Day #57: Still unwell in Ulaanbaatar

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Woke up feeling no better than yesterday so sadly another day spent mostly in bed. I did go for a ten minute walk around a small local square and saw the circus building, a giant buddha, and some very cute children - the oldest couldn't have been more than 5 years old - performing some traditional Mongolian songs and dances on a small stage surrounded by adoring parents, for what reason I don't know.

Also went back to the State Department Store for more supplies. This is the main "Westernised" store in Ulaanbaatar, a huge old Soviet-style building on 7 floors, and it sells almost everything you could think of. There is a supermarket and banks on the ground floor, then the other floors are like a cross between Debenhams and Argos. There is even a food court on the top floor.

There is a small but significant number of Western tourists in Ulaanbaatar at the moment, and the State Department Store is somewhere practically every tourist ends up in for some purchase or other. As everyone is obvious and there are not that many of us, you see the same people over and again. Similarly with the hostel, I have again met many people I was already introduced to in Irkutsk and Listvyanka. This is generally a good thing, apart from the small number of people you wish you didn't see again 😊 The majority of travellers I met on this route are Dutch and German (fortunately practically all English-speaking), which I think is probably a reflection of the economies of the countries and how happy people are to leave their jobs. Anyway, it has certainly got much easier to meet people since I left Novosibirsk, as tourist season begins.

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