Munku-Sardyk

"Hi! I'm Brian and I'm researching cultural and historical tourism in Buryatia." "Do you want us to publish a paper for you and take you to the highest mountain in Buryatia?" I had just walked into the office of the Department of Sport and Tourism at Buryat State University. This may have been the best introduction I've ever had. It turns out that the Department was planning an International Tourism Conference and having an American makes it a lot more international than just Russians and Mongolians. I agreed immediately and set out writing a paper worthy of being published. Of course, what I was most looking forward to was going to the tallest mountain in Buryatia. After spending far too much money and time finding mountain climbing equipment, I was ready to go.

The Conference consisted of a day of lectures and discussions and then two groups going to Munku-Sardyk. Munku-Sardyk is in the Sayan Mountains, right on the border between Russia and Mongolia, so one group climbed up from Mongolia, the other from Russia. At first I had planned on going to climb up the Mongolian side, but only Russians and Mongolians are allowed that close to the border, so I had to settle for the more difficult climb from Russia (which was also legally tricky and another story entirely). After sharing some of my ideas on cultural tourism and the current direction of tourism in Buryatia, and the necessary dinner with vodka with all of the VIPs, I went home and packed my backpack.

We were supposed to leave at 8 in the morning. At 8, 3 people had shown up. We left at 9. We spend about 9 hours on the road on day one. We drive all the way down Baikal and into the Tunkinsky region, which is where the Sayan Mountains are located. We spent the first night in a children's camp in a small village called Kyren. The village was located picturesquely against a backdrop of mountains. The building we were in consisted of some offices and a gym. The gym was unheated. The students slept there. We spent the first night starting to get to know each other. In particular, I spent a good amount of time speaking with Arkady, a scholar from Irkutsk. Arkady started off as a physicist and mathematician, but after spending years with radio telescopes in the mountains we were in, he became interested in ethnography and wrote a book about the ethnic groups of the Sayan Mountains. He was wonderfully intelligent and pessimistic and looked exactly like Larry David.

The next morning, we set out for the mountain. We drove another few hours until we got to Mondy, the last town before Mongolia. After waiting at the border checkpoint, we drove to a river called the White Irkut. After a short lunch, we hiked up the frozen river. This was my first experience with climbing spikes, which you attach to your shoes. It took some getting used to, but I made it to camp. Of course, I had one of the largest blisters ever by that point. Camp was located a few km up the river and had a shamanist shrine welcoming us. Although we went relatively early in the year, there were multiple groups of climbers already at the campsite, so I went with one of the teachers and a Mongolian teacher to meet some of the other campers. There was a group from the Ministry of Economics, a group of rescuers, and some other government groups. Most of the local climbers had never seen an American before. I met a very interesting man who had never received an education but read and read and read. We talked about Russian-American politics for quite some time. He was the first Soyot I've met, an ethnic group in the Sayan Mountains.

That night, after dinner, I sat around the fire with the students. It started snowing, slowly at first, but then much harder. I decided to go to bed. I was in a tent with the leader of our group and a woman from Irkutsk. After talking some, we went to sleep. I didn't sleep at all. There was a huge root under my sleeping bag and it was quite cold. I hate sleeping with my face covered, so my body was warm but my face was freezing. After a seemingly endless night, morning finally came.

On our first day, a group of the most experienced climbers went to Munku. I went with the second group of less experienced climbers to, as our leader called it, practice. So, we continued hiking up the river, this time up some rapids and waterfalls. We hiked for about an hour and a half before we got to a steep waterfall. After ascending the waterfall, we took a break for snacks. The blister on my ankle was killing me by this point. We then removed the spikes from our shoes and started climbing. We probably climbed for an hour before we took our next break. I was honestly expecting to be turning around any second. We had already hiked a couple km up the river, plus climbed a pretty much vertical km. I asked where we were headed. One of the leaders pointed to a nearby mountain. "How tall is that?" "Oh, about 3 km." "And Munku-Sardyk is..." "3.5 km." "I see." My heart plummeted. I could barely walk by this point. I had changed how I walk due to the blister, and now my hamstrings were complaining. We continued climbing. By the time we had ascended about 2 km, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. Taking breaks now meant judging between how much rest was necessary and how long you could stand still before your hands started freezing. We saw a group of mountain goats and marveled (for me, it was closer to envy) at their ease at climbing the mountain. After a few final pushes, we reached the peak.

The view was unbelievable. Munku-Sardyk was directly in front of us, and the Mongolian steppe stretched beyond it. Unfortunately, we got caught up in the marvel and rested too long at the top. My gloves, which were wet from sweat and snow, froze solid. Literally. My hands, which I believe have gotten fairly used to cold after a Siberian winter, began to hurt very badly. I'm no frost-bite expert (I should be after a winter here), but I think that's one of the warning signs. The 5 feet of snow covering the top of the mountain and disguising the edges of the cliffs that dropped off to either side did little to keep my hands warm. Between slipping and balancing myself, my hands got, if anything, even wetter. Fortunately, one of my friends had an extra pair of gloves. After circling the top of the mountain, we began our descent. The first km was about a 70 degree descent. The second two kms were a blast. If we had had skis, it would have been one of the most fun ski slopes I've ever seen. We all just slid down on our butts. Again, I got soaked.

We made it back to camp just as it was getting dark. The hike that I expected to be a short training exercise lasted all day and consisted of a three km climb.

This was when I began to consider the climb the next day. My gloves, shoes, and pants were soaked. I only had one pair of each. I had the worst blister of my life on my right foot and I could barely move it after limping all day. I decided to wait until the morning and see.

When morning came, my leg felt even worse. My pants had frozen solid and I could only get my feet through them after whacking them on some rocks. I decided to sit it out. There were actually a good number of us who didn't go, either due to a lack of proper equipment or the difficulty of the hike the first day (this is actually an issue that I've talked over with other guides on Munku. Many believe that it's just better to do Munku right off the bat). We saw the group off and then began cooking. And cooking and cooking. And eating. We also picked up some trash, which ended up being fairly entertaining as me and some of the other male students reacted in horror to the mass of sanitary napkins we uncovered. I let my wet clothes continue to dry. Some of the other groups of campers who were leaving brought their left-over food to us. We attacked the food with gusto and swore a vow to not tell the climbers that we had real meat.

By 7:00, we began to prepare dinner for the returning hikers. We waited, and waited, and waited. When it was dark, around 9, we called the rescuers. Then the wind picked up. I was freezing, and we were in a wooded campground. At ten, they sent a group up. They didn't find our group until midnight, and they didn't all get back until 1. When the call that they were close came in on the short-wave, one of the students ran up the waterfall to meet them. His headlamp bobbed up and down, reflecting eerily off the blue ice. Then, one light appeared to greet him. And another. Soon, about a half-dozen lights were descending the frozen waterfall. The student that ran out to greet them was soon just a black figure on a background of glowing blue ice and bobbing headlamps.
As the hikers came to camp, the story came out. Apparently, one of the climbers had fallen about 200 meters. He was fine, but they moved much more slowly after that scare. I guess in the end, my decision to not climb was actually a good one. I would not have handled descending in the dark very well. As we got ready for bed, one of my tentmates pulled out a bottle of Balsam. I had never heard of it before, but it is an alcoholic herbal drink with ingredients such as calamus marsh, saxifrage, valerian, coriander, calendula, paw juniper, peppermint, chamomile, thyme, pine needles, rose hips, red ash, and lemon, vanilla, orange, and anise oils. This brand was apparently the preference of the Dalai Lama. It is awesome.

The next day, we slept in and then left to go back to the road around 11. The hike down the frozen river was fairly uneventful except for running into some hikers heading to camp, who were shocked to encounter an American and three Mongolians without any Russians (the others were either way in front or way behind us). When we got to the cafe on the road, I ate pelmeni and plov with relish and thoroughly enjoyed a beer.

Our journey home was remarkable to me due to the gradual increase in "civilization." We drove about 3 hours to get to a town called Zhemchuzhina. We met a Buryat family and ate dinner, which consisted of a very delicious goat stew. We were to stay in a basically empty house. One side was rather chilly and had few beds, the other side was closer to the stove. Guess which side I stayed in with the teachers? The teachers had an itch to get drunk, but I said I didn't want to drink vodka, so I went to town with two of them. A friend of the owner of the house offered to drive us. He was also going to pick up friends of one of the students in our group. He dropped us off at the only store in town, which was to close at 9, but at 8:45 was already closed. They had a walk-up window, however, so we made our orders there. As we stood outside the store, cars began to pull up to the store and unload 4-5 men. Occasionally, one of these men would walk up to the window and the woman inside would give him a bottle of vodka. No cash was transferred. Soon, there was a veritable crowd hanging outside the store. The men I was with didn't seem to worried, so I just kept my mouth shut and waited for our driver to get back.

When he got back, we climbed into the car and the driver started telling us about this town. The Tunkinsky Region, which is where this town is located, is the most criminal area of Buryatia, at least according to the media. The driver didn't buy it, he finds it to be quite quiet. Tourism is huge in the town. It has hot springs and is close to the mountains. We were the only people in town at the time, but in summer, there isn't a place to park in the entire town. However, tourism isn't exactly welcomed in town. The thing is, there is only one Buryat place in the entire town. Everything else is owned and run by Irkutsk, so the locals see almost no income from tourism. The driver also talked about the local government. The director of the region, who had been a member of the Komsomol, had done almost nothing to develop the region. For example, the road from the main road to the village is in terrible condition, but it costs 30 million rubles and tourism only brings 3 million rubles in to the budget in one year (if I heard correctly, this is probably incorrect). So they haven't built it. We asked why he had done so little to develop the region, and he answered that he had been too busy buying new houses.

That night, I spent the first half hanging out with the teachers. They said toasts and we were visited by the owner of the place. We asked him what his opinion of tourism was, and again, he declined to respond. In all of my travels in Buryatia, this was the first time I've seen such a negative response to tourism. This validates the research I've been reading which claims that for tourism to be successful, it has to be developed by the local community. When outsiders come in and develop, local interests and culture are often ignored. After getting sufficiently drunk, the teachers told me to go and hang out with the students. We sang songs around the campfire while they got drunk. Sometimes, I don't understand how people in this country function.

The next day, we set off back to Ulan-Ude. This was the most frustrating bus ride ever. The bus we were on was terrible and could only go up minor slopes at about 15 mph. We were on the road for 12 hours. And most of the group was hungover.

I learned a great deal on this trip. I truly got to see another side of tourism in Buryatia. Not only did I see the Tunkinsky Region and its disappointment with tourism, I got to experience tourism with a focus on sport, not on culture. On the road, we still stopped at every Buddhist and Shamanist shrine, not because we were tourist, but because it is a part of the daily lives of locals. This is a hugely important part for any successful tourism, cultural or not. Another part of my experience was dealing with more typical Russian tour guides. My travels with the Tour Agency of the Republic of Buryatia have always been extremely professional and enjoyable to such an extent that I didn't realize why they were so successful. This trip opened my eyes to some of the things I expect from a guide. Most of my problems rotated around a lack of a clear schedule. When will I eat. How far will we climb today. I also ended up buying a lot of climbing gear that I didn't actually end up using. Another major issue with nearly every experience I've had traveling is one of the guides getting belligerently drunk. I understand Russian culture, but some control is necessary around foreigners. I went to college, I have dealt with drunk people and imbibed my own fair share. But I, as a guest, should not feel uncomfortable due to one of the tour guides having too much to drink. Fortunately, a frequent problem that I have not yet experienced is littering. All of the guides I have met have been extremely eco-conscious, which is a success for the ecotourism campaign over recent years. And the above problems are known and several organizations are beginning to offer seminars to teach guides business etiquette. In fact, the only truly worrisome trend is the lack of local involvement in tourism in Zhemchuzhina. I believe this may be more closely related to governance in the region than to anything else. Corruption is a weed to business success in this country, and unless it is combated at every level, economic success will be stifled. Tourism has been and can continue to be successful in Buryatia. This trip was a chance to see one of the more beautiful locations in the Republic as well as some warning signs.