It will take only 7,047 km to cross the distance separating Paris, the quintessential urban city, from Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia, the land of “horizontal vertigo”.
I long wondered what this expression could possibly mean. To me, vertigo had always been an unpleasant sensation, a disconnection from the body, “an illusion of the environment moving,” as my virtual doctor so aptly puts it.
Then I came across the book by Patrick Bard, bearing that very title.
Then I met Bruno Morandi, a photographer utterly in love with Mongolia and with his charming companion Tuul…and then I understood.
Images took shape in my mind: horsemen, steppes stretching as far as the eye can see, conquerors, Genghis Khan, plains, galloping horses, immensity, freedom, the thrill…the vertigo.
I understood that Mongolia was one of those last, still all too rare, wild territories forgotten on our small planet.
I understood that Mongolia was one of those territories where man and Nature are one and the same.
I understood that Mongolia was a country where genuine encounters with others were still possible. After all, are yurts not oriented due south, “the direction from which friends and the sun enter”? That says it all…
“What others bring us is all the richer when the difference from ourselves is greater,” said Albert Jacquard. Experience Mongolia and you will return richer in heart and mind.
I understood that now was the time to experience this strange, serene, authentic, harsh, hospitable and magnificent land.
So I made my own a Mongolian proverb which says that “Life is a journey; one need only be ready for the opportunity to arise.”
I am ready.
