We arrived in Sukhbaatar, the Mongolian border town, at 10:35pm. We had to go through the passport checking once again, and wait for the Russian wheels to be changed into the Mongolian size here.
Urnaa and Gunje were getting ready for home. Their anticipation was keeping them wordless. I felt happy for them that they were finally reaching the home that they have yearned to return all these years and soon that embrace by their loved ones will become a reality.
At the same time, I couldn’t help being saddened by this stream of farewells that seemed endless. I’d always thought that being on a journey would be a kind of training through which process I’d become stronger. I did that when I decided to start a new life in Britain. Being away from home and in a way “rootless” would prepare me for any challenge in life. I’d taken this attitude with me on each journey I took.
But the reality is that being away could bring you closer to “home”. All along the way, I watched everyone else leaving home to improve life and returning home to belong. Then I find a process of constantly becoming attached, forming friendships, and then departing. The departure in turn begins another journey of seeking to identify and attach. And the circle goes on. The emotional investment gives you strength, while exhausting you like a long, anxious dream.
Urnaa and Gunje got up in the early morning to pack their luggage. During the last hour when the train was steering towards Ulaanbaatar, Gunje’s eyes were fixed upon the unfolding steppes along the way. ‘We are near Ulaanbaatar…We are near home,’ she said to me, not wishing to contain her excitement. How could anyone not be happy for her?
We arrived in Ulaanbaatar at 7:30am. We were now 6,304 kilometers from Moscow where we met each other for the first time. Urnaa and Gunje both seemed a little apprehensive. They hurriedly carried their suitcases and bags off the train. I helped them carry a small suitcase down to the platform.
A big crowd suddenly surrounded us. An older woman in a dark pink, high-collar traditional Mongolian suit and a pink-colour hat came up to Urnaa and embraced her warmly. Urnaa burst into tears, burying her head in the woman’s arms. Everyone stood by and watched without a word. ‘She is my mother,’ Urnaa turned to tell me. Then she kissed her brothers and sisters, all around her. They must have so much to talk about, but at this moment only the words ‘How are you?’ ‘How have you been?’ were heard. I suddenly felt like a real stranger, intruding in a family’s long-waited reunion.
I quietly said good-bye to Urnaa and kissed her on the cheeks. Gunje came up to hug me, whispering in my ear: ‘Call us when you come back to Ulaanbaatar.’ I walked up back to the train and to my cabin, now all on my own. An odd sense of loss came over me.
I looked out the window again at the busy Ulaanbaatar station, filled with people reuniting with their families and those bidding farewell. This is a train platform where many tears are shed. As I felt overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness for the first time on this journey, a woman’s hand embraced me. It was Urnaa, with a warm smile on her red cheeks.
‘Urnaa?’ I said, confused.
‘This is for you,’ she handed me a bag of freshly-made, hot khuushuur (fried meat pancakes). She had just bought it from the station store. ‘You have lunch,’ she said to me. I kissed her again and again on her cheeks and gave her a long hug. I promised her that I will return to Ulaanbaatar to see her and Gunje. ‘Call me,’ she said.
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