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Published: August 7th 2007
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Magic bus
This was the greatest bus ever, that drove us around UB Ulaanbaatar (UB) is not a lovely place. It's full of potholes, open sewers, waste and dog corpses. The roads go suddenly to sand and are filled with cars covered in dents, there are no lines, barely even a right side to drive on, one car hits another and they just drive off. The pavements are worse, cracked and scarred, huge iron rods from the re-enforced concrete sticking up ready to give you tetanus. All descending into rubble and rubbish. There are so many homeless children here too, who run away from parents and orphanages and crowd around you on the streets, begging for money, you give them money and they'll cling on for more. Many of them live in the sewers, it really is horrible and terrible and very sad. There is no architecture, concrete and prefab being the main styles, the crumbling buildings giving way to kind of Ger shanty towns on the periphery of the city. You see men and women waiting at bus stops, by the sides of dusty roads, outside these ramshackle tent towns, dressed in suits, a line skirts and fitted blouses, carrying work cases. It's so odd.
Luke reckons it has the spirit of
Magic bus mirror
Ahh, what a great bus the wild west, a town on the up surrounded by sand dunes and cattle, but I'm not sure. All the beauty is in the countryside and the Ger settlements and the traditional way of life, this seemed like an unnatural intrusion into the modern age. Although I can hardly talk, I'm sure many modern Mongolians do not want to raise cattle and live in a wooden, felt covered Ger. We visited a woman in her Ger that she's been living in for at least 60 years, a Ger prepared by her parents as a wedding gift. They moved with the seasons and owned a lot of livestock (one cow will fetch around 500 pounds, so they are not poor) and she had eight children, all of whom became Doctors, lawyers, architects, managers...and are living in South Korea and Japan.
But the food here is good and very cheap, if limited for vegetarians, we went to one restaurant that served Litre mugs of beer for less than a coke and had not one veggie thing on the menu. Luckily our Mongolian guide (who doesn't like UB at all) was there and had the restaurant make up something suitable, it was
UB challange
UB's streets were a shambles, check out one of the many gaping holes in pavement with poor street lighting at night, helpfully modeled by Alan. I've not even started on the open man holes great, I ended up with a truly random assortment of food on a huge plate for one pound fifty. The guys ordered steak and ended up with TWO giant steaks and a load of extras. It was obscene how much food was on the table.
We ended the night with Karaoke, everyone wasted on the home brewed beer except me, as I could not stand to drink anymore beer after the train journey. But it was good, as I was the only sober one I could make up stories about what happened the next day and none of then could attest to their falseness, ahahaha.
The second night we spent in a Ger camp, and the further we went from UB the more beautiful the countryside became, more mountainous, more vegetation, more rivers, it was perfect. Our camp was great, out in the middle of nowhere, meaning we could drink Chinggis Khan vodka and sing 'till sunrise. The Ger's were comfortable and warm, with a central stove, candle lighting and soft beds, all the support beams and spars were painted with brightly coloured floral designs, as was the Hobbit sized front door, it really was lovely, and so
UB streets
During the day I've never heard such silence.
And so came the highlight of my trip so far, Horse riding in the Mongolian countryside. Those of you who thought I'd be getting a slow, docile horse were very, very wrong! We were told that three of the ten horses assigned to us would be fast horses. OJ our guide got one, Mel got the second, I got the third (and I think best). We were told they were semi wild and off we went, and it was great! Absolutely bloody fantastic! At first I thought we were going to have to walk for three hours, only a few of us having had any experience. But then I remembered this was Mongolia! No helmet? No Problem! I could do whatever I wanted! We hit the flats and after a false start and shorter stirrups the horse was off! In fact it seemed reluctant to stay at anything below a trot.
There is nothing better in this world than galloping full pelt across a wide plain, open to the horizon, wearing sunglasses, no helmet, leaving only a trail of dust in your wake. It's a cliche about the wind in your hair, but
UB river
Well, was once a river it's a valid one.
I raced against Mel, even gave him a huge head start at one point and my little Mongol pony still won, I loved that horse.
A couple of people fell off, Nilam one of them, going over headfirst when her horse stumbled into a pothole in the grass, luckily she escaped with only a winding a a few bruises. She was wearing my camera at the time, so I could play at being a Mongol warlord. It broke her fall and still survived!
That night was spent in the Ger, endless bottles of Chinggis Vodka (everything is called Chinggis here, Vodka, beer, wine. Makes ordering very hard. Tiger beer, songs, comparisons of bungee jumps, politics and trying to scare the living daylights out of each other until the sun came up around 6am makes for a good night.
I'm leaving the best 'till last, I know George will love this part, the toilet! haha, it was actually a hole in the ground, a shed on top of a 15 foot crap well, you could see into the depths of all that was evil, as you made sure your feet were in a
Camels!
You know you're in the Mongolian Countryside now! secure position. This was not a fun game in the dead of night, torch between your teeth, praying you didn't slip as no one would find you ever again.
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Emma
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Camels
I see you managed to find some, then. Good job too! It's nice to hear how you're going, and see where you are up to. I love the Mongolian food cart it looks so amazingly pretty to be a restaurant. Keep writing I'm loving seeing this