"Hey, Belgium, you lookin' at me?"

Newly Carved Statues near Terelj, north of Ulaan Baatar

Mongolian Countryside

Message to Big Al: Don't put the word "nookie" in the subject line of an email. Many junk mail filters will reject it. Fortunately your message and attached photos did get through. I'm impressed!

Have just returned from a weekend jaunt to see my friend Zevgee and his family on the upper Kherlen River in Khentii Aimag, a roundtrip of 264 miles. I have now traveled a total of 24488 miles by jeep through Mongolia . . .


Zevgee, right, and his son Sanja


Zevgee's wife, right

Back in Ulaan Baatar but still digesting my European wanderjahr: here is a photo from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin (Germany, not PA).

Took the train from the Franz-Josefs Train Station on the northern side of Vienna to Krems am der Donau about 45 miles upstream on the Danube River. This town in at the western end of the in the part of the Danube River valley known as the Wachau. For about 25 miles upstream from here the river winds among steep hills and mountains on either side. At Krems am der Donau I took another train to Durnstein, just four or five miles further on.


The Danube upstream from Durnstein
This tiny walled village is famous for its castle where Richard the Lion Hearted was held captive after he was seized by the Austrians on his way back to England from the Third Crusade. (I am referring here of course to the Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and not the current Crusade led by George “Hulagu” Bush.) As you will probably recall from reading about these crusades, Richard was one of the European leaders who recaptured Acre in 1191. He and the French King Philip II decided to split the booty between them and froze out the other European participants in the battle. When the Austrian Duke Leopold V tried to raise his flag in captured Acre, Richard tore it down and threw it in a ditch. Unfortunately, on his way back to England his ship wrecked in the Adriatic Sea and Richard had to travel overland through Austria. He tried to disguise himself, but he was not the kind of person who could travel inconspicuously. He threw around a lot of money, wore fancy cloths (especially gloves), and was legendarily handsome, which of course caught the eye of the ladies and outraged a lot of jealous swains. He was eventually found out in Vienna, taken captive, and placed in a cell at the Durnstein castle.


The Castle where Richard the Lion Hearted was held, from the village of Durnstein.
Here the famous minstrel known as Blondel, who had formerly been a companion of Richard’s, sashays onto the stage. According to one account he was searching up and down the Danube for his master from whom he had earlier become separated. Then when he was passing through Durnstein he starting singing one of his old songs which he and Richard had once sung together. Amazingly a voice from the cell of the Durnstein Castle took up the refrain. Thus alerted to Richard’s presence, Blondel hurried back to England and raised a ransom for Richard’s release. Richard finally did make it back to England.


Close-up of the ruins of the castle

Now in Munich, or Munchen as the locals call it. Came here yesterday from Nuremburg, after a weekend in Berlin. Got into Berlin on Saturday and took the U-Baan to Rathaus Steglitz where there was a meeting scheduled for seven o’ clock in the evening with Alexander Berzin, the author of Taking the Kalachakra Initiation and a well-known translator of Tibetan texts. I was standing in the hall of the small Buddhist center there when who should walk in but my friend Ms. T. from Paris. Oddly, I was at first not at all surprized to see her. It was like, “Oh, there’s Ms. T.” Then about two seconds later it struck me: “What a minute! What is Ms. T. doing here in Berlin? She lives in Paris.” Ms. T. soon explained. While in Freiburg I had sent her a message mentioning that I was only 30 kilometers from the French border – I had last emailed here from Mongolia - but that unfortunately I was unable to come to Paris because that weekend I had to be in Berlin. So it turns out that Ms. T. also planned to be in Berlin that weekend. She emailed me and said we should met. Unfortunately I did not check my email before going to the Berzin meeting, so I did not know she was in Berlin. I had mentioned to her that I was going to the meeting, however, and there was a link on my website to Berzin’s website. She checked Berzin’s website and got the address of the meeting and came to met me, bringing in tow her friend Herr F. I had last seen her when we parted in the airport at Chengdu, China after our trip to Lhasa, Tibet for the New Year’s Eve.

Anyhow, she did not want to stay for the lecture from Berzin, so we agreed to meet in downtown Berlin at 10:30 later that evening. At the meeting we recited one of the Kalachakra texts and then Dr. Berzin made a lengthly commentary on a few of the key lines. I hope to have more on this on at Legend of Shambhala soon. He ended up talking until almost 10:30, and then I showed him some Tibetan texts which Lama Gombo had given me in Ulaan Baatar. They turned out to be various commentaries on the Kalachakra Tantra written in Tibetan by Mongolian monks, plus one short guidebook to Shambhala, also written by a Mongolian.

I did not get back downtown until 11:30. Ms. T. had been to my hotel and left a note staying we should met in the morning. Sunday morning we had breakfast at the Potemkin Café in Charlottenburg (a district of Berlin for you non-Berliners) and then Ms. T.s friend, Herr F., was kind enough to drive us to Potsdam, outside of Berlin, where of course Frederick the Great had built his huge palace and garden complex. So we spent most of the afternoon strolling around the grounds, along with several thousand other people. Potsdam is probably best known now – at least to Americans- as the site of the post-war Potsdam Conference held in July and August of 1945 beween Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Harry Truman.


Sanssouci (“Without Worry” in French), built in 1745, was the Prussian King Frederick the Great’s first palace at Potsdam.

The Kaiserburg, the old fortress overlooking the city of Nurnburg. The original parts of the fortress date back to the eleventh century.

From Berlin I took the train down to Nurnburg (Nuremburg), next to Freiburg the nicest city I have visited in Germany. Here is the Haupt Markt, with the steeples of St. Sebaldus in the background.

The Chinese Tea House at Potsdam. Built in the 1750s, the statues are supposed to represent Chinese people as depicted in contemporary travel accounts.

The Neues Palais at Potsdam
Spent most of Sunday afternoon at Potsdam, the digs established by Frederick the Great just outside of Berlin.

My apologies to the people of Berlin: the Severed Head Story mentioned below was datelined Berlin but it actually happened in Uebach-Palenberg, a small town near Aachen, and not in Berlin as I intimated. In fact I had a great time in Berlin, details to follow . . .

Despite the entry below I am on my way to Berlin. Left Schluchsee this morning, spent two hours in Freiburg, then caught a train to Nuremburg, where I am now. Will be in Berlin tommorrow. It's a helluva world we live in when a guy can't go out for a beer and a bratswurst without stumbling over a severed head . . .