During the early 1920s Ekhiin Gol was one of the camps of the notorious lama-turned-bandit Dambijantsan, a.k.a. Dambija, Ja Lama, Avenger Lama, etc. When Dambijantsan first came here he found Chinese peasants from Gansu province growing opium. He did not approve of drugs, nor Chinese for that matter, so he proceeded to kill all the Chinese and destroy their opium plants. He then set about robbing caravans on the nearby Shar Zam, or Yellow Road, the main caravan route from Mongolia to Tibet, Beijing, and Anxi in Gansu. There is a woman now living in Ekhiin Gol whose father was a lieutenant in Dambijantsan’s gang of marauders. To this day Ekhiin Gol remains an extremely fertile oasis with a huge crop of melons, tomatoes, and other vegetables. It is the only place I have been in Mongolia where you are routinely served tomato juice instead of milk tea when you enter a ger.
