Field Notes · Eastern Mongolia
Every Morning, Somewhere New
The first time you see something, you see it properly. Why our newest journey heads east, into Chinggis Khaan's homeland and beyond.
· 2 min read
I have never liked doing the same thing twice. Give me a new place every morning, a stranger who becomes a friend by evening, a horizon I have not stood under before. That is what keeps my eyes awake.
The first time you see something, you see it properly. Your feelings are open, your angle is your own, and ordinary things come alive in a way they never do once you are used to them. A herder's door, a line of horses at the water, the first light on a lake: none of it is new to the people who live there, but for you, that morning, it is.
The first road
When my UAZ finally rolled out of the garage, I knew exactly where its first long journey would go: east, into the homeland of Chinggis Khaan, the most sacred land in Mongolia.
It is not far from Ulaanbaatar, and yet it feels like another time. Mountains and rivers still carry the names written in the old chronicles. At , the forest lake where Temüjin was proclaimed Khaan, you lower your voice without being told. Respect and reverence seem to gather in one place.
And the land never repeats itself. Forest gives way to river, river to open steppe, steppe to soft hills, hills to plains so wide they seem to have no end, then lakes and marshes full of birds. One landscape hands you on to the next, and not for a single moment does it grow dull.
Further east
Beyond Khentii the country keeps opening, and so does its story. This was a frontier, and it still wears its military past. Soviet garrisons and towns, large and small, stand abandoned on the steppe.
At Khalkh Gol, monuments mark the last great battle fought on Mongolian soil, in 1939.
Here and there a modern mine cuts into the plain, the newest layer on very old ground.
And around all of it, space. Distances so wide your eye cannot find their end. The sun rises right beside you, with nothing in between. Gazelles stream across the grass close enough to hear their hooves. On the lakes and marshes, birds crowd together in their thousands: this is a , where cranes, swans and wild geese raise their young before flying south. Further south, in Sukhbaatar, extinct volcanoes rise from the grass, and pilgrims climb Shiliin Bogd to meet the sunrise.
Much of this far east will be new to us too. That is exactly why we want to go. Our Eastern Mongolia expedition is our first scheduled journey there: twelve days in September, when the steppe turns gold, with our own camp so we wake each morning somewhere new.
You will see it for the first time. So, in places, will we.
