THE GREAT MONGOLIAN OPEN-AIR THEATRE
歡迎光臨草原上的電影院！ MARK JONES decamps from the city to experience Mongolia’s wide- open, surround sound, technicolour wilderness
MARK JONES on the Bayangobi – so near yet so far
歡迎光臨蒙古草原電影院！
Mark Jones漫遊廣闊無垠的巴彥戈壁
Imagine you’re taking a journey inside a film. Then suddenly it stops being a normal movie and switches to Imax. The screen widens, the colours intensify, the light is diamond-grade clear and every angle, every shadow stands out like the blade of a knife. The old film – the rest of the world – seems faded and blotchy in comparison.
That’s the best way I can find of describing what it’s like to be in Mongolia for the first time.
Hong Kong has its moments of bright sunshine, fresh breezes and atmospheric clarity, too. But I’d left it on one of those rather more common, squashy days when the air is an undefined state of matter somewhere between a liquid and a gas. So to look out of the car window on a piercing-blue, early autumn Mongolian day was a shock to the senses – and not just the optical one.
Our car took us out of the capital, Ulaanbaatar, west towards Bayangobi. We passed through the various economic zones – downtown retail and corporate, power plants, light industry and improvised districts with hotels for temporary workers and hilly suburbs for the managers.
Then we entered the vast, empty land and the complexity of modern work and progress disappeared in the rear view mirror. Here, in the 18th biggest country in the world and the third least densely populated, economic activity means horses, sheep, goats and camels – and the occasional human being to look after them. That’s the way it’s been for generation after generation, and despite an economic revolution elsewhere in Mongolia, that’s the way it’s stayed.
試想像你在一部電影中去旅行，途中這部普通的影片突變然成了Imax版；銀幕闊大變 變 ，色彩看上去更鮮明飽，和 光線有如鑽石般清晰，無論任何角度，光與影的對比均極為分明；原來的那部電，影 也就是世上其他地方，與之相顯比 得黯然失，色 而且佈滿斑駁的污漬。
要形我容 首次踏足蒙古的感受，沒有比這更的好 方式了。
香港也有陽光普照、清風送爽、天朗氣清的。日子 不過我離日當天，卻是那種常見的、偏向潮濕的天氣；空氣中有種曖昧不明的狀態，介乎液體體。，與氣 之間 因此 當我 望向車窗外一片耀目的藍天時，的蒙古 初秋帶給人的，不單是視覺上，而是全方位的感官剌激。
我們坐的汽車離日首都烏蘭巴托，向西朝巴彥戈壁駛。去 途中我們經過多個經濟活動密集的，地區 有些是市中心商店及企業的集中地，也有以發電廠和輕工業為主的區域，更有些隨意發展出來的，區域 裡面有為臨時工人而設的，酒店 而管理層則住在丘陵起伏的市郊。
然後所有因文明進步而產生的複雜事物逐一在倒後鏡內消失，我們進入一片空曠的。闊落 土地 這裡是全球第18大國，人口密度最低則排第三位；、馬 綿羊、山羊和駱 駝，還有照料這些牲口的牧人，就是這裡全部的濟經 活動。儘管蒙古曾經進行經濟改革，這種生活方式綿延多個世代，至今依然沒有多大改變。
我們第一站是來到一個「敖」（蒙古語音譯，漢語稱為「堆子」，蒙古人將石頭堆疊起來，用作祭祀天地）旁邊。我以往寫的遊記文章，絕少會提及第一次、第一趟之類；不過當你第一次到蒙古旅行，就會不由自主地列出許多關於「第一次」的。東西
敖是隨意搭建的神祠，大小不一，我們眼前這個跟輛一 小型汽車差不多。我們的導遊Anu叫我們拾一塊小石頭，朝著這個敖去拋 。然後我們像佛教徒繞佛塔
AS THE MORNING WORE ON, ONLY A GAUZY MIST COVERED THE NAKED PLANET隨著早晨慢慢過去，只有一片如紗的薄霧覆蓋著空無一物的大地
Our first stop was at an ovoo: not a sentence I’ve been required to write in the course of my travels before. But then you’re likely to notch up a whole list of firsts on your first trip to Mongolia.
An ovoo is an improvised shrine. This one was about the size of small car. Anu, our guide, asked us to pick up a pebble. We tossed the pebbles on the mound of jagged sandstone rocks. Then we walked around it three times, in the proper Buddhist manner. I stopped in an equally Buddhist manner to avoid squashing a desert gerbil as it scurried between fistsized holes made obliquely into the sand.
You see ovoos – some as huge as temples, others no more than cairns a few feet high, some of them many centuries old – throughout the country. The Communist authorities tried to abolish ovoo-building and worship. Good luck policing that in a country where there are 1.9 people per square kilometre – and most of them live in the capital.
Each ovoo supports a weathered pole and the wires of the prayer flags: blue for sky and space, white for air and wind, red for fire, green for water, yellow for earth.
Back in the car, I thought how the landscape stretching out before us seemed elemental, too, pared back to a handful of colours, textures and shapes. As the morning wore on, only a gauzy mist covered the naked planet. The soft green hills and dark rocky outcrops were like tiny islands in a limitless ocean of grass, scrub and sand.
There are isolated villages, too. From a distance you think you’re heading to a music festival, with a scattering of brightly coloured tents clustered on a plain or a hill. Closer up, as the Imax camera focuses, you see they’re steep-pitched houses painted in the same bright colours as the flags. To my European eyes they looked like they’d been transported all the way from a Norwegian fishing village – and taken a bit of a battering along the way.
After a few hours, we turned off the highway and bumped softly as a speedboat across a sandy track to the Hoyor Zagal lodge.
After our long journey we ate a homely lunch of chicken, potatoes and Golden Gobi beer. The kitchen made a special effort and rustled up vegetables. We had two helpings as Anu and our driver didn’t touch theirs. 一繞般著，敖走了三個圈示，以 禮敬。有隻沙沙鼠在 地上幾個拳頭般大小的斜坑之間來去匆匆，我為免將牠，踩於個扁 是像 佛教徒一樣停下來，讓路給隻這 小生靈。
蒙古全國各地都有敖， 有像些 一座廟宇般巨型，也有些只是幾呎高的小石堆；有些石堆甚至有好幾百年的史歷。共產政權曾經嘗試制止人們建造和敬拜敖， 可惜未竟功全 ；因為這裡地廣人稀，每平方公里平均有只 1.9人居住，而全國大部分人口都住在首都，要巡查和執法，需實在 要一點運氣。
每敖個 上都撐著飽一支 經風霜的柱子，上面掛滿一串一串的五色經幡：藍色代表天與虛空，白色代表空氣風與 ，紅色是火，綠色是水，黃色是就土。
回到車上，望我著前眼一望際無 的風景在想：這些景物實在相當原始，來來去去只幾顏有 種 色、質和狀地 形 。隨著早晨慢慢過去，只有一片如紗的薄霧覆蓋著空無一 物的大地。、青草 灌木組與沙 成無邊無涯的汪洋綠，淡 的山丘與黝黑嶙的 峋巨石托襯其上，有如浮在海中的小島。
這片土地上也有零零星星的莊村。從遠望，處 去 一片平原或山丘上，散佈著一堆一堆色彩鮮艷的帳篷，就像是音樂節會場。走近一點之後， Imax鏡頭更，聚焦 你就會見到，那是一些跟經幡的顏色同樣鮮艷的金字頂房子。我這個歐洲在人看 眼裡，這些房子就像是從挪一威 條村漁 運過來，不過運送途中碰壞了一點。
數小時後我， 們離開公路，像快艇一般顛簸著駛過一條沙土小路，前往Hoyor Zagal旅館。
經過漫長的旅程後，我們吃了一頓常家 風味的午餐有， 雞、馬方薯和Golden Gobi啤酒。廚房為我們特別預備了青菜，我們吃了兩客，可是Anu和我們的司機卻沒有碰他們那客青菜。蒙古人對綠色
蔬菜並不熱衷，遊牧民族從馬奶中攝取大部分所需的維他命，而住在城市裡的蒙古人也，沒有養成大量食用植物的習慣。
巴戈彥 壁是大漠中最「豐茂」、沃肥 的地區，不過說到住宿，就跟其他蒙鄉古 郊一樣都， 是住在蒙古內。這些外形像麵的帳篷，外面以厚重的毛氈，覆蓋 裡面寬敞舒適，可說是個建築工藝的奇蹟。我們將行李箱牆齊靠 整 地堆放之好 後，各自坐在床上，豎起耳朵來聆聽。蒙古這座Imax戲院配備最先進的音響系統，播出大自然各種完美的聲音。我們可以聽到隔鄰的蒙古有隻雀鳥在草叢裡啄食。有個工人在敲打木樁，聽來就像在音樂廳表演的敲擊。樂手 還有在不時別處傳來幾個輕柔朧蒙語朦 的 古 音節。
隨後幾日，我前地偏們 往 點 僻的寺院Ovgon Khiid，在全長80公里的廣闊沙丘帶上尋找可行的路，還與一個放牧駱駝的家庭在他們的蒙古內消磨光時 。
基於生活的需，要 蒙古人都是室內設計的天才。圓沿著形的牆邊，擺放了現代的松木櫃、傳繪上 統圖案的大箱子、一堆堆一摺整疊 齊的衣服、美麗的刺綉配和 了相框的照片，以及一幅又一幅的小地毯。導遊告訴我們千萬不要在爐灶兩邊的兩條大柱之間走過，在蒙一個 古裡面，這樣做等於挑撥戶主夫婦間之 的感情。
這一帶的主要古蹟是蒙古舊日的京城哈拉和林。這座古城建於13世紀，中期 正值蒙古帝國最興盛的時代。（有權勢有 的統治者最喜歡做的事，就是建一座新的京城）。
成吉思汗挑選了哈拉和林作城京 ，不過真正將這座城建起的，卻是他的第三子窩闊台與多許 人的功勞。這個遊牧民族藉著興建京城，將橫跨中國至波斯及歐洲大門的帝國鞏固來起 。
哈拉和林最主要的景非城點並 這座 本身，而是16世紀的日爾德尼召寺，因為古 Mongolians are not big fans of the green stuff. The nomads get most of the vitamins they need from mare’s milk; and urban Mongolians have not adopted the habit of consuming the flora in a big way.
Accommodation in Bayangobi – the ‘rich’, fertile area of the great desert – means, as it means everywhere in rural Mongolia, a ger. These loaf-shaped tents covered in thick felt are a miracle of construction and roomy comfort. With the suitcases stacked neatly against the walls we sat back on our beds and listened. The Imax theatre that is Mongolia also has a state-of-the-art sound system. In this acoustically perfect wilderness, we could hear a finch pecking in the grass by the next tent. A workman hammered in a wooden stake like a percussionist in a concert hall. And here