Buddhist Chic: The latest fashions from the Dharma Wear capital of the world, Graz, Austria.

The mystery deepens: See Al-Sahaf in Suicide Riddle for more on the alleged suicide of erstwhile Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, whose memorabilia is currently a hot item on the internet (see below).

More on Gunjin Temple, which I visited last weekend.

Last one out of town dies! See Sea of White Masks as People Flee SARS-Hit Beijing

Another photo from the new Aryaval Center near Terelj. This is the Kalachakra Temple, still under construction.

See Killer Flu in Hohhot for the story on SARs in Inner Mongolia. For the lastest press release on the Killer Virus from the people sponsoring the June 1 - July 7 Buddhist shindig here in UIaan Baatar see Good News, We Think.

On the way back from Gunjin Sum we stopped at the new temple being built at the head of Gorkhin Valley (near the famous Turtle Rock) not far from Terelj. This temple is supposed to be completed by August of this year. See Aryaval Temple for more information and photos I took last fall.

Over the weekend I made a quicky trip to Gunjin Temple, 35.5 miles northeast of of Ulaan Baatar as the crow flies, or 63.8 miles by road, in a gorgeous area of tor-topped hills at the upper end of the valley of Kok Chuluutiyn Gol, a tributary of Dund Bayangiyn Gol, which itself is a tributary of the Tuul River. The temple was built in 1740 in honor of the Manchurian princess Amgalan who married one of the Tusheet Khans. She was buried here. The temple was heavily damaged in the iconoclastic upheavals of the late 1930s. Amgalan’s coffin has been disturbed and it is not clear if her body is still presently. Presently there is some restoration work going on.


Ruins of Main Gunjin Temple

Guardhouse in front of the Temple

For the lastest from the NY Times on the Killer Virus in Mongolia see Mongolian Capital Is Subdued by Illness Scare, although there is not much new here.

Yesterday I went to the Mongolian Airlines main office and was stopped at the door by a guard because I was not wearing a face mask. Fortunately there were entrepreneurial types on the sidewalk outside selling face masks for 200 togrogs (a little less than 20 cents). A teacher at the Mongolian State University told me that now all teachers and students must wear masks while at lectures. And an informal study I did in front of the busy State Department Store revealed that about 75% of passersby were wearing face masks. Other than that, no new news about the Killer Virus on Mongolia front.

There are rumors on that web that erstwhile Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has commtted suicide. Will this lessen or increase the value of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf Memorabilia (tee-shirts, coffee mugs, baby bibs, etc.) for sale on the net?

An immense White Tara Thangka being prepared at Zanabazar Art Museum. Tara in Her various manifestations is supposed to ward off disease. Let's hope. Apparently this is going to be displayed outside somewhere because I don't think there is an interior wall in Ulaan Baatar big enough to hang it on.

More on the “Americans are the New Mongols” Paradigm. Apparently some rare Korans which survived Hulegu’s sack of Baghdad in 1258 did not make the cut this time. See Now Free to Protest, Iraqis Complain About Americans, which says in part: “This morning, the ashes were still smoldering at the Ministry for Religious Affairs, where a building housing thousands of Korans, many of them illuminated and hand written, several a thousand years old, had been burned to a charred shell. It was another severe blow to Iraq's 10,000 years of cultural history, along with the looting of the National Museum and the burning of the National Library, in which countless priceless artifacts and books were lost. ‘When Baghdad fell to the Mongols in 1258, these books survived,’ said Abdel Karim Anwar Obeid, 42, the ministry's general manager for administration. 'And now they didn't survive. You can't put a price on this loss. If you talk to any intellectual Muslims in the world, they are crying right now over this.'"

Iraqi Wifes to Iraqi Husbands: “Sorry Honey, but your looting is giving me a headache.” According to Baghdad Looters Returning Swag, “Some people are surrendering the booty they took in the Dura district of Baghdad, perhaps in response to a rumored edict by a Muslim cleric forbidding Iraqi wives from having sex with looter husbands.” (Inexcusably, the Wall Street Journal ran this story under the headline Surrendering the Booty [subscription may be required].)

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time: Mongolia Has First Suspected SARS Cases. I knew something was wrong when I went out shopping at two o'clock this afternoon. At least half the people in the street had on faces masks. It's springtime in Mongolia, when there are often terrible dust storms and people often wear face masks, but there was no wind and no dust today. I stopped at the book store in the Zanabazar Museum and the woman there said that an announcement had been given on the radio that at least five Killer Virus cases were suspected but not confirmed. Then I went to the Austrian coffee shop just around the corner and found all the girls working there in face masks. They too had heard the warnings on the radio. So now what . . . ?