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Destinasia, December 2003
Destinasia, December 2003 | Destinasia, December 2003 |
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Page 2 of 5 But not this year—Visit Mongolia Year. Mongolia’s first-ever tourism campaign began in May 2003, unofficially the start of the country’s short summer season, since that's when temperatures usually top 0. Officials were confident of success, and boasted on their new web site (www.visit2003.mn) of such extravagant measures as the leasing of one Boeing 737. (Mongolia has few flights except from neighboring China and Russia, and not many tourists, either—fewer than 25,000 arrived in 2001, and that was a record.) And then there were the "Top Ten Reasons to Visit Mongolia," listed right there on the Visit Mongolia homepage. Okay, they only managed to come up with nine, most of them misspelled. Still, what other country can hype as a tourist attraction "No fences," and mean it? And so in July I find myself on a northbound train from Beijing, eager to see how things have changed in a land that I explored extensively in the early 1990s, and have yearned to return to ever since. Would there be welcoming banners at the border? Ranks of souvenir shops? Meat other than mutton in the restaurants? Would trips into the countryside be the same circumscribed jeep tours to remote gers— wood-framed felt tents — for a taste of well-practiced nomadic hospitality and rock-hard nuggets of yak cheese? Or, would I be free to roam? In short, was the Last Great Place ready for prime time? Ulaanbaatar certainly seems in peak form when I arrive in the exhilarating days before the Naadam festival, held every year in mid-July. Though I had heard reports about the capital’s burgeoning restaurant and club scene (described by some enthusiasts as a "Prague-like renaissance"), I am deliciously surprised by the ease, comfort, and diversity of choices. The early post-Soviet years were marked by line-ups for bread, petrol, and even matches; a dozen years ago, you had to fight your way—literally—into the city’s few bleak mutton stalls. Nowadays, options include French bistros, Cuban bars, and German brewpubs. And Indian restaurants. One night I dine at the Taj Mahal with Martin Joseph, whose brother owns the two-year-old establishment. We’re seated on the rooftop terrace, looking down at the city's delightfully forlorn and utterly out of place concrete blockhouse Soviet-style architecture. Martin has spent a year in Ulaanbaatar, which everyone here calls "UB." Like every expatriate I encounter, he’s upbeat about the city’s prospects, smiling even as the discussion turns to the weather. I must mention that Martin hails from Kerala in southwest India, where daytime temperatures average 30 degrees Celsius. UB, the coldest capital on the planet, hits that high perhaps once every few years, and spends most of its long winter at well below freezing. "The way I look at it, there is no bad weather," Martin says, beaming, as he spoons a dollop of chutney onto my plate. "Only bad clothes." Yet there’s no sign of bad weather or bad clothes in UB during Naadam. Instead, the city and its residents are decked out in traditional finery for the 800-year-old pageant, which has survived more or less unchanged since the days of Genghis Khan. Back then, the Mongols claimed the largest empire yet forged, one that stretched from the Sea of Japan to the borders of Europe. Naadam commemorates the skills that won it: wrestling, horseback riding, and archery—the eriin gurvan naadam, or "three manly sports." Naadam is celebrated across Mongolia, but festivities are at their boisterous best in UB. Families from the surrounding countryside pack their gers into wagons, hitch up the family camel, horse, or yak, and trundle into the capital to enjoy the games. Men in Mongol warrior–style gear atop ribbon-adorned horses parade across Sukhbaatar Square, UB’s own Red Square. And pictures of Genghis Khan, once banished from school texts by the Communists, are everywhere, on billboards, magazines, bottles of Genghis vodka. The festival has gone upscale during Visit Mongolia Year. Sky divers swirl over the grandstands of UB’s National Stadium before the start of the wrestling finals, during which no fewer than 512 men, bulky torsos bulging over skimpy leather briefs, square off for a day of single-elimination events. Strategy is key to Mongolian wrestling, explains Yura Enktuvshin, a fan, after watching a match drag on for an hour. But to the uninitiated observer, it simply seems to take forever. "Clearly, American football isn’t the slowest sport on earth," mutters a British spectator seated next to me. At the end of Naadam a fireworks display is followed by a big rock concert. This is a radical departure from a dozen years ago, when the first post-Soviet festival sputtered out leaving thousands of country folk stranded. The newly elected government, going all out for Naadam, had drained the city’s fuel stocks so that afterwards, when the pumps went dry, trains, planes, and buses were stalled. Anyone without a horse or camel—including tourists—was stuck in the capital for weeks. These days, however, there seems to be as much action outside the National Stadium as within. On the festival’s final night, I’m drinking Asia’s best beer in the Khanbrau, a German brewpub that is regularly packed. Mongolian rockers play covers of Coldplay, while women strut past in outfits that would have seemed risqué even in the wild East European revels following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Mongolia’s own democratic revolution took place in 1990, bringing a relatively peaceful end to seven decades of Soviet domination. It also sent the economy into a tailspin. But if Naadam took on renewed significance as a break from bleak tidings during the glum years that followed, tonight it is not exactly a topic of bar chatter. "Nobody in this generation is interested in Naadam," explains Chinzorig, a 26-year-old tour guide. "We’d rather listen to hip-hop," interjects Jargal, a woman a few years younger. "Naadam is old-fashioned." Contrast this with Asia’s other former Communist countries, where state events still dominate the social agenda. Not in UB, where the younger generation sees no need for prestige-building follies. Instead of reliving past glory, many now go abroad. They return with new ideas, about fashion, making money, and the future. |
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