Amongst the trees

by Hugh McPherson (Australia)

A leap into the unknown Mongolia

We’d been travelling for several days. The steady rhythm of our mount’s breathing, as they trudged in the marshes underfoot, broke the silence of that ancient, forested land. My company, a ragtag conglomerate of travelers, keenly scanned the tree lines of golden spruce surrounding us. We hailed from all parts of this world; a stoic Alaskan with bald head and beard down to his belly button, who carried with him an incredulous singing voice, an Israeli couple, eyes calm and caring, who spoke in hushed tones, and a brawny Dutchwomen who sat tall and proud upon her steed. Our guide, dressed in his cowboy boots and colorful blue deel, common of the nomads of this region, rode up alongside us and muttered something in his native tongue. He pulled his wrinkled hand from the deel’s inside pocket and pointed towards a long, winding path through the trees. His wind-cracked lips spoke no English save one word, Reindeer. I had always wanted to travel to Mongolia. There had never been any particular reason pertaining to why. It was just one of those intriguing countries that my finger would often hover over when tracing a map as a boy. I knew nothing about it. No notion of its warrior history, whose horsemen conquered the world over. Nor the beauty of that vast nation of deserts, mountains and steppes, that would be the death of any fool who dared underestimate its harshness. On a long, wandering journey through Asia, in September 2018 I boarded a flight to a nation I knew nothing about. I arrived to the smoggy, night air of the nation’s capital whose heels were already feeling the lickings of a harsh winter. I had no plans, just a backpack of warm clothes and an open mind. I’d booked one of the cheaper hostels in Ulaanbaatar. The sort that always smelled of mould and disappointment, but also the type of place you met the most unruly and interesting of characters. I’d been sat at the plastic-covered kitchen table one evening, mulling over how best to spend my time in Mongolia, when a rather disheveled looking chap sat down next to me. We traded travel stories and he spoke of the freezing nights spent on the western steppes. But what caught my attention was his description of a tribe of reindeer herders called the Tsaatan. These were a nomadic people who occupied a semi-autonomous region in the far North of the country known as the Taiga. I thanked my fellow traveler and went to bed, dreaming of reindeers. The next evening, having navigated through the Mongolian signage and the strange intricacies of a city still reminiscent of its Soviet past, I found myself on a thirteen hour bus to the town of Murun. I had little more than the name of a guesthouse and hope that someone might know where it was. The locals on the bus looked at me with perplexity. What was this stray dog doing so far from home? In the morning, it mattered not. A stocky, looking local at the bus stop flashed me a toothy grin and introduced himself as Bataa. I showed him the guesthouse on my phone. He nodded and then led me bleary eyed and shivering, through the dusty streetscapes of a town resembling the Wild West. Thus began, my journey that through happy coincidence led me from guesthouse to stables to the Northern Taiga region. We followed our guide quietly along the path and over a slight hill towards the smoke of the Tsataan’s camp, their teepee like homes nestled amongst the trees. We dismounted and stretched our legs when a rustling caught my attention. I’d seen them on the ride in from a distance. None were this striking. With a grace scarcely witnessed on this earth, it trod softly on the moss covered ground, under the eaves of golden spruce trees, towards me. With a coat of shimmering white and grey, antlers worn like a halo covered in velvet fur, the reindeer carrying the wisdom and song of the Taiga region itself, stared deep into my eyes. I knelt slowly, tears welling, as the reindeer edged ever closer. I had made it.