Gnarls Barkley sang those words to me when we were lost in the darkness of the Gobi, plowing off the road, into bushes and over rocks, searching for a tiny light in the distance that the driver hoped would lead us to our ger camp. I don’t know what Gnarls is talking about, but I think he’s right. I had been listening to a playlist I made that has a lot of music I should be embarrassed to be listening to; Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, The Dixie Chicks. I titled it No Apologies Take No Prisoners. I don’t what that means, but I think it’s right.
It was my sixteenth day of riding around Mongolia in a van, for hours and hours everyday. My mind, unused to all this uninterrupted space for fretting, was attacking me. I was being haunted by ghosts from the past; people gone from my life, old relationships, situations that ended poorly, outfits I had loved and lost, places I used to go, places I may never see again… I wasn’t having a lot of luck rerouting my thoughts, bound by the necessary limitations and boredom of hanging out in a van, unable to busy myself with some other distraction; folding clothes, organizing my bag, planning my next moves. I decided to read, and started the book Valis, about a man gone crazy, possibly. The manic tone and its incessant questions, demanding meaning from the smallest of happenings, were an echo of my own thoughts, and reading any font sized smaller than 74pt is nearly impossible when off roading. I had to put it down in favor of the simple and uncomplicated sentiments that Mariah and Christina were offering me. My dream lover was gonna come on over and rescue me. Then Gnarls Barkley chimed in and started breaking it all down for me. Control bad. Crazy good. Heroes die… or something.
Control man, the root of all crazy. It was a big issue on this second Mongolian excursion, out into the Gobi. Our van and another were staying near to each other throughout the seven days. I think it’s safer that way, as breakdowns happen every couple hours or so, and our driver was the more experienced of the two so he could fix the other up quickly. There were five of us in each van, in addition to each group’s driver and cook. Marguerita and I were still totally hyped on the awesomeness of Mongolia. Both of us have been traveling for multiple months and strongly agree that Mongolia has been the highlight of those months. Our friends in the van seemed to be just as pleased. Our companion van, on the other hand, had a bad seed, that sprouted a bad attitude, and spread it like the plague through their group. I won’t get into the boring details of it, but in summary what I saw happen was this; A guy with a generally dreary attitude projected his discontent onto everything within his sight, and as a result took everyone else down with him. There’s an episode of This American Life called Ruining it for the Rest of Us where they talk about this very thing in the prologue.
So what do you do? Being that we had the separation of space, those in our van took the opportunity to create solidarity amongst our group and collectively complain about the whiny guy. It worked. We had plenty of laughs, only a small percent at his expense, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Enough about him, let’s talk about Mongolia… It’s got me using the term OMG. OMG Mongolia is rad! OMG there’s so much to tell.
First of all, I remember, as a child, really enjoying the freedom of peeing outdoors. On family vacations, if my sister and I had had too much soda, sometimes we’d have to pull over on the side of the interstate and forgo the porcelain. Mongolia is bringing bathroom breaks in the grass back onto the scene. It’s lovely.
Second; forget everything you know about rules of the road and safety in general. You can carry your wife, two kids, and a live sheep from your flock on a motorcycle while not wearing a shirt, no problem. You can pull out your malfunctioning brake shoe and replace it with a rubber tire something-or-other that you’ve found on the side of the road and keep on living. I’ve seen it happen. You can stop your truck and take a nap in its shadow, in the grass on the side of the highway, with no worries. You can wear your rollerblades down a gravel street and still get somewhere. You can set out on a web of thousands of miles of unmarked dirt roads with no GPS or cell phone signal and still find your way to where you need to go. If you don’t have the proper paperwork for your vehicle you can play Rock Paper Scissors with the cops, win, and keep on going. Your friends can watch you poop in the bushes and they’ll still be your friends at then end of it all. Life is so easy. Why are we always writing rules that make it hard for ourselves?
There are other great things happening here as well; when you pee in a field you kick up all the smells of lavender and chamomile from the herbs at your feet and it’s like you’re in some roadside relaxation spa. There are dogs, cows, and camels hanging around that will just walk up to you and start snuggling with you, no questions asked. They stick French fries into the middle of all their pasta dishes. The whole country gives you the sense that you’ve arrived in the Wild West. It’s full of cowboys and suspicious locals. The animals run free, herded but unchained. You see them everywhere, collecting on hills, chewing grass, and clumping together for comfort. There’s something in the air, a dusty lawlessness that feels alive, slightly dangerous, and totally exciting. I just love it here.
We’re back in town today. I got locked in the bathroom of my hostel. The lock had been sticking, and I was aware of that, but I locked it too firmly, despite the fact. When the time came I was unable to turn the lock and get out of the steamy bathroom. I worked up a sweat trying to yank it open. I decided not to panic, because I couldn’t think of any stories where I had heard of a person dying from starvation in their bathroom. Instead I saw that the crack under the door was large enough to get my Leatherman through, and that I could unscrew the locking apparatus. I called to my sleeping dorm mates, hoping I could wake them. Luckily I was able to rouse one, but she wasn’t in her right mind and I had to spend about a half hour walking her through where to find the tool in my bag. Eventually I had her pass me a piece of paper and I drew her a diagram. Urban survival skills. I am now free. I am not typing this to you in the bathroom, but I wonder if this happened and I lived alone, what would have become of me?
There’s so much more to tell, but this is already really long and I am such a slow typer. I think you just need to book a ticket to Mongolia and see for yourself. Load some Dixie Chicks (Cowboy Take Me Away) and Gnarls Barkley onto your iPod and pack your bags. I’ll see you soon. I’ve got a hug waiting for you.
I’ve uploaded all my photos and now I’m sitting around in Ulan Bator, trying to plan where I’m going next. Ulan Bator is not the most exciting, beautiful, or safe capital city in the world, so I’ve kind of just been messing around on the internet, taking Photo Booth photos, and organizing files. I went through and cleaned up my Twitter account, and I think I may have unintentionally deleted some people that I didn’t mean to. A friend of mine did this thing with my account where you follow people and they follow you back so it looks like you’re popular, or something, but most of them are spammers and I could never see updates from people I wanted to see. Yesterday I went through and unfollowed over 1000 accounts. I was in kind of a frenzy and not paying really close attention, so if I unfollowed you by mistake you should tweet at me so I can add you again, or not, but let’s be friends no matter what.
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