Showing posts with label Agharti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agharti. Show all posts

Monday, June 8, 2020

Mongolia | Khövsgöl Aimag | Darkhad Depression #4

After our late lunch we continue northwest up the valley of the Ikh Cöögt towards 8,550-foot Deed Khets Davaa. The snow-drift lined pass is broad and long, a miniature plateau actually, almost a mile long. Finally we come to an ovoo, seventy feet lower than the highest point of the pass, which overlooks the Buural Gol valley. From here we walk our horses down through a larch forest just over 1300 vertical feet to the banks of the Buural Gol, a major tributary of the Khoogin Gol, whose source is our next desination. The Buural Gol starts about five miles from here, just northwest of Belchir Uul.The Mungaragiin Gol, which we have just come from starts just to the west of Belchir Uul. Another river, the Delger Mörön, starts just south of Belchir Uul and flows southwestward to eventually combine with the Ider to form the Selenge Gol, Lake Baikal’s largest tributary. Thus at the base of Belchir Uul, the nexus of the knot of mountains we are in, begin rivers which flow both into both the Shishigt-Kyzyl-Khem-Yenisei and the Ider-Selenge-Angara-Yenisei branches of the Yenisei River System.
Looking up the Buural Gol Valley from the western end of Deed Khets Davaa (click on photos for enlargements)
Upper Buural Gol Valley
Beginning the descend into the valley of the Buural Gol
Looking toward the source of the Buural Gol. Belchir Uul is hidden between the ridges to the left.
It occurs to me that the area we are in might well qualify as the “Heart of Asia.” Now I admit that the epithet “the Heart of Asia” is much overworked. The seed of this chestnut might well be Sir Francis “Guns to Lhasa” Younghusband’s 1896 The Heart of a Continent.” It may have reached its full flowering in Nicholas Roerich’s 1929 Heart of Asia and continues to bloom in titles like The Lost Heart of Asia and The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia and The Heart of Asia: A History of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates from the Earliest Times and Through the Heart of Asia: Over the Pamïr to India. If I had the time and inclination I could compile a list of dozens more books and articles which somehow manage to drag in the phrase “the heart of Asia.” Indeed, years ago I had made a silent vow that when writing about this area I would never, under any circumstances, resort to the phrase “the heart of Asia.” But if any place actually deserves the epithet “the heart of Asia”—or at least that part of Asia north of Himalayas—it is this knot of mountains centered around Belchir Uul. On its slopes begin rivers which feed both major branches of the Yenisei River System, the largest north-flowing river in the world and the main artery of northern Asia.

I am still ruminating on this as we head down the Buural Valley. Soon we come upon a hunter’s shelter made a logs where Batmönkh says we will stop for the night. Hunters from Ulaan Uul come here in winter time to hunt deer, he says. He himself has stayed here in his younger days, when he was an avid hunter, but he says that now he now longer hunts. Immediately claiming the shelter for myself I spread out my carpet and sleeping bag inside, then get a fire going up brew and up a much needed pot of Yunnan Black. Actually is it the time of the day for Formosa Oolong, but after the strenuous descent on foot from Deed Khets Davaa I thought something a bit more robust and reinvigorating was called for.

We all sit and drink tea as Nergui prepares dinner. She points out that I neglected to bring a spatula along with my cooking gear. She had been using the dipper as a spatula but it really was not satisfactory for her culinary endeavors. Not to worry, says Batmönkh, he will make a spatula. First he cuts out a foot-long section of a log with his axe, then splits the section in two. From one of the halves he splits off an inch-thick slab. This he roughly shapes with an axe. Then with one of my Xinjiang Black Steel Knives that he has taken a liking to (I had fortuitously put a razor-sharp edge on it using a Arkansas Whetstone back in UB) he carefully whittles a very serviceable spatula. Nergui is tickled pink with her new implement, which she quickly utilizes to cook up a big patch of tsuvin, or fried noodles with beef and vegetables.
Batmönkh concentrates on carving a new spatula
Batmönkh understandably proud of his new spatula. I now use it in the kitchen of my hovel in Zaisan Tolgoi.
Nergui making gambir—fried flat breads
Batmönkh and Yooton in the hunters’ shelter. I claimed it for the night.
Nergui emerging from her tent after a night of sound sleep
The next morning the peaks at the head of the valley are shrouded in gray clouds and mist and rain seems imminent. Batmönkh says we must hurry as it will probably snow on the pass and it could get real nasty by late afternoon.

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Turkmenistan | Darwaza | Portal to Agharta

Update: Turkmenistan Leader Drives Donuts Around 'Gateway to Hell' In Footage Following Death Rumors.

One of my main objectives while in Turkmenistan was visiting the ruins of Urgench, which had been trashed by the sons of Chingis Khan back in 1221. Urgench is 290 miles north of the capital of Ashgabat. It is possible to drive from the capital to Urgench in one day, but most tourists like myself prefer to drive to the Darwaza Crater, 150 miles north of Ashagabat, spend the night there, and then continue on to Urgench the next day.

The Darwaza Crater is widely touted as the Portal to Hell. Indeed, the word darwaza reportedly means “portal” in the Turkmani language. The portal is not, however, a natural phenomenon. It was created in 1971 when geologists accidentally drilled into a huge underground cavern filled with natural gas. The cavern collapsed, leaving a crater about 230 feet in diameter. To keep from poisoning the local environment the geologists set fire to the huge amounts of natural gas seeping from the crater. They apparently thought the gas would burn off in a few days or weeks. Instead, the gas has been burning ever since and the leakage shows no signs of abating. No one has offered an estimate on the value of the gas which goes up in flames here each day. Natural gas is so plentiful in Turkmenistan that no one seems to care. 

The crater is in the middle of the Karakum Desert. There are no facilities in the area. Like the thirty or forty other tourists who spent the night there, I brought my own tent and vittles. There were people from Russia, Germany, Austria, Australia, Hungary, and other sundry locales. The people from Australia said they they had come to Turkmenistan specifically to see the crater. They had driven from Ashgabat that day and were returning there the next morning. 


There are other reputed Gates to Hell, including One In Turkey (this Turkey video also has views of Darwaza). Thanks to Snuggles in Richmond VA for bringing this video to my attention.
 View from Space: Darwaza, the Gate to Hell, is the small dark spot in the middle, not the larger gray area (click on photos for enlargements).
 The Darwaza Crater is about 230 feet in diameter
 Darwaza Crater
People on the edge of Darwaza Crater. On the downwind side the heat emanating from the crater is almost unbearable.
Darwaza Crater at night: Dante would have loved this place.
There are rumors that the cavern which the geologists inadvertedly drilled into was an extension of Agharti (also spelled Agharta), the underground Kingdom described by Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and Ferdinand Ossendowski. The King of Agharti was reportedly none too pleased by this incursion into his domain and has been in a snit ever since. See the King of Agharti’s Predictions. His threat to return to the surface of the earth in 2012 was not fulfilled, however, and at this point in time the Darwaza-Agharti connection must be relegated to the realm of pure speculation.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Siberia | More Holes

The Hole Story refuses to die:
One of the most remote areas in the world seems to be slowly turning into something resembling a slice of Swiss cheese. Two new huge holes have been discovered in a Siberian region nicknamed "the end of the world," reports the Siberian Times. . . At the larger of the two, "there is also ground outside, as if it was thrown as a result of an underground explosion," says a regional lawmaker who inspected the site from a helicopter. "It is not like this is the work of men, but [it] also doesn't look like a natural formation," says one of the Russian experts puzzling over the phenomenon.
Could it be that the The King of the World in Agharti is behind all these new openings to Inner Earth? 

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Turkmenistan | Siberia | Big Holes

Big Holes are in the News. And I am not talking about Courtney Love, although Lisa Lampanelli is. I mean the Darwaza Crater in Turkmenistan, which I visited in the Spring of 2013. 
Darwaza Crater
Now National Geographic has sponsored a Descent Into the Crater. The stunt is going to be shown on National Geographic Channel tonight (if you live on the East Coast of the U.S.A) at 10 p.m. EDT. 

On top of this comes news that a Huge Crater Has Opened Up in Siberia.
According to the Siberian Times, a scientific team from Russia's Center for the Study of the Arctic and the Cyrosphere Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been sent to investigate the crater and is expected to arrive on Wednesday. Helicopters spotted the astronomic hole over the gas-rich Yamal peninsula, but its depth is unknown. There are a number of claims as to how the crater appeared, but nothing is known for sure, and probably won't be known for a little while. Speculated causes include global warming, meteorites, a sinkhole caused by collapsing rock, a gas explosion, and UFOs. Although it was only discovered last week, it's believed that the hole has existed for over two years, which is likely to make the diagnosis process more difficult. Surrounding the crater are what appears to be rocks and pieces of the Earth that exploded from within it. Right now a number of signs point to the crater appearing as a result of a gas explosion.
See Video of the Siberian Crater.

I am sticking with my theory that these craters are openings to Agharti (also spelled Agharta), the underground Kingdom described by Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and Ferdinand Ossendowski. The King of Agharti is reportedly none too pleased by recent events on the surface of the earth and is planning a breakout soon. See the King of Agharti’s Predictions. It is not going to be pretty.