Lost in Mongolia by Colin Angus

Author:Colin Angus
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780767912815
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2003-09-09T10:00:00+00:00

Wednesday, June 20

Amid a haze of mosquitoes and blackflies, Ben struggled to make a breakfast of rice pudding. An outboard motor, humming like an enormous mosquito, resonated in the distance. It was the first boat motor we’d heard since the start of our journey. Soon three fishermen came into view heading upriver in a ten-foot steel dinghy. The grim-faced men glanced at our campsite, but motored on without a word.

They returned ten minutes later as Ben dished out bowls of steaming mushy rice (any wetter, actually, and it would have been congee). This time the weathered driver cut back on the throttle and turned the boat toward shore.

"Dobre utra,” said a short man wearing a Caterpillar cap.

The boat slid the last few yards onto the gravel bank. The men jumped ashore, each extending his hand.

“Andrei.”

“Yuri.”

“Alexander.”

Remy chatted with them in Russian, and they opened up, full of curiosity about our adventure. They wanted our autographs. The burly, weathered men pulled out cigarette packets and asked each of us to sign the backs.

Before leaving, they handed Ben a large fish. “You will need lots of food. Rowing is hard work.”

We thanked them and the men departed, waving until they disappeared upriver.

After breakfast we pushed off, and Ben rowed gently with the steady, flat current. The river now was about two hundred yards wide and very deep. As the hours passed, we wilted under the heat of the broiling sun and did little more than watch the terrain slip by.

The landscape was far more cultivated than the countryside of Mongolia. Fields of wheat and other grains formed a patchwork quilt across the steppe between swaths of scrub forest. We no longer saw gers. The local people lived in plank or log homes roofed with corrugated steel or wooden boards. Many were decorated with vividly painted shutters and sported elaborate carved trim around the windows, like nursery rhyme gingerbread houses.

We camped on a low, gravelly island. For dinner I steamed the fish over the fire in a large pot. Although bony, the translucent white flesh of the carplike fish was remarkably delicate in flavor.

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