Edge of Blue Heaven: A Journey Through Mongolia

by Benedict Allen

Mongolia has changed remarkably little since the days of its medieval hero, the warlord Genghis Khan. Famed for its cloudless blue skies, it is a country of varied icy mountains and lakes, wind-blown steppe, wolf and bear, forests and vast desert. This beautiful, in parts almost uninhabitable, landscape becomes home to Benedict Allen as he travels by horse and camel from the forests of Siberia, across the open plains of the Mongolian steppe, and on alone through the Gobi Desert.
Illustrated throughout in colour, Edge of Blue Heaven presents a vivid picture of this fascinating country and is as much a tribute to one of the world's few remaining nomadic peoples as it is to the tension and drama of travel at its most demanding.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Photography

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1999

About the author

Benedict Colin Allen is a British writer, traveller and adventurer known for his technique of immersion among indigenous peoples from whom he acquires skills for hazardous journeys through unfamiliar terrain. In 2010, Allen was elected a Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society. He has recorded six TV series for the BBC, either alone or with partial or total use of camera crews, and has published ten books, including the Faber Book of Exploration, which he edited.[1]

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, which accompanies a BBC Television series, both capture the travel of Benedict Allen through Mongolia. Allen is a very experiences traveller, used to putting himself through trials, and his solo trip across the Gobi Desert is a trial, and even Mongolians he meets on his travels struggle with the 'why' of this trip.

Allen carried out an almost circular route around Mongolia - anticlockwise commencing in the far north near the Russian border, travelling initially by jeep south to commence a horse and camel sector west through the province Uvs, then follows parallel to the southern border (with China), the vast part of his journey which occurs in the Gobi until he meets up with the main train line from Ulaan Baatar to China, close to the Chinese border. He completes his trip on the Trans Mongolian train north to UB.

For part of the journey Allen travels with a companion, either Khurmit (who he insists on referring to as Kermit throughout the book - rather disrespectfully) - a young man with horse experience, who is proud of his involvement in the journey, but is equally driven by the thought of the bars of UB, dollars and booze; or Ermek, in his jeep who picks up his trail every so often to smooth the way with locals and officials; or occasionally they cross over and travel together. For the 4 weeks of the true desert crossing however, Allen is truly alone; notwithstanding the two or so occasions he runs across shepherds with flocks of sheep utilising the very sparse grazing on the desert margins.

This is a somewhat selfish trip, the author is driven to make a solo crossing of the main part of the Gobi Desert.. Allen is on a deadline, set by the seasons - he must compete his journey across the Gobi before winter, when conditions will make it impossible. As such he must travel faster than is ideal, in fact 50 kilometres per day is his goal. Experienced Mongolian camel men tell him 30km per day is a more reasonable target, but this is not going to get him across the desert in time. Camels have a soft pad on their feet, this gets worn when travelling long distances on rocky or hard ground, and this practicality sets a Mongolian limit. So he pushes his horses and camels too hard, and effectively 'wears them out'.

Otherwise Allen generally treats them well, tending to any injuries and feeding them well, going back to search for them when they stray. It is not a cruelty he displays, just a selfish drive to achieve his goal. The largest part of the book is about Allen's horses and camels. He takes great effort to describe them, their temperaments, their behaviours, and ultimately their inability to go on, or the fact they abandon him. Throughout the book he does constantly change his horses and camels as they tire. He is not always able to buy the most suitable beasts, so the fact they are not able to last is affected by this fact too.

I spent 18 days in Mongolia in 2005, 10 days of which was a van trip around the southern desert. The scenery is seriously impressive - the variance of the desert is amazing - the sparse grasslands, the rocky outcrops, dry lakes, dry and dusty steppe, even sand dunes. There are loads of very good photos in this book, which brought it all back to me. Some however are out of alignment with the text, occasionally spoiling events still to come (a camel which abandons him is the example I can recall).

So a mixed outcome. Probably 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4 due to the great photography.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sep 9, 3pm ~~ Review asap.

Sep 11, 115pm ~~ I finished this book a couple of days ago but needed time to decide what to say and how to say it.

I enjoyed the book to a point. It certainly gave me the feeling of being in Mongolia, which was what I had hoped for. I have always had a soft spot for the country, not entirely sure why, but I imagine it has a lot to do with horses and wide open spaces and the nomadic traditions that are still a part of life for many people there.

Besides that, I have lately discovered the Mongolian rock band The HU. I am not really into heavy metal music, but this band has something so special that the first time i heard them I went looking for more. Here is my favorite song from their album Gereg. Listen carefully and you will hear horses in the background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNCx4...

So, with this song taking me on flights of fancy across the steppes, I was eager for books about Mongolia. This was the first of three that I ordered. I had never read anything by this author before, but the main thing was getting myself to Mongolia and of course I am never afraid to try new authors.

But I could never quite connect with Mr. Allen. This book came about because he wanted to cross the Gobi desert alone except for some camels. But to do that, he would have to make a circuit of a great part of the country and rely almost completely on the people he encountered along the way. The five-month-long journey took place just six years after Mongolia gained its independence from the Soviet Union. (and from what I have seen of other books available, many people descended on the country around the same time in order to have their own journey and write their own books.)

The author is described on the back cover as "a modern-day explorer". And here he is exploring a country I would love to visit. So why didn't I like the man? Right from the first I was annoyed with him. He introduced a man he was put into contact with, a man who would travel with him during the first part of the journey, helping him with the horses and camels and camp chores, not to mention being a go-between with other Mongolians along the way.

All in all, a fairly important person to have along and someone who should be respected, right? At least to my way of thinking, that is. His name was Khurmit. We see this name spelled properly just once. From then on he becomes Kermit. Every time he is mentioned in the text, in any photo caption identifying Khurmit, all through the book he has been transformed into a green frog puppet. The man was, according to Allen, proud and excited to be part of the trek, but I wonder if he would have been so thrilled if he had known about 'Kermit'. Maybe I am being too sensitive about this, but a man's name is sometimes all he has in life and should be honored, especially by someone coming from another culture, someone who is basically merely using this person for his own needs. How hard would it have been to spell Khurmit properly?!

I know that in any endeavor, plans are always easier on paper than they turn out to be in real life. I remember calculating how many miles a day I would be able to walk during our 6-Day Ultramarathons, and finding out quickly enough that it is not always possible to keep to a schedule. You have to deal with so many variables that pop up each day, you can never quite live up to those grand plans.

There were delays in Allen's journey that he had not planned for, and he was on a very tight schedule in order to try and beat the cold weather that would catch him alone in the Gobi desert if he didn't have everything go perfectly from Day One. Which of course it did not. He suffered from that, but his animals suffered more, many of them losing their lives with great pain. All because one man wanted to cross a desert and had to do it in a certain period of time. Allen himself admits that a true Mongolian nomad would never push his animals the way the animals of this journey were pushed.

I guess that is the other aspect of this author that annoyed me. He used those poor animals as selfishly as he used the people. And while the people were open and generous with their help, the horses and camels had no choice but to endure long days of torture, pain and death just so Allen could chalk up another desert on his bucket list. When we all got to the Gobi and the camels made it clear that they did not trust Allen to see them through safely (he says that a camel needs to have complete faith in a strong leader before they will follow willingly to the ends of the earth) I rooted for the camels every time a disagreement came up and cheered every time they spit on him. Sorry Allen, but it served you right.

But even with all of this negative emotion piling up as we went along, i did enjoy the basic bones of the book and the pictures were wonderful. I just don't plan ever to travel anywhere else with Mr. Allen. He is much too exhausting a travel partner.

[Beant Deacock · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book came alive as I travelled through Mongolia nearly 4 years ago now. Reading this book and seeing much of Mongolia firsthand myself has left vivid memories to be cherished for a long time to come!

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Benedict Allen at his best. Not only is he a great adventurer but also a great writer. A rare combination.