One Heck Of A Ride

169 Asia At this writing, author’s Hillier goitered gazelle still was number one in the SCI record book more than two decades after he shot it as it was running flat out mouth. The guides spent the next morning cleaning the heads and fleshing the hides of our animals. By noon we had loaded our vehicle and were heading back to Ulaanbaator where we visited the city’s National Hunting Museum and a Buddhist monastery before boarding our train for the trip back to Beijing. (Mongolia still was a Soviet satellite state when we were there, but the monastery operating openly in downtown Ulaanbaator was an indication the U.S.S.R. was losing control. I learned later that when Joseph Stalin still was alive all religions in Mongolia were banned and worshiping at ovoos and monasteries was prohibited. Under orders from Stalin, more than 15,000 Buddhist monks were executed and many hundreds of others were brutally tortured.) In addition to the luggage and gear we’d arrived with, we now had the horns and antlers of the animals we’d taken as well as a few souvenirs and a huge satchel of food that Bud had bought especially for our return trip. (On our trip north to Ulaanbaator, only the Chinese trains had dining cars.) My most prized souvenir was a Mongolian tenor-balalaika, a ukulele-like musical instrument with a triangular body. I carried it on my lap all the way home. When we reached the border with China, we were allowed to stay in the roundhouse as our railroad car was lifted up and its undercarriage, wheels, and axles were changed. As I videotaped the car being lifted four feet above the tracks, I felt I was looking into the past and it made me wonder how long it would take this corner of the world to catch up with our modern times. From Beijing we flew to Tokyo and changed planes and returned to San Francisco. We had temporary passes that would have allowed us to visit Tokyo, but I chose to get an acupuncture treatment at a fifteen-bed clinic at the airport. I had been having back problems and wanted to see if acupuncture might help. I was surprised that it didn’t hurt to have needles stuck all over me. Although it was relaxing, it didn’t cure my back problems. Safari Outfitters had alerted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Klineburgers Taxidermy in Seattle when our plane was scheduled to land in San Francisco, and the taxidermy company’s representative collected our horns, antlers and hides and shipped them to Seattle after a wildlife agent cleared them. Bud and I had spent nearly a month in Asia and although I had seen and experienced things I will never forget, I was glad to be going home. When we hunted in Mongolia in 1987, the country’s economics and military still were strongly influenced by the U.S.S.R. Mongolia