Cows to the left of me, horses to the right

 Stuck in the middle with you. The caravan is off. We left the hostel at 8 am, picked up a few last minute things and hit the road in apparently record time for one of these expeditions. It took forever getting out of UB, but once we did, the countryside is beautiful. Rolling hills

and barren of trees. Horses and cattle and sheep and goats roaming in herds everywhere. Unfortunately the sides of the highway are littered with plastic trash.It’s such a beautiful country, but humans have taken a terrible toll on the planet everywhere with our overconsumption and production of garbage. Mongolia is no exception. 

Down down down south we went until we got to a small town and decided to grab dinner so that we could camp without having to deal with food for the night. All over the countryside there are trucks hauling pod houses for tourist camps. Great big flat bed trailers carry these white rectangular space-age pre fab structures with polarized plexiglass on either end and a door in the middle. They’re Chinese made, hauled into UB by train, and then distributed eveywhere. 

That’s not where we stayed. We wandered off the main road near this small town, past a ravine used informally as a dump, past the actual dump that was smoldering with burning plastic, and off to a hillside to pitch our tents. Now that I am settled on a grassy plain along a lake surrounded by desert flowers, I am certain there were better options than the subtle aroma of decaying livestock hauled to the dump to return to the earth faster than the tons of plastic. But it was a place to lay in rest in my tiny solo coffin tent, which I love dearly.

Today we made it to Dalanzagdad, the capital city of the Omnogovi province, and we passed a truckload of camels along the way. By ‘truckload’, I mean both a figurative truckloack, because there are over 300,000 camels around here, but also a literal truckload. A truck was parked along the side of the road with at least 60 camels sitting peacefully in the trailer. Sitting. It was astonishing to see their little bulbous noses and thick eyelashes peeking over the edge of the trailer. They make a soft chittering noise like baby geese that I certainly wasn’t expecting. 

They were stopped because of an asshole camel that somehow got out of the truck and was tucked in on the side of road like he couldn’t be bothered to cooperate. The driver at one point shoved him, and he screamed in disdain at the insult. They were waiting for a crane to come to lift this one errant camel back into the trailer so that they could be on their way to the races. Literally. We weren’t able to stay long enough to see the camel lifting, but I presume there was more screaming at the affront.

We made it into DZ to get the local permit, and then suddenly realized that it’s Saturday and the offices are closed. A few well-placed phone called, because apparently that’s how it works, and Bob’s your uncle. Off we go to the first collection site, after another road side sleep. By tomorrow night, there should be jerboas.

UB traffic

 Ulaanbataar has grown exponentially over the last decade. Apartment towers sprout up everywhere, 15+ stories tall, and the traffic is epic. It can take nearly an hour to cover a mile.

Mid day yesterday, we learned that the person who needed to sign our collection permits is himself out in the field and left no one to sign in his absence. Uh oh. We couldn’t get the border patrol approval to even be in the southern desert or collect any animals without that permit. So Auggie called in a favor, of many thus far. His former teacher is head of the office that we needed to get the permission, so he did a quick change into his suit in the back of the van and drove into the part of town with the government office. Drove, if that’s what you call it. More like slowly slid between and around the obstructions of other vehicles.

On the way, he tried to reach his brother so that he could take over driving and keep the van moving while he was in the office. He asked if I could drive, and the gung-ho eager to help part of me said “Sure!” But then I realized that it’s not only a great big van but also the steering wheel is on the right. At least they drive on the right, but that’s also weirdly opposite of a right sided steering wheel. And there’s no convention for which side of the car is the driver’s side, because it depends entirely on where the car was manufactured. There’s a Hyundai in front of me right now with the driver on the left.

And then we pulled into a ‘parking lot’, where vehicles pretty much sit where they fit. We looped around a couple of times, squeezing between cars with just an inch to spare on either side. They double park and block one another in. Basically, if other vehicles can continue to navigate the circle around the lot, the cars will park where they can. Auggie reached his brother who was supposed to come, and then he took off. I’d not met his brother, so I was just waiting for some strange guy to turn up and hop in the van. And then he did and backed us into a space that was immediately blocked in by two more vehicles. He just grinned at me and ran off. 

An hour passed and then more. I had been fine and even dozed for a bit until my bladder decided otherwise, and that’s when I saw the museum. The Zanabazar Museum is the oldest fine art museum in Mongolia, and they had a bathroom. I paid 15,000 tugrik (about $4) for a ticket and managed to wander a couple of galleries before Auggie came to tell me that the office closed for lunch. It’s a fabulous little museum with wood cut prints of Buddhist figures, ornamental saddles and harnesses and clothing, and traditional line drawings of local species.

Once we secured the permit and we were ready to go, I thought “how in the world are we getting out of this blocked parking space. Auggie walked up to one of the cars and inspected the dash, and that’s when I saw it - every car has a number on the dash. The phone number of the driver. Apparently this is a thing. The parking is so bad that it’s entirely acceptable to block people in, and you just call the driver when you need to leave. Auggie then showed me the piece on paper on the dash of our own van. 70 70 70 70. That’s the phone number of his friend who runs the transportation business. They’ve been friends since childhood when they used to race cars together, and ‘70’ was his friend’s racing number. He apparently spent $300k US dollars to secure that phone number for his business.

Permits are secured! Chemicals and supplies are ready to go. The team is assembled, and we hit the road at dawn. Or near enough.

Give voice to your crazy ideas

A lesson in manifesting your wishes to the world, also known as voicing the crazy ideas that you never expect to come true. Because you never know who might be in the room that thinks your idea sounds fun.

I have studied skeletal development and evolution for almost 20 years. I started the jerboa colony as a postdoc in Boston in 2008, and I travelled to collect specimens for the first time in the spring of 2007. That was to Inner Mongolia, China, and my postdoc advisor, Cliff Tabin, gave early indulgence to my craziest ideas. He sent me to China, where I don’t speak the language, to catch animals I’d never seen before. Eighteen years later, I’m making a career of it.

We’ve made a lot of progress with the samples we collected over four trips from 2007-2012 and with the colony now housed in my lab. We understand a lot more about development and evolution of extreme limb phenotypes the level of the organism, tissues and cells. We identified genes that are expressed different from mice in ways suggesting these genes might play roles in the extreme elongation of limb and/or tail vertebrae. We’ve started to crack the differences in their genomes that might shape the skeleton, but it’s extremely complex. Our best estimate right now is that there are more than 1,000 potentially important mutations, but that’s likely underpowered because we primarily study two animals - the Egyptian jerboa and mice.

But there are 33 species of jerboas, and technology has improved. Sequencing got cheaper, new sequencing approaches are possible, and there are new reagents to better preserve samples. With samples from more species, we could narrow down the sequences that evolved leading up to the common ancestor of all jerboas and changed less since they radiated. It could be a powerful advance in our understanding.

Much of this phylogenetic diversity is present in the southern desert of Mongolia, and colleagues from the University of New Mexico have gone regularly, collecting mammals and their internal and external parasites over the last two decades. I’ve long wanted to join their team, but right around when I had the clear reason, funding for their expeditions ended.

And then in October of 2023, I spoke at a conference in Vancouver where I ended my talk with the rationale for getting materials from more species, and I flippantly ended with “So if anyone wants to send me to Mongolia…” and folks giggled. And then five months later I was at another conference, dashing past the coffee table up to my room to get my charger for my talk in the next session when a man caught my eye and said “I want to send you to Mongolia.” And now, here I am on a flight to Tokyo, after a flight to San Fransisco and before a flight to Ulaanbataar (it’s a lot of flying) with the whole team. We’ll spend just a few days in the capital city of Mongolia prepping gear and supplies and head out for a 2-3 day drive south to the desert around Dalanzagdad. It’s remote. No field station. No town nearby. Just nature. I have a green diamond-shaped solo tent that will be my home for a bit over 2 weeks. There will be 13 of us total - some from the US and some from Mongolia, all catching mammals, focused on jerboas, and collecting everything that we can for future lines of research. 

Everything will ache and my guts may hate me for this (lots of goat!), but I’m excited for new experiences and for what we may learn from this opportunity. So say your crazy out loud. It might not be so crazy…

Family

We started the day with dosas (potato and onion filled "burritos") and vadas (savory "donuts") with several chutneys and then headed to the Chowmahalla Palace of the Nizams. It's been turned into a museum that tells the history of the family and houses collections of china dishware, armory, and cars they once owned. The inside of many of the buildings has been restored/maintained, and the outside of the main building is being cleaned and repainted. As with much of this part of the world, though, it appears to be a constant battle to keep the harsh elements from deteriorating the outsides of buildings. Facades seem to crumble and/or blacken at a remarkable speed.

At one point in our wanderings through the complex, we passed through a giant wooden gate into an overgrown garden with gazebos flanking a fountain. It was clear this wasn't part of the guest experience, but there was no indication we couldn't enter...until the guard blew his whistle at us to let us know we'd ventured too far. He was monitoring the exhibit we were trying to reach, the collection of the Nizam cars, and he quickly turned from guard to guide telling us with great pride about each of the vehicles. The best was the story of the time the nizam visited England and decided to purchase a Rolls Royce. The dealer told him he had neither the appearance nor the means to own the car, so he left and send his aide to buy seven of them. He had two assigned to clean the streets of Hyderabad and two designated for garbage collection. When the owner of Rolls Royce heard, we flew to India to deliver a personal apology.

The rest of the day was spent in Adi's home preparing for a great feast. His parents and aunt and uncle invited 40 or so of their closest relatives and hired a cook to prepare food in an extraordinary quantity. I got to watch it all in the works. A three foot diameter pan of chicken in a sauce of 20 ingredients that was a fusion of India and England (cardamom, ginger, cumin, ketchup, Worchestershire sauce, etc) and a perfect blend of awesomeness. A tomato and chili based dish that was an intensely mature roasted soft emulsion of all of the seasonings.  Kebabs dusted with a mix of spices predominated by cardamom. Biryani...a giant bucket of biryani. The cook set up a giant (I can't overemphasize giant) pot of rice to boil and methodically layered rice of increasing tenderness over a layer of seasoned goat so that as it all continued to cook, the rice nearest the heat wouldn't overcook relative to the rice at the top. He then stretched a rope of dough around the edge of the biryani pot and sealed it with a huge platter.  As with everything, that cooked on a stand over a roaring woodfire. And dessert was a fried bread pudding soaked in a sort of mango pineapple flavored condensed milk with raisins and nuts and foil leaf.

And then the guests started to arrive with all of the women in their fine evening saris. It was an array of colors and patterns with beautiful embroidery. Adi's mother wore the most recent of her collection of hundreds that she just finished stitching yesterday - aqua with clusters of red flowers and threads of gold accent. We all ate wherever we could find a place to park, and the men circled with bowls of food to refill empty plates. I realized that if I didn't want to end up uncomfortable, I needed to not be overly polite and finally turned away the fourth offer to heap more biryani and kebab on my plate. A need to save room for dessert seemed the perfect excuse.

After dinner, his family gave me a great honor as their guest. His aunt, a sincere and obviously wise and caring woman, applied a dot of vermillion to my forehead, wrapped my shoulders with a woven shawl, and draped my neck with a fragrant garland of chrysanthemum and roses. A few of his aunts then generously offered me small gifts, and members of the family gathered for pictures. And pictures. And pictures. It was all wonderful. The warmth and comfort in the room increased throughout the evening, culminating in this final burst of laughter and love. I can't wait to come again. I can't imagine a better introduction to India than the feeling of family.

Devotion

Yesterday we had a slow start to the morning and then jumped in an auto rickshaw to dart across town for lunch in a hotel restaurant that had a big buffet assortment of North and South Indian dishes. Since Indian food is tied with sushi as my favorite, an Indian buffet in India is pretty much a dream. The char grilled paneer with mint and cilantro chutney stole the show.

Traffic in India is a dervish of excitement or terror, depending on your perspective. The roads are a river of vehicles of all types, and traffic lights are mere suggestions. Traffic cops must get good insurance - their primary job seems to be to shepherd small groups of people through the constant flow of traffic. Otherwise no one would ever cross some intersections. Most intersections are rotaries rather than four way stops, but the traffic seems to go around the rotary in BOTH directions. So once in awhile you get a stream of vehicles going one direction and a stream of vehicles going another, and you find yourself looking through the open door of the rickshaw at the flat face of a bus just inches away. Somehow everyone manages to wiggle through the chaos with horns ablaze, as if that will do anything to move the traffic faster. I am always tempted to reach out and shake the hand of someone in the vehicle next to us, just because I can.

After lunch, we took a car across town to the fort and tombs of the Quli Qutb Shah dynasty. The tombs are beautiful Indo-Persian design with minarets, intricate carvings, and giant open domes. The acoustics are perfect, a theme of the day. The echo inside the enclosed space of one of the tombs of the queen carries longer than any echo I've heard. The outer columns and supports of the tomb are giant pieces of granite carved into perfectly interlocking slabs. The tomb itself was constructed of brick overlaid with 2 inches of composite plaster and then a layer of smooth limestone plaster. They're all in reasonably good condition but blackened with mold and with some deterioration of the facade and adornments, but they're in the process of restoration and will once again be totally spectacular.

We didn't have much time left before the official close to see the Golkonda fort high on the hill above the tombs, but we got lucky that security allows guests with a guide to stay until dark, so we hired a guide. The fort grounds are enormous and stretch up the side of a large granite hill, hugging huge boulders to crown the top. It must have been spectacular in its prime of the 1500s. The entire fort was built in 62 years to house the Qutb Shah dynastic capital. I can't do it justice by explanation, so I'll pick a couple of key highlights. The treasury was once converted to a prison to house the treasurer who had taken a "loan" to build a Hindu temple in a nearby city. The shahs were Muslims from Persia, so the current shah was less than pleased when he found his money had been taken for this purpose, and he imprisoned the treasurer until the debt could be repaid...for 12 years. Many of the people who worked for the Qutb shah were Hindu, including this devout treasurer. For 12 years he carved a shrine to Hanuman, the devotee of the Hindu Lord Rama, with nothing but his hands. I didn't want to take a picture, so I found one here online.

The sounds of Golkonda fort are spectacular. It was designed to be acoustically perfect for communicating over very long distances. Our guide clapped in several places to show us how the sound moves through the fort. I think that the craziest was one place where he clapped, and the echo was returned from a perpendicular direction, and it doubled. Two claps could be heard returning from the left of wherever the faced while clapping. And this was all designed in the 1500s.

The other spectacular sound took me back to the early morning waking in Jordan to the sounds of Muslim call to prayer. There are more than a dozen mosques encircling the hillside of the fort, and we could hear all of them start, slightly off timing from one another, in a haunting call that reaches into the soul of even someone who isn't a follower of Islam. As the sun set and the lights flickered on all around the vast expanse of Hyderabad, I stood entranced at the remains of the shah queen's roof top garden. I'm not sure when I'll hear that many calls all together again. It's beautiful and once again very mediative.

We finally made our way back down the hill and down a long corridor that ran next to a series of chambers alive with the squeaks of thousands of bats and into a courtyard set for the light and sound show. The fort is lit with dozens of colored lights that are controlled in synch with a story of the history of the fort. It's really a beautiful show and pulled together everything that our guide had told us as we wound through its steps. If only there weren't other people disobeying the request to put their phones away and not try to videotape the show...which wouldn't turn out well and would probably be stored somewhere and never watched again. And then it started to rain, and everyone rushed away. That made the show an order of magnitude better. Adi and I sat through the sprinkles for a little while until we realized that the "mist" gathering around the top of the fort was actually heavier rain cresting the hill, and we rushed for cover under a walkway. But the show must go on even with no seated audience. From a large arched window where I was protected from most of the downpour, we watched the end of the light display with the few remaining people. And the rain stopped just in time for us to make it back to the waiting car to return home to another huge spread of Adi's mothers curries.

Traveling meditation

The flight into Hyderabad from Singapore was the first meditative travel experience of this trip. I woke just in time to look out the window and see Orion’s Belt as clear as could be, a spectacular lightening display from above, and a shooting star. It was like the time I was waiting for the Hood Canal bridge to close as a submarine passed through on its way out to sea with the American flag raised, and a freaking bald eagle flew past as if on cue.

I’m staying these four days with my postdoc’s family…just about all of them. The families of three brothers live on the same property that’s been in their family for eight generations. They say that they are the last descendants of civil servants of the Nizam monarchy of Hyderabad who still live in the original old part of the city. The cluster of houses are on narrow paths behind a common gate and range in age of modernization from the original home that the brothers were raised in, which is painted three shades of the ocean and has all the signs of ancient construction, to this house that was re-completed just over a year ago. Each morning I’ve awakened first to the sounds of the Muslim call to prayer broadcast at 5 am from a mosque about a quarter mile away. It’s easy to fall asleep again and to be awakened a couple of hours later by the sounds of cooking and cleaning in the kitchen and the music played by the woman who helps Adi’s parents with the house. I haven’t felt this peaceful in ages.

Yesterday after breakfast, we went into the center of this old part of town to see the Charminar monument and to walk about the markets. The Charminar is a four-minaret monument that was finished in 1591 to commemorate the end of a great plague. In all four directions from the Charminar, the streets extend through shops selling traditional Hyderabadi bangles in one direction and pearl jewelry in another. It seems strange that the almost geographic center of India would be known for its pearls, but it’s apparently a centuries held tradition dating back to the monarchy. The bangles are the craft that predominantly marks Hyderabad today. They’re set about a metal loop that is coated in a sort of laquer and set with dozens or hundreds of small glass rhinestones. They’re in all colors and patterns and line the forearms of Indian women. No doubt many will be coming home with me.

Food…all of it. My first food experience wasn’t a sensation of taste but rather of sound. Adi guided me toward the sound of perfectly rhythmic pounding in a small street front shop with a man sorting stacks and stacks of papers and two men on the floor behind him each repeatedly striking a thick piece of what looked like leather with a small mallet in perfect alternation. The stacks of paper are interleaved with ultrathin sheets of silver foil. It’s one of the few remaining shops that manually pounds pieces of silver into the thin sheets that get laid on top of many of the traditional Indian sweets. I stood there for a moment listening to the rhythm with my eyes closed to appreciate this third meditative travel moment.

More food with milky chai, and lots of it. Warm samosas with spicy lentils, potatoes, and onions. Osmania biscuits that are slightly sweet and a little salty and a lot of perfect. A delectable pillow resting in pistachio/saffron/cardamom cream that first has the texture of a grain pastry and gives itself away as cheese curd only when it squeaks slightly between your teeth. And Adi’s mom’s curries…she’s an amazing cook. Even the goat testicles and kidneys were palatable (sorry to those of you who were so enjoying my food descriptions until that last one.) Each day they are giving me a “challenging food” to test my adventurousness. If they hadn’t told me I was eating testicle, I could have put back several, because they were so well-seasoned.

All is wonderful except for the mosquitos. They're bastards. I'm not taking an anti-malarial in part because I could also get dengue or Chikigunya, so I might as well just do my best to not get bitten. This place is a real test of mosquito repellent, and I do seem to have an invisible shield of about six inches around me that keeps them buzzing near but not too near. It's like having an annoying sibling flying about constantly saying "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you..."

Outward bound again

Thirteen years ago this September, Darren and I packed our apartment into an eight foot by eight foot storage cube, and I took off for three and a half months in southeast Asia with no more than I could carry. My backpack and the daybag that I picked up at a market in Vietnam have seen a dozen countries, but they’ve been stored away like Ragedy Ann and Andy for six years since I was last in China. There was something soothing about shaking out the residual sand from Xinjiang and wiping white streaks of my sweat from the black nylon. Yes, I had apparently put it all away “as is”.

A lot happened since I left Shanghai. The next year of travel took me around the US to interview for the job that I eventually started. We bought a house in San Diego in 2013 and had our daughter in 2016. This year I turned 40. India is my first return to the kind of vibrant and often challenging travel that once soothed my wanderlust, and I have an odd zen-like feeling of dread. It’s far from home and far from my small person. My 40-year-old body has more recently and frequently hauled a 30-pound toddler on my hip and not a 30-pound pack on my back. And I’m not sure this 40-year-old body will drop into a squat as easily as its 30-year-old version once did.

But I’m excited for the sensory overload of smells and sounds and color and for the feeling of being a part of a whole new and vibrant organism. I’m excited to be in the moment and not in my office. I’m excited to be writing something that’s not a plea for money. I started this blog thirteen years ago to keep my friends and family updated on my travels and to keep a record for my future self. I’m so grateful that I did, because it’s fun to read what I once wrote. I also now realize what I couldn’t have known then – this blog keeps the record of a life that I lived before my small person. Maybe someday if she reads this, she’ll get to know me a little better. Honey, if you are reading this – please go off and have as much fun as I did. Just don’t tell me about it until afterward…but hopefully I’ll be right there doing a lot of it with you.

Alive and well in Shanghai

It's been longer than I'd hoped since I last wrote, but a whole heck of a lot has been going on. A whole lot of difficulty. Monday last week, the professor in charge of international cooperation came out to the field station with a couple of colleagues to host lunch with us. I knew they were coming, but I didn't know that they had called ahead to arrange a dumpling-making party for us. So while we waited for their arrival, the cook had prepared all of the fillings and bought the wrappers, and all of the students working at the field station came to join us in making our own dinner. Great fun! After the bigwigs arrived, plates and plates and plates of food hit the table, and the three of us Americans decided that we should eat family style at one big table rather than dispersed among the 5 tables around the room. So we moved furniture around to join up three of the long tables into one big long feast table. The cool thing about that is that as far as I know those tables are still arranged in that manner. The atmosphere at meal times went from groups of students working together sitting together and not interacting much to one big happy family laughing and chatting throughout dinner. And I noticed they all started playing pool more and even moved the pingpong table down to where it could be used. I like to think we had a little something to do with that.

The rest of that day was difficult. Unfortunately I have developed the reputation for being able to handle the strong alcohol they drink, so the main purpose of hosting that lunch was to down two bottles of baijiu. I'll spare the details, but it didn't end well for all of us. No long term damage done, and everyone is recovered, but I think my phone landed in a stream that was doubling as a toilet at the fish restaurant we ended up at when someone decided I should meet some random dude who works for fisheries.

This whole experience set us back a couple of days recovery, and we had to work hard to make up for lost time and get all of Talia's data recorded. The last night at the field station we had great plans to get out to the desert early, get cameras set up, get the last of her data, and get back to bed. But other things were in store for us that I didn't know about. I was told that some people had a special dinner planned that we should be there for. Okay, fine, let's say our well wishes, eat quickly, and go. Time ticked by, and Talia and I started to get a little anxious that we would be getting back later and later. Finally, we walked into the kitchen to see a fabulous spread of dishes. Our dear cook had been busy all afternoon preparing a joint birthday party for me and Talia (her birthday was in mid April, mine coming up in late May), and Sarah had gone into Fukang to get us each a cake. So we donned our obligate paper crowns and blew out the candles on the crazy spinning candle thing that shoots fireworks and sings "Happy Birthday" until you beat it to death with a rock. Dinner included big plates of shrimp. I'm not sure where he got shrimp in that little town. It's not far from the geographic center of the Eurasian landmass - in other words we were almost as far away from the sea as humanly possible, and I ate shrimp in the desert. No harm no foul. Or is it no foul no harm?

So we made it back to Urumqi, survived yet another banquet, said our goodbyes and the requisite thank yous and "I'm sorry for being so much trouble" and boarded a 46 hour train to Shanghai. The Hangover Express. It was wonderful to be on a train for two days with no one to be held accountable to and no one trying to pour 50% or greater alcohol down our throats to show our happiness! Talia and I slept and slept and slept and read two books each and watched the Chinese countryside whiz past. Our cabin companions were friendly. One was a man who designs jade jewelry and has a fondness for good tea. He shared some tea with us and showed us photos of his work. Talia showed him some of her high speed video of the jerboas which he seemed to find pretty cool. I'm just glad we made it with all of our belongings and the box of embryos was still cool on arrival to the lab in Shanghai. That was the purpose of the two day train - to get the embryos from Xinjiang to Shanghai. Since 2009, it is difficult to do much out there. Shipping or flying with anything remotely questionable is nearly impossible. But at the train station I think they hardly looked at the X-ray machine. 

Two days in Shanghai and then I'm on my way home. I can't wait to be back. I'm looking forward to a big fat cheeseburger and onion rings. And I'm going to start running again and get to the gym more often. This place takes a little something out of me every time I come. In many ways. But I learn so much from the experience, and I guess that counts for a lot.