Inner Mongolia (1978) and Outer Mongolia (1980)

Inner Mongolia (1978) and Outer Mongolia (1980)

by Rich Juro

     There’s two political Mongolias: Inner Mongolia is a northern province of China, and Outer Mongolia is an independent country between Russia and China. Fran and I  went to visit both on two different trips. Long ago, the Mongols were feared as nasty warriors on horseback and conquered much of Asia. Just think of Genghis Khan and his grandson Kublai Khan, 13th century rulers who created the largest empire of earth.

Inner Mongolia (1978)

     This tour was the entire of China: Suzhou, Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, in addition to Inner Mongolia. While boarding the train in Beijing, we saw lots of Han Chinese citizens wearing very similar blue outfits. They were going to Hohut, the capital of the province of Inner Mongolia…permanently. The government was shipping the “regular” Chinese to Inner Mongolia as permanent residents to make them the majority in the city. The Han Chinese weren’t happy about it either, but this was 1978 (similar to what happened later to Tibet). 

Among the group on our group was Dr. Irving Cohen. He suggested:

     “Why don’t we visit a hospital in Hohut?”, and so that’s what we did. We wandered through the hospital with the guide. Some of the patients were nearly naked, but we barged into their rooms. It didn’t seem to bother them.

“What type of medicine do these patients get?”, asked Dr. Cohen. 

     A hospital administrator explained: “The patients get whatever type of treatment they desire. We offer them a choice of Mongolian remedies (the whole root or leaf), the Chinese medicine (the traditional root or leaves is powdered and served in tea), or the Western medication (pills or modern treatment). Most of the patients want to do Western medicine.” Asked and answered.

     Next day we journeyed by an old bus to the highlight of our trip: a two-night stay in a yurt. Also called a ger, these Mongol semi-permanent circular tents were located in the Gobi Desert. The yurts were designed to have a big family, but there were now only four cots in each of them. The restroom was down at the end of the line of yurts. We got to share a ger with a father, Peter, and his 16-year-old son, Jason. The teen-age son was already an actor with some minor credits on TV and movies. That evening, after a very good dinner, Jason disappeared. The father, Peter, didn’t act surprised: 

“It happens all the time. Now its time for bed. The lights are going out (and they did).”

Jason stayed out all night but reappeared early in the morning in time for breakfast. He never explained what he did overnight.

     It dropped 50 degrees at night so we used all the blankets. Jason stayed in the second night. During the day we were occupied with talks about how the Mongols were excellent horsemen and warriors, and that’s how they conquered China and most of the rest of Asia. 

     We left Inner Mongolia feeling exhilarated about staying two nights in the yurt; but we couldn’t help feel badly for the Han Chinese forced to live in another home, and the Mongolians who would lose their majority in their homeland. 

New yurt but more modern than the one we stayed in. Credit: Etsy

Outer Mongolia (1980)

     As part of the Soviet Union tour, we visited Outer Mongolia. Technically, not part of the Soviet Union, it was an independent country in 1980, but under Moscow’s sphere of influence; and Mongolia did whatever the Russian masters said.

     We flew to the capital, Ulan Batar (or Urga, or Ulaanbataar, depending on what the Mongols or you choose) in an Aeroflot propeller airplane (the airline used to be called “Aeroflop” for good reasons). We toured Ulan Batar, filled with Soviet-gray concrete buildings, and stayed in a hotel for two nights.

     Our guide was Mongol. She said “call me Olga”, in her accented voice, but that wasn’t her real Mongol name. We didn’t learn much about Ulan Bator because Olga was sleeping on the bus most of the time. Reason: she was up all the night for “muffki-puffki” (to bring you another language) with her boyfriend in the Mongol army. 

     The bus was an ancient Soviet Army transport, but it ran. One day the bus took us out into the rural grasslands. We spotted a solo home, and signed to the bus driver that he should stop. Olga was sleeping for a change, and before she could say “Nyet” (No in Russian), we exited the bus and met with the wife of the house on the steppes. She pointed in the direction of the door, and so the group followed her to the Mongol sod and wood house (followed by Olga’s exclamations of “Nyet”, which we ignored).

     The wife held the wooden door open and indicated that we should enter. So we did, and three of us sat in the old wooden chairs, and six of us sat on the dirt, unpaved floor. She poured us a cup, made of horsehair, of mare’s milk, which is called kumis. The cup  had two floating horse hairs in it. She also passed around a plate of fermented mare’s milk cheese (also called kumis) to try. The wife was the apex of Mongol graciousness, and I didn’t want to insult her. So I pretended to sip the kumis, and stuck the cheese in a pocket in my jacket. The jacket smelled of kumis for days.

Mare of the Steppes, Producer of Kumis

     Next day we flew out in an old, small Russian propeller plane to the Gobi Desert. The airplane had no seat belts and no fixed backs on seats, so as we leaned back we found ourselves on the knees of the person who was sitting behind us. Obviously, we sat up straight; that was difficult during takeoff. The plane had 44 passengers and only 40 seats, so the last 4 passengers sat in back with the luggage. The airplane had a staff of 3: the pilot, the co-pilot, and the navigator. Finding the yurt camp from the air was the difficult job of the navigator.

     The morning when we landed, it was again on the vast Gobi Desert. This was a deluxe yurt camp: every tent had an in-suite bathroom (instead of sharing the toilet with the other guests like in Inner Mongolia). The next morning our group headed in a rickety bus a long way toward the only river. It was spring, so when we went down to the river, surprise: we found big ice chunks in the shady, secluded nooks. I and another American young man, Chris, carried some ice back on the bus to the yurt camp. There was another group of German tourists that couldn’t figure out where we got the ice. They were complaining to their guide. We were silent.

     Chris was a travel agent in Minneapolis and had brought several guests with him on the tour. There was only one gazebo in the camp and it had a large chess set in it. Chris and I played several games of chess. We were about even.  After three days of the yurt camp, the old prop plane landed on the hard sand of the desert. We were ready to go. But the navigator of the plane indicated he wanted to play chess, so he pointed to the windsocks  (who were not flapping in the wind). Chris joined the navigator at the gazebo chess set. Unfortunately, Chris won the first game, and the navigator’s Mongolian pride was hurt. So they played a second game. I never asked Chris if he “threw” the game, but the navigator won. 

     We boarded the plane with the seats that had no firm seat backs and no seat belts. At least they had less than 40 passengers so everybody had a chair. After 45 minutes we were back in Ulan Batar, the capital of Outer Mongolia.

I threw out the kumis-smelling jacket, and it was goodbye to Mongolia and the Mongols.