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Reise in die Mongolei 2005 (pdf, 50 S. 176 Kb)
Bericht von Godele von der Decken, Süd-Tirol / Italien

Bilder aus der Mongolei kann man eigentlich nur im Herzen mitnehmen. In der Mongolei ist die Welt rund: - Ein großer Ger, sagen die Mongolen. Und das trifft es genau - das unendliche Rund des Himmels, die weichen Berghänge an den Seiten, die grenzenlose Steppe und die spärliche Einrichtung, für jeden seiner Bewohner nur das Lebensnotwendigste, aber das ist drin - wie im Ger der Mongolen. Die Augen verändern sich dort, als würden sie weiter in den Augenwinkeln, weil der Blick so selten auf Nahes fällt. Leben im Einklang mit der Natur - An Nadaam, sagen die Mongolen, beginnt der Herbst. Und wann ist Sommer, fragen wir erstaunt. Eine Woche vor Nadaam, scherzen sie. Kein Paradies ist perfekt und glücklicherweise werden die wenigsten von uns mit ihnen tauschen wollen. Glücklicherweise haben sie ihre langen unwirtlichen Winter, die es uns erlauben, ihren kurzen, von der Zivilisation noch fast unberührten Sommer zu bestaunen ...  

Speech to the runners at the
Award Ceremony of the 6th annual Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset 100 km Ultramarathon
Toilogt, Lake Hovsgol , June 24th 2004

Marc PROGIN

Biking 10 to 14 hours a day, climbing over 37 high passes, some higher than 3500 m, in the Kanghai range and the Altai mountains; across the Gobi and the Altan Els deserts, experiencing with the snow, the sand and the windstorms; on the steppes, on rocky and sandy trails, along the 1000 years old paths of the caravans finally, after 27 days and some 3000 km., I had reached the shore of the lake Hovsgol.

I had met with the Mongol nomads, the peaceful Muslim world of the Kazakh people enjoying their warm hospitality and, amongst other ethnics, the blue eyed Zakhchin of the Bort valley, the proud Uriankhai on the roof of the Altai and their eagle hunters. Daily I had met with the wildlife, seeing the wolves, the gazelles, the antelopes, the vultures, the golden eagles, and was feasting with the fishes that I was catching in the rivers and lakes.

Every night, sleeping under the stars, near by a river, a stream, a lake or close to a well, just like during the days, I traveled far, deep into my mind, into this huge space where the light, as I was moving further away from civilization, was becoming purer day after day, pure just like the one that enlightened the gigantic steppes. I had lost touch with the civilization, its laws and rules, its noise and pollution. I had crossed over its border and had become a simple human been living in space, in space where the time had disappeared; I was then a man without name, ignoring my age, my suffering and my pains. I was living in total freedom; I had found the liberty and therefore happiness.

On the 23rd of June at dawn, after being for so long a solitary nomadic bike rider, living the simple life of a Mongol or a Kazakh, I was on the starting line amongst you all. In front of me was another space, an horizon that I was told to reach. Then, late afternoon, at the finish line, voices murmured that I had traveled something like one hundred kilometers in 12 hours and 46 minutes and ranked in 4th place. I heard strange words like performance, like achievement, like record. Although my mind was still far away, traveling in the wilderness and the nowhere land of Mongolia, I realized that I had came back to the civilization, into the society where everything is measured, timed and registered so that it can be compared with what others did. Slowly emerging from my delicious unconsciousness I became aware that I was losing my liberty; the one that exists only in open space, where there is no limit, no horizon, where the time has never entered, where there is only light. I had lost touch with the world that had taken me so many years to discover, a  world, I presume, as it was at its origin, the world that I, fearlessly,  had dared to encounter, that I had ventured into for the last 2 months. As the day disappeared into the other side of the earth, the light had turned to a sad gray into my eyes.

Self trained to endure the harshest conditions, no doubt that I will come back to search for that world, to try to find it once more until I'll be able to cross over its colorless frontiers and meet with my freedom and that light again; hopefully that will happen before I'll enjoy it forever in the eternity.

I wish you will have the courage to embark on a similar experience.

Thank you for listening.

Marc (Progin), ger no 6