Molly on Erlin

Today we drove through the desert into Erlin, a town near the Mongolia/IMAR border. We drove up in a van like monstrosity. Along the way we'd have to stop at every police checkpoint to report--it's how them monitor speed. It was fairly unexciting in actuality. Whenever I thought about what it would be like to drive across continents, pass through countries, and move through border checkpoints with my feet closer to the ground than in the air, I imagined something much more exciting and dramatic than driving through the South West. Or at least something that looks like the South West.
After lunch we got to visit a herdsfamily about fifty (?) kilometers out of Erlin. The family never asked our names and we never caught theirs. We sat in a smallish ger--they use larger ones in the winters. The mother explained to us that they were saving up to build a house, as is becoming the style these days. Recently three of her sons married, and they needed to spend what money they had on wedding arrangements. We drank salted milk tea out of practically every drinking bowl in the camp. The woman answered questions we had. She was patient, smiled often and laughed deeply.

On the ride back, we stopped by a dinosaur dig site. Driving up to the site was a thing of beauty and horror. If you have never ridden in a car with me (you lucky dog, you), then you don’t know what happens to me in cars: I fall asleep. Once the monotonous drone of the engine and road mix with the slight sway that you get on paved roads (more on this later), I zone out. I am in this van, zoned out, watching the landscape roll by and being entirely unable to tell we’re moving because it all looks the same, when suddenly I see a raptor. I don’t mean the kind with feathers. There was, in a field by the road, a raptor. And then there was a triceratops. Then, loaming ahead on the road, was the skeleton of a t-rex.

I’ll say this, China knows how to do an educational site. We had recently gone to the Museum of Inner Mongolia, which is a natural history museum on steroids and growth hormones. It was the closest thing I’ve had to a religious experience in a long time--excluding the visit to a Buddhist temple the day before, but that was an actual religious experience. Statues of dinosaurs, posed realistically and painted in a way that looked plausible to me, were practically moving. It looked like someone had taken a snapshot that had managed to capture the dust blowing in the wind. Footpaths winded through and over dunes. To the side of the path, bones were lying in the ground and more dinosaurs were posed. An unerected skeleton lay in a pile on top of a small ridge. The building was impeccable and closed. A few clever words (specifically ones that have zeroes following them) from Allison got us inside. It was kitchy, but fun, with the most realistic animatronic dinosaurs I have ever seen.

While driving back to the hotel the reality of my situation hit me. Our driver and his companion spoke in rapid, unintelligible (to me, at least) Mongolian. He drove faster than I would have (believe it or not) down roads--I'm being generous with what classifies as a road here--you could barely make out across a plain so flat and empty you could practically see the curve of the Earth. The road was more pockmarked than an unfortunate teenager’s face; the dust formed a path of destruction behind us. There were no seatbelts in the van and we bounced around. Suddenly missing my annual trip to Hershey Park didn’t seem so bad. Even if I had wanted us to slow down, I’d have been unable to say so.* There was a moment when all of these factors crashed together in my understanding and I knew that we’re not in Kansas anymore; We’re in Central Asia and there’s no turning back.

*(Parental note: I do know how to ask