Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Ulan Ude - Gobi Desert, Mongolia
Early Autumn 2000
———
Tim
Rain fell, sometimes hard, sometimes as spittle, but never consistently. Cars
crashed through swelling puddles, sending a wall of brown water towards shop-
fronts and unlucky pedestrians. Disco music blasted from a plastic marquee where
a drunk couple danced. Beyond them, a babushka with bowed legs hobbled along,
clutching a plastic bag full of food scraps scavenged from overflowing bins.
My head throbbed and I wandered in a daze. Chris and I had arrived in Irkutsk
earlier that morning; we were spending a few hours apart before our evening train
to Ulan Ude.
As aimless as the rain, I turned into a shopping centre. Racked by tremors of
hunger and bewildered by the contradictions of the city I took refuge in a café and
bought a beer to settle my nerves. There I opened my diary and toyed with the idea
that the shopping centre was a veneer slapped over the reality of the destitute, the
unhealthy, and those who struggle to make ends meet. Yet, neither those who wore
the designer labels nor the dank rags looked like they had any life in them.
For fifteen days in the Altai we had not known the date or time, or heard so
much as a distant car. The rivers had gushed through precipitous gorges with crys-
tal blue water, and mountains soared above lush forest and high alpine plains. I had
felt at ease and no matter what the conditions, they never appeared as hostile as the
city. The day I'd walked ahead of the others, I climbed a peak and lay a photo of
Bruce, together with a flower, under a rock. I couldn't think of a more ideal place
to let his spirit rest.
I was convinced, that despite progress, the wilderness and simple ways could
still be of benefit. In the wilderness there was no room for the bullshit splattered
across television screens and the hyped-up advertising campaigns. It occurred to
