Travel Diary - Mongolia 1993

Friday 2 July 1993

Ulan Bator

Last night, at about 8 o’clock, there was a knock on my door.  I opened it and was greeted by a very tall Mongolian woman with a very deep but soft voice.  She looked over her shoulder, and then leant in closer to me, as if she had a state secret to impart.  “Would you like to buy a cashmere suit?” she asked me.  I politely declined and went back to watch, of all things, a very early episode of Neighbours.  Earlier in the evening I went for a walk to Sukhbaatar Square.  I was stopped by a man who asked me if I had a shark tooth necklace!  Obviously the ‘70s have finally reached Mongolia.

Anyway, this morning I met Bambi (her name is something like that, but I never did manage to get it right).  I told her I wanted to go to the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan.  She tried to talk me out of it, and recommended the Friendship Department Store instead.  I insisted on the Winter Palace, so we got on a local bus for the five-minute trip (as I was her only client today we did not have a driver).  We arrived at the palace, which appeared deserted.  But Bambi led the way to a little ticket booth.  It cost one US dollar to get in (which still leaves me with this giant wad of 3,000 tugriks, about $10, that nobody seems to want).  Bambi stayed at the ticket booth to chat while I went into the palace by myself.

Winter Palace

The palace was fantastic.  It is primarily a Buddhist temple and, in layout, reminded me of the Imperial Palace in Beijing (in miniature that is).  On one side, in the late nineteenth century, a “palace” was attached.  It looks like the Russian style buildings I have noticed around Ulan Bator, with those pretty wooden windows.  It was two stories high and contained the living quarters of the Bogd Khan and his consort of the Ekh Dagina.  The floors were creaky and uneven, and there was a musty smell about the place. 

The last Bogd Khan was a bit of an amateur zookeeper, and the ground floor contained a collection of stuffed animals.  It was very bizarre, and a little bit creepy.  I was the only visitor, so it was just these animals, mute and frozen in time and me.  It is remarkable how life like, and un-nerving, the gaze of glass eyes can be in dim light, and intense silence. 

Upstairs there was an exhibition of the clothes worn by the ruling couple.  They were an interesting mixture of traditional Mongolian influenced by Imperial China and Buddhism.  They were very vibrant, intricately woven with gold thread and pearls.  Nearby were the colourful thrones of Bogd Khan and his consort, all covered in small Buddhist carvings.  On the wall were two large portraits of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia.  The bedrooms of the Bogd Khan and the Ekh Dagina were fabulous.  In the centre of each room was a large carved bed, complete with canopy and silk hangings.  The Ekh Dagina's bed had a magnificent clothe-of-gold counterpane.

Winter Palace - Residence of the Bogd Khan and the Ekh Dagina
(and the stuffed animals)

The temples were amazing, full of beautifully embroidered Buddhist images and small gold statues.  In one temple I was surprised by a member of staff sitting quietly in a corner, he was so still he could have been part of the stuffed animal collection. 

Winter Palace Temples

After the palace we went to the Museum of Religion.  It was really just an empty monastery, from which the Communists evicted the monks years before.  It was more run-down than the Winter Palace, and really quite sad.  In the central temple there was a beautiful gold Buddha, to one side of which was the embalmed body of a former Buddhist master, looking just like a statue.  The poor lighting, the lingering smell of incense, the lack of tourists, and general dilapidation created an otherworldly atmosphere.  The gardens were terribly overgrown and sometimes it was not clear where the paths were. 

The final temple we went to was amazing.  It was circular with papier-mâché figures all over the walls, painted in a rainbow of colours.  In pride of place was a 1,000-year-old model of an Indian stupa.  The papier-mâché made it look very strange, particularly with the almost cartoon style of the paintings.  Although it is official a museum, there were signs of recent worship; some offerings of money and fruit here and there.  As we left I asked Bambi if there had ever been reports of a reincarnation of the Bogd Khan.  She said she there were rumours one had been identified, but did not seem keen to talk about it. 

Tomb of the Bogd Khan

So that is nearly the end of my stay in Mongolia.  It is only three years since the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party started to loosen its iron grip on power.  That probably explains the lingering suspicion and distrust of some of the locals, and the requirement for all foreign visitors to have an official guide.  It definitely explains the awful food and the empty shelves of the Friendship Department Store (Bambi finally got me through the doors after the Museum of Religion, but it was so pathetic I have nothing more to say about it).   I managed to spend some tugriks on food for the train, but I still have a thick pile of notes left.  Bambi has gone home to feed her baby.  When she gets back we are going to the Natural History Museum, then it’s onto the station for the train to Irkutsk.

A Strange Visitor

I once spent a year working as a Night Porter at a small hotel in the city.  It was probably the dullest year of my life, as hardly anything ever happened.  No famous people ever stayed at the hotel, apart from the Academy Award winning actress Miss Susanna York.  She only spoke to me once, to ask where the nearest bottle shop was.  I whiled away the hours watching movies, reorganising the office or just playing patience.  All I had to do was check in any late arrivals, clean the lift and sweep the street out front.  

The hotel was a few doors up from the Melbourne Town Hall. It’s entrance was down the end of a short corridor, next to a Japanese restaurant.  I tended to sweep the corridor and footpath outside at around five am.   One night, however, I did the sweeping a few hours’ earlier, at about two am, because there was something I wanted to watch on the telly.  I was out on the street, getting rid of all the filthy cigarette butts, when I just happened to look down the street.  About 200 metres away, at the corner of Collins and Swanston streets, next to the statue of Burke and Wills, I noticed a man standing still, looking back at me.  I immediately felt a cold chill come over me, and a strange flash of anxiety.  I got on with my sweeping, but gave furtive little glances to see what he was doing.  But he just stood there, looking at me, with a slight smile on his face.  He was well dressed, in a smart overcoat and stylish hat; like he had stepped straight out of the 1950s.  I finished my chores as quickly as possible, and still feeling unnerved, went back inside and locked the hotel front door.

I retreated to the office, on the first floor, and settled down to whatever it was I planned to watch.  I had my back to the security camera monitor, but regularly looked over my shoulder to see if anything was happening downstairs in reception.  About twenty minutes later I again felt a cold chill  along my spine.  The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I felt inexplicably anxious.  I looked over my shoulder at the security camera monitor, and there he was.  He was in the corridor outside the glass front door.  He was looking directly at the camera, a pleasant smile on what I could now see was quite a handsome face.  I felt certain that he knew I was watching.  It was incredibly disturbing, and despite knowing how irrational it was, I felt frightened.  He stared at the camera for about another minute before finally turning away and heading back out to Collins Street.  I got up and flicked the security channel over to the full corridor view.  After a brief glance back over his shoulder, he was finally gone.  I sat down for a while to wait and see if he was going to come back.  Eventually I went downstairs and out onto the street.  But there was nothing to fear, he was nowhere in sight.  I waved to the security guard on duty at the Town Hall and went back inside.  

I don’t know if evil exists as an objective state in human form.  I tend to think not.  But if it does, this strange man, who came out of nowhere in the dark hours of the early morning, is the closest thing I’ve every come to meeting it.  For my remaining six months at the hotel I thought of him often, particularly when I was out on the street sweeping in the pre-dawn stillness.