These images are all stored as compressed JPEG's. Be patient; although the files are
small it may take a while these to transfer and decompress. It's worth it, though! In each
case you can click on either the thumbnail or the hyperlink to get a bigger version of the
image.
 This is a shaman tree we stopped at along the highway. There
are no trees around, so people have brought these branches and propped them up as if they
were growing there. It is good luck to tie a scrap of cloth around any available branch,
and while we were stopped here a wedding party came along to ensure that the newlyweds
would enjoy good luck together. At the same site as this shamanistic place of worship is a
small Buddhist shrine.
 Across the river from the majority
of the city of Kyzyl (on the Left Bank) is a large Buddhist temple ; here's a photo of it. This building
was built only a few years ago, since all of the older temples and shrines were destroyed
in the Soviet era. An odd mixture of religion is observed in Tuva; Russian Orthodox
Christianity, Tibetan-style Buddhism venerating the Dalai Lama, and the vestiges of
ancient shamanism.
 Lake Tore-Khol is on Tuva's southern border with
Mongolia, and part of the lake is actually in Mongolia. One day a van full of us were
looking for the home of a family that had agreed to put us up in their yurt for the night.
We got very lost, we were miles from any road, and we thought we were in danger of running
out of fuel. We decided that our best bet would be to stop were we were (at the side of
this lake) for the night and continue on in the morning. All of the others jumped into the
van and went to sleep, leaving me and Russ standing there with our sleeping bags and the
wide, barren steppe to ourselves. That night, I sacked out under the stars, and this is
the view that greeted me at sunrise. That's Mongolia across the lake.
 How barren are the steppes of southern Siberia , you
ask? Judge for yourself by taking a look here.
 Here's a nice photo of some storm
clouds in the Bai-Khemchik region just
east of Kyzyl. Nice rainbow!
 One day we went out for a drive in the
countryside just south of Kyzyl, and visited two families of camel herders who lived on
the steppe. The younger family was not well off at all and actually lived in a burlap yurt , which can't be too
warm on a cold summer night, although these people weren't about to complain about their
life. They have a felt cover they will put over the burlap walls in the winter. Check out
the TV antenna.
 The same family gave us our first
taste of one of their national drinks, called araka
. This is made by fermenting and then distilling the milk of a horse and it tastes
vaguely like a horse smells. It's clear but cloudy, almost colourless with a slightly
milky white colour to it. I thought it was probably one of those tastes that you have to
get used to, because it doesn't appeal on the first try.
 This photo is actually from the
Winnipeg Folk Festival in July, 1993. These three
Tuvan musicians have come to play and sing khoomei for us. Kongar-ool Ondar (the
shaved head) appeared on the short-lived Chevy Chase Show, and he and Anatoli Kuular
(yellow robe) have recorded with artists as diverse as Ry Cooder, Frank Zappa, and the
Chieftans.
 Here's another photo from the same
day; Radomir Mongush and Kongar-ool
Ondar tune up before playing.
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