Mongolia by Silvio Micheli (1964)

Posted on 2021-09-08 by thelittleman

In Search of Marco Polo and Other Adventures

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While my commitment to reading one Asian travelogue per week this Fall has been short-lived — I finished Rhythms of a Himalayan Village in a week, but this one took much longer — I’m still committed to working my way through my bookshelves this year. I just hope my hectic workload doesn’t deter me.

Having lived in China for many years and having traveled through a number of nations in Asia, I have a keen interest in the peoples and cultures of what we in the West still considers “the Far East.” My particular interest in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, XingJiang Province, Tibet, etc. stems from several sources.

First, I am sensually floored by wide-open spaces. Be it Micheli’s description in this book about the distant Altai Mountains which he could see from his perch upon a horse in the desert, or the panoramic emptiness we see in Ewan McGreggor and Charlie Boorman’s Long Way Round, or my own experience wandering an expansive valley in Tibet, I adore magnificent openness. I’m probably better suited for the “Wide Montana Skies” than the Mississippi River Valley, but this is where I be. For now.

Second, a number of publications from my past clued me in to the romance of these locales, and those initial impressions have always stuck with me. One in particular stands out, Across China by Peter Jenkins, the author of A Walk Across America and The Walk West. While his journey took him from an Everest basecamp into the heart of China, the landscape through which he walked and the people he met all were similar to those that we meet in Mongolia. The motorcycle miniseries Long Way Down also did it for me, McGreggor and Boorman making their slowly towards Ulaan Baatar. These images excite me.

I was initially drawn to this book not only by its locale but by the author’s photograph on the back flyleaf. There he sits upon an old motorbike with nothing but the book’s title and subtitle for context. I initially thought that this would be a motorcycle adventure, like Ted Simon’s Jupiter’s Travels or the miniseries already mentioned. What’s better than a travelogue through Mongolia? A travelogue through Mongolia on a motorcycle! Alas, I was mistaken. Thrown by the photo, I misjudged what this book would entail, though ultimately I was not disappointed.

Silvio Micheli of Italy originally wrote this book in 1964 in a mixture of his mother tongue, Russian, and Mongolian, so I’m grateful to Bruce Penman who translated it into English for us monolinguists in 1967. Micheli viewed himself as the second Italian to attempt a cross-Mongolia venture since Marco Polo did it several centuries before (the first being a team of motorcar racers in 1907, pp.28, 95). He sought to follow Polo’s route as strictly as possible, though he foolishly did so in the middle of winter (he talks often of temperatures 60 degrees below zero) and at the tail end of the Chinese revolution. Strapped by a Communist guide and mind-numbing cold, he sets out from Ulaan Bataar in search of Marco Polo, and makes some interesting discoveries and observations along the way.

My initial impression of Micheli was that he was an angry man, impervious to cultural etiquette and abusive (to his own benefit) of the hospitality and cultural hesitancy which his hosts displayed. He reminded me at first of Troy Parfitt in Why China Will Never Rule the World, and I wasn’t sure I would ever get through the book. He grew on me, though, as I began to recall my own responses to the culture of Communism and the layers of beurocracy that dampen the adventurous spirit. Micheli’s angst didn’t stem from racism but rather from his initial cultural ineptitude. It grew on him eventually, not to the point of appreciation but rather of acceptance, much like his taste for kumis by the end of the book.

I knew from early on that I would enjoy Micheli’s writing, due to his keen perception and way of writing. On page 15, he describes the Mongolian people he met this way:

The men all looked like grandfathers, and the women like men; while the children, who were also wrapped up in fur-lined tunics and boots, with fur hats, resembled curious little dwarfs with fiery red cheeks. They all had massive boots made of a single piece of thick felt, which made them look—and walk—as if they were in plaster casts from the knees down.

Micheli marks his progression through the villages and deserts of Monglolia by breaking his book down into three parts, each named after his guides. In Part One, there is Aguan, the Party Representative whose mission was to keep the foreigner focused on the improvements Communism had made to the lives of the Mongolians and to prevent him from seeing anything he shouldn’t. As interpreter, Aguan would relate to each party only what he thought sensible, always interpreting each side’s comments through his own screen of Party thinking. How frustrating that must have been for Micheli!

In Part Two, Micheli trades a hospitalized Aguan for a capable Mongolian youth named Pulgin, to whom Micheli was able to teach some Italian. Thus with a mixture of poor Mongolian and poor Italian, the two continue on the adventure with their driver, Miagmar, who’s now responsible for keeping tabs on the foreigner and making sure he doesn’t get blown too far off the Party Line. Pulgin is an inquisitive and emotional teenager who’s willing to take Micheli anywhere he wants to go, which Miagmar is but a peasant driver who hasn’t much confidence to step in their way. Thus, in this section, Micheli ventures far and wide and sees many things that Aguan would never have let him see. They also get into life-threatening scrapes that force them to abandon their jeep and venture deeper into the mountains, towards Pulgin’s home, on horseback (or was it camelback?).

In Part Three, Micheli trades the faithfulness of Pulgin for the beauty of Pulgin’s sister, Sayan. A budding, non-linguistic romance nearly destroys Pulgin’s spirit whose rage causes the two lovers to set off on their own whenever they can get a chance. The language barrier slowly falls as the two continue their way towards the end of Macheli’s journey. They both know that the relationship can’t last—Micheli will soon leave the country, and Sayan will soon marry her fiance—yet they continue to kiss and muzzle and do whatever it is they did together. Until the end.

It was hard knowing when this book moved from “In Search of Marco Polo” to “Other Adventures,” but it maintained my interest throughout. Perhaps Part Three reminded me a bit of my own marriage to a woman from a completely different culture than my own, or perhaps it was just the humanity of it all. Whatever kept me glued, I loved it. This book was a surprise find on my shelves, and I’m glad I took the time to enjoy it.

I have no idea if it’s still in print or if you can find copies of it available out there, but for a purposeful travelogue through a little-known country in the years following a Communist Revolution, this book was highly enjoyable. I highly recommend it.

©2021 E.T.

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