Back to the City

Day 9 - It's our final day at the ger camp. Woke up early to take panaromic shots of our surroundings. The vastness of the landscape still takes my breath away. I am not the only one trying to capture a little of this to take back with me. We are all a little sad to go.

We wait by the van whilst a man pulls what looks like an ox cart laden with our luggage. The horses have been let out of their enclosure and are spread out, some milling around us. The man whose family we visited yesterday came over and we greet him. Finally with all the bags in the van, we head off to the capital, Ulaan Baatar. As we drive off, the two mongolian boys mount their horses and ride beside us. We all shout "Chuuuuuuu!!" as they gallop beside us and we wave goodbye at each other. What a wonderful end to our stay!

Chuu!!

We reach Ulaan Baatar by lunch time and check into a 4-star hotel. The city is bustling and filled with exhaust fumes from cars and buses. There is yellow dust everywhere (ironically, the sky is clear blue, unlike China - we've been in China a week now and I have yet to see the sun, never mind blue skies) . There is construction everywhere. The hotel typifies the standard of construction in the city - it generally looks as one expects but on closer inspection the workmanship is shoddy - the finish is bad (my bathroom ceiling tile fell down in the middle of the night.. and I thought some mongolian was trying to get into my room) and one runs a slight risk of getting electrocuted via certain light switches (fyi avoid room 212 in the Bayangol hotel...). We have dinner at the Grand Khaan Irish Pub (www. gk-irishpub.mn) - we order the Grand Khaan spare ribs with chips. Yum! The food isn't very expensive - about 8000 - 11000 Tugriks (~ 2000 Tugriks to a quid) and they seem honest with credit cards. There is also free internet (wifi) so a lot of people bring their laptops in.
Lunch at the Grand Khaan!

Ulaan Baatar...




Day 10 - We walk around the city. Roadworks everywhere. No one seems to know how a pedestrian crossing should work. JD seems to get the hang of it though and so drags me across oncoming traffic. Mongolian women are very well dressed (they dress like russians, skinny jeans and knee high black boots). Vendors selling fruits, cigarettes (in singles) and old ladies sitting on stools by the roadside with satellite phones which people pay to make calls. Landlines are not yet fully developed (their telephone numbers are also only 6 digits long), so everyone uses cellphones. Apart from the area where our hotel is, the city is not very pretty. They try to plant grass and saplings to beautify the pavements but the climate is too harsh for these to thrive. We visit the State Department Store (like Russia's GUM store, Mongolia too has a state department store). Cashmere here pretty reasonable (about 20-30 quid for a sweater). We meet up with Tim and Sam and have dinner in an Italian restaurant called Della Casa (Mongolian food didn't look very appetizing). We bump into Lisa at the restaurant ;)
State Dept Store