximately fifteen minutes later, the three Australian males left the restaurant. As they walked down the steps outside the window near my seat, I recognized one of them as an old acquaintance, Sam, and I knocked on the window to get his attention. He stepped back inside and we had a conversation in English that lasted for approximately five minutes. He then left the restaurant.

Some minutes after that, the two Mongolian males got up behind me. One of them passed by my table and left the restaurant. The other one, following the first, stopped at my table. He said something in Mongolian that I did not understand and slammed a steel fork in his right hand onto my table in front of me. Seated, I looked at him and said in Mongolian, “Yasan be, minii duu?” [What happened, my little brother?] He then said, “Eh?” He then quickly said again “Eh?” and leaned his face close to mine. I said nothing. He quickly straightened up and then made two or three feinting lunges at me with his upper body and slammed the fork in his right hand into the table again. I did not respond. He then raised the fork to my face and pushed it into my left cheek. I stood up, and immediately the young female waitress (B.Suvd-Erdene) placed her body between me and the Mongolian male, raising each of her arms to our chests. I heard then two other employees of the restaurant saying things in Mongolian that I did not understand. Then the first Mongolian male came into the restaurant, said to me in English, “Don’t worry,” put his hands on the one who had assaulted me with the fork, pushed him out the door, and followed him out the door of the restaurant.

I gently maneuvered myself around the waitress and went out the door. The first Mongolian male was standing at the top of the steps and the perpetrator was walking on the sidewalk away from the bottom of the steps. The male at the top of the steps looked at me and I said to him in English, “What is your friend’s problem?” He said in English, “It is okay, it is nothing, I am sorry,” and then started walking down the steps. I walked back into the restaurant. As I walked in, the young male waiter (O.Eyambatav) looked at me with a concerned expression and I said in Mongolian, “Zugeer.” [It’s okay.]

I sat again in my seat and finished eating what remained of my meal and drank the last of the Coca-Cola. There was pain in my cheek. The fork with which the perpetrator had assaulted me was lying on my table; it was very bent. I finished eating within a few minutes and left the restaurant.

I went directly to my apartment. It was approximately 04:20 a.m. when I arrived in my apartment. I looked at my cheek in a mirror and saw a red gash. I took ten photographs of my cheek and then cleaned my cheek with soap and water and disinfectant alcohol. I transferred the photographs from my camera to my computer. I then left my apartment and went back to the restaurant to record the names of the young waiter and waitress and preserve the fork.

At the restaurant, B.Suvd-Erdene and O.Eyambatav wrote their names on a sheet of paper for me, and Eyambatav located the fork. It had already been straightened. I asked them to keep the fork in a secure place until the police had been notified.

I then returned to my apartment.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Since the city turned off the central heating as scheduled on May 15th, and it snowed the next day, and then it snowed again the following week, here's me at home in my winter deel (lined with sheepskin), in front of a thangka of the Wrathful Deity and a map of Mongolia.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

After days of warming weather, we had an unexpected heavy snowfall, beginning during the night. The snow melted quickly.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

It wasn't much of a surgery. I don't know why I was expecting it to be a full, cinematic surgery experience like last time. This time, he just sat me down in a chair in the trauma room. He gave me a massive dose of painkiller in the shoulder. I didn't feel anything during the operation. I did pass out right at the beginning. I don't know how long I was out. I woke up and didn't know where I was. I was on the verge of panic, because I couldn't figure out where I was. I wondered if I was dead, then immediately decided that it didn't matter if I was "alive" or "dead," because if I was experiencing consciousness, that was all that mattered, and I am all that exists, and everything that I was seeing was an illusion. Then I finally realized where I was: I was on Earth. And that reassured me. I yet didn't know more than that; whether I was in Mongolia or Australia or Mexico, or in a hospital or my kitchen or on a horse, I didn't know. They were clear thoughts, but they weren't formed with language -- they were like "thought-feelings." Then I realized that the doctor was asking me, "Zugeer uu? Zugeer uu?" And I started mumbling in English, which he doesn't know, "It's okay, it's okay. Fine," and finally, "Zugeer." I was fine after that. It seemed the first pin took no time at all, but maybe I had been passed out for most of it. The second one seemed to take a long time. He had a pliers, and he was pulling and twisting and yanking for ten or fifteen minutes. Eventually got it out, and stitched up the cut. Two stitches. No worries.

Mongolia

Photo with Sumya, Chinggis Khaan, Cleidi, and Odbaatar in the History Museum

Bonjour. Some notes since arriving back in Mongolia in February:

In June, an immigration official looked me in the eye and told me that he was going to deport me. That was the climax of a month-long saga involving deceit, corruption, and the midnight train to China. I'm still here, of course.

In July, I bought an apartment in downtown Ulaanbaatar (top floor, south facing, balcony, just set back from Peace Avenue), and I established my Mongolian company: Radigan Co., Ltd.

Also in July, I fell off a horse at a full gallop jumping over a hole and busted my collarbone. After a 15k ride back to the ger, plenty of vodka, and a three-hour drive back to UB, I had surgery and they inserted steel pins to hold the bone together while it heals.

In August, I visited the central prison for the first time with my friend Martin. Martin is an Australian immigration lawyer, among other things. Last year, he was wrongfully incarcerated at the prison. He didn't eat or drink as a hunger strike until they let him out, which they did after a week when a doctor pronounced he was a day away from death. While in the prison, Martin learned that it has no running water. The prison is an old Red Army barracks complex that was converted after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russians didn't put in any plumbing when they built the place some thirty years ago. Water is delivered by tanker truck and parceled out to the prisoners in plastic bags; the bucket in each cell is emptied out the window. After Martin got out, he set about raising funds and getting equipment-time donated, mainly from Australian and other foreign mining companies in Mongolia, and he has now drilled a well and built a main into the prison. The project is set to be completed this month; it needs to be completed before the winter. The first snowfall was September 16th.

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

Radigan Neuhalfen
Photo by V.Luvsanchultem

Mongolia

Grassy, snowy desert-steppe, tan and white, is rolling by the window. The train passed the border from China into Mongolia, changing wheels and stamping passports, around midnight, eight hours ago. We are rolling northwest, towards Ulaanbaatar. Five years I have been away from Mongolia. I have done and seen many things; I have loved and been loved; friends have died. Horses and gers, smoke puffing from their chimney-pipes, pock the expansive land. Sky is a clear, pale blue. I have returned.

China, Beijing

On the way to the Chinese embassy in Perth to apply for my visa, Brett affected a spot-on, intimidating High Mandarin accent: "What is your business in the People's Republic of China?" Then he affected a spot-on, bouncing Midwestern American accent: "Freedom! I'm here to bring American freedom to the Chinese!"

When I got into China and exchanged dollars for Chinese yuan, I noticed immediately that the old Mongolian script is one of five languages printed on the back of every Chinese bill.

I trained into the country from Hanoi and trained north through the vastness of China to Beijing.

A week in Beijing. American expatriates, European tourists, and friendly Chinese.

Olympics in 2008.

Hung out with Alexis, a French photographer, in Beijing. She had come to China to get photos of the Chinese New Year celebrations for a magazine in France. Unfortunately, she had not gotten a single photo of a dragon dance, because she had not found a single dragon dance. This was problematic for her because the French magazine wanted photos of dragon dances, because all of the people in France know that all of the people in China celebrate the New Year with dragon dances, even if all of the people in China do not know this.

Went with Alexis and some Chinese fashion models to an uber-trendy nightclub one night. The models started playing drinking games. I fell asleep.

Many say that Beijing and Shanghai and Xian and a dozen other Chinese cities are changing daily. Half of all the construction cranes in the world are in China.

"When China wakes, she will shake the world."
--Napoleon Bonaparte

My high point in Beijing was hanging out with a dude named Tulgaa in the Mongolian embassy. He speaks Russian but no English. He was on his way to Hong Kong to buy watches to take back to Ulaanbaatar and sell in his shop. I rode with him to the train station to catch his train. We got in a cab with a Mongolian driver. I asked the driver if he spoke Russian, and Tulgaa told me that he was Chinese. I was confused. Then he told me that the driver was from the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. This was the first Mongolian I had ever met who was from China, even though there are more citizens of China who are ethnic Mongolians than there are citizens of the country of Mongolia. So the driver had never studied Russian, but spoke fluent Mandarin. Then I realized that he, along with the three million other ethnic Mongolians in China, must read and write Mongolian in the old Mongolian alphabet, not the Russian Cyrillic. I had never thought of this before, not even when I had seen the old alphabet on the Chinese money.

Tulgaa chatted with the driver in Mongolian on the way. After we got out of the cab at the train station, Tulgaa said to me, "He's a Chinese Mongolian. He's just like all the other Chinese." Tulgaa speaks not a word of any Chinese language. Hanging out in the train station, speaking Russian amongst the convulsing hordes of countless Chinese, we made plans to meet up again in UB after we both got back there in the next week.

Vietnam, Hanoi

"Each day of travelling gains you plenty of wisdom."
--Vietnamese proverb

* * *

My absolute last impression of Australia was bathroom graffiti in the international airport in Perth:

"U.S. Out of North America NOW!"

* * *

My first encounter with Indonesia was in the city of Denpasar on the island of Bali, and Indonesia all-too-comfortably met my prejudiced image of a modern Islamic society--gloriously clean, polite, calm, secure.

In Jakarta, the capital, I figured there was one scooter or motorcycle for every four-wheeled car on the streets. And every rider was wearing a helmet. A billboard advertising an art exhibition featured only one large image: stylized eyes peering out from a full-face moto helmet.

In Jakarta, I nearly married into a strict Muslim family.

Patrice told me that two religions do not make for a happy marriage, so one of us would have to convert. Super easy, thought I. Unlike her parents, Patrice is a "skip the fasting, go to the feast" kind of Muslim, and converting to agnostic indifference doesn't require an examination nor a ceremony. However, I quickly learned, her parents would not accept her not being a Muslim. Therefore, one of us would have to convert.

In the airport at Jakarta, awaiting the plane to Ho Chi Minh, I saw MTV Asia. Broadcast throughout Asia with most of its content in English, it has the largest audience of any MTV incarnation and one of the largest audiences of any television channel in the world. The last time I had seen MTV Asia was in Ulaanbaatar.

* * *

In Ho Chi Minh City, I figured there were 25 scooters for every four-wheeled car. And nobody was wearing a helmet.

The hostel was full, but the girls told me they had room at one of their other hostels. So the smallest one led me outside and fired up a scooter and told me to get on the back. Okay. So I suspended my moto-safety fanaticism and climbed aboard. Suddenly I was part of the world-infamous Vietnamese scooter traffic.

"If you are afraid, do not do it. If you do it, do not be afraid."
--Mongolian proverb

At the other hostel, the girls told me that they were full, but they would get me a room at the hotel across the street. So the tallest one led me outside to cross the street, which is even more dangerous than riding through the street. Standing on the curb, she held out her hand to me and waited. So, like a small child, I put my hand in hers. Then we literally waded into the traffic. As we finally got to the other curb, she let go of my hand. I raised a foot to place on the curb, saw the scooter in the corner of my eye, stepped back, attempted to yelp a warning, followed the scooter with my eyes as it passed me, and watched it hit the girl. She fell down, stood back up, the scooter sailed off, and then she waved impatiently at me. I stepped up on the curb and we went inside the hotel.

French and Germans overflowing out of the hostels.

Two days on the Reunification Train up to Hanoi. Hanoi seems so familiar: cold weather and Soviet-style disrepair.

There is a Hilton Hotel in Hanoi.

* * *

The Mongol empire extended beyond China and down the coast of Southeast Asia, which is known in our time as Vietnam. It even extended into the islands off Southeast Asia, including the island of Java, on which is located Jakarta.

Australia, Western Australia, Perth

When I first arrived in Australia in Sydney, I mentioned to Ros, the Aussie woman I had met in Costa Rica, that I had never seen so many Australians all in one place before.

"Funny that," she replied.

She also said, "shark-feeding time," when she jumped into the Pacific for a swim.

I stayed in Sydney for a week.

* * *

For three days from the window of the Indian Pacific Train while crossing the breadth of Australia, I had seen a lot of flat empty sun-burned nothing, punctuated by a total of eight kangaroos. Two days after arriving in Western Australia on the other side of the Outback, I was standing on a dune overlooking a stretch of desert with a Spanish-Italian couple, a girl from Switzerland, and Brett, my old Aussie mate from Perth. In the distance, just beyond the desert, we could see the sun shining on the Indian Ocean.

Brett commented, "When the first Europeans were sailing around Australia and they saw desert like this from the ships, it's easy to see how they thought the whole country was like this."

We each gazed round at the sand and rocks and sun. I looked at the Europeans and then over to Brett.

"It is," I said.

* * *

When I first met Brett in Ohio five years ago, it was his first time off his island, and he was just another naive Aussie. Now I arrive in Western Australia and find him having just returned from several months in Spain and Portugal, speaking Spanish better than I do.

To study Spanish in Perth, Brett has found Enrico and Angela, one of whom is Spanish living in Italy and the other Italian who has lived in Spain. They are in Australia for six months to improve their already-fluent English. The effect so far has been the peppering of their English with expressions like "No worries" and "Good on you" and "Bugger me."

Enrico and Angela are living in a boarding house filled mostly with students from Japan. They are very excited about this. "It is the first time we get to know Asian people!" They continue: "We think they do not like being touched. They never say it, they are so polite, but when you touch them, they get very tense and say, 'O-oh! O-oh!'"

Their friend Eva, the Swiss girl, is in Perth for a year to study English. She is staying with her uncle, who had emigrated to Australia from Switzerland 15 years ago, gotten married, gotten divorced, and is now living with his partner, waiting for Australia to change its laws so they can get married.

The five of us drove into the countryside north of Perth to camp for several days and fish and look at big rocks.

* * *

Sitting in the shade of a rock ledge in a state park, Brett was telling us about the water hole we were going to hike to and swim in later that afternoon.

"It’s a real nice place, in the gorge and all that. Real beautiful. Oh, yeah, and there are some crocs in this swimming hole, but they’re just little ones; nothing to worry about."

"What?" came the wide-eyed, collective Euro-reply.

"Well, yeah, but they’re just little ones--only a couple metres or so. They won’t bite you or anything. Well, they might nibble your leg a bit, but--"

Then he turned on me. "Oy! What did you start laughing for? I would've had them! I would've had them!"

* * *

Brett and I were walking out of a canyon in the direct 40-degree-Celsius sun.

Brett said, "The heat is so relaxing, you know. You just feel calm. Not like when it's cold and you shiver and all that."

I said, "You have to come to Mongolia, Brett, and ride around on a horse in 20-below weather."

"Yeah... uh... roight... uh, that doesn't sound like fun, Rad."

"Bah! Lets you know you're alive," I said, and thumped my chest twice with my fist. "Here, you know, here, in this overheated lethargy, you could just as well be dead. You wouldn't even notice."

"Yeah, yeah, roight, that's true, yeah."

Panama, Panama City

I’m spending time with a cop. Her name is Zulaika. She’s a motorcycle cop on the Panama City Municipal Police Force. It is almost humorous, as Zulaika is tiny and rides a 200cc motorcycle; it would be humorous, except that she can muster such a serious set to her jawline.

Zulaika speaks only Spanish. She’s 25 years old and she’s never left Panama, hardly ever left Panama City. I call her "fascistita" because all cops are fascists, and she calls me "casperito" after Casper the Ghost. She wants a baby in a couple years, and she told me that I should come back then so she can have a green-eyed baby. Unfortunately, as I’ve tried to explain to her, green eyes are recessive.

She asked me once, "Will you fight?" which is a line typically used by men on women in Panama, the implication being: "Will you fight when I rape you?" If you are interested, the appropriate response is: "Yes, I will fight."

Staying in the Casco Viejo, or "Old Town," of Panama City. This is the site where the Spaniards moved the city after the buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan sacked and burned the original in 1671. The event is fancifully described by the American writer John Steinbeck in his novel, Cup of Gold. The "Cup of Gold" referred to in the title is Panama City.

The hotel has a garden patio on the roof. To the right, the Bridge of the Americas and all of the ships standing offshore in the Pacific waiting to transit the canal. To the left, across the inlet, the clustered line of skyscrapers that make up downtown Panama City. At night, the lights are everywhere, and the proprietary Panamanian Spanish-language reggae music thrums up from the bars. And last night, fireworks and firearms were going off all over the city. The hotel has no hot water, but one doesn’t notice, because the weather is so hot.

The Casco Viejo includes the Plaza Francia. The French embassy stands there, and a promenade encircles a monument to the French attempt to build a canal in the 1880's. 22,000 people died in the effort, most of them from France and the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadalupe. One director of the project arrived in Panama from Paris with his wife and two sons, and returned to Paris two years later with three caskets. The French finally gave up in 1889.

The street food is tragic. Fried chicken and chow mein. I’m so far from Mexico now. I’d give my boots for a corn tortilla and some salsa, or half a pickled jalapeno.

This December was the 15th anniversary of the American invasion of Panama. The news media carried coverage of the events held in the cemeteries to commemorate the people killed by the American military during Operation "Causa Justa." The Americans' "Just Cause" was to remove their own ex-collaborator, Noriega, who had gotten out of their control.

Zulaika was 10 years old then and remembers American soldiers camping in front of her house.