Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia 07/07/08 to 13/07/08

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07/07/08 Went on a spree again to find a beauty salon. Found one eventually where the lady did some hair removal cream on my legs instead of waxing, then danced around the salon saying we have to drink vodka together and gave me her business card if I wanted her to come over and give me personal massages in my guest house?!? Well at least it got me further than it did in China (though I think my Russian did help a bit).

I actually found a beautician afterwards - if anyone is heading to Ulanbataar and wants to get their legs waxed there it is possible and they do speak English. Its about 15,000T (approx $15AUD) not sure where it is. The hair removal place is on the same street as the state department store and it costs about 5,000T if you get the urge. I finally found a telephone booth to call home - my bad for not finding it earlier its actually got a big sign saying Telephone (in Russian Cyrillic) which I can read so I was just not paying attention. Its also a big Internet cafe for your reference and the people in the telephone booths can see everything the people on the Internet do because they are right opposite (for example as I saw a girl watching porn on a big wide screen - as you do).

It was great to talk to the family and hear mum and Liz scream into the phone because they hadn't spoken to me for so long. Called brother Nemsis on the Ogi's mobile from the hostel (she runs the Golden Gobi with her sister) to wish him a happy 21st which ended up costing 19,000T (about $19AUD which isn't so bad but ridiculously expensive for Mongolia). Mental note do not next time call Australia from call centres rather than Mongolian mobile phones if you plan to speak for so long.

I went out to dinner with Darren, Alex (two Aussies from Redfern and North Sydney) and Adam (from Oklahoma, US). Darren looked like Jean Reno so I started calling him that (only fair as he called me Dancer). The restaurant we went to was actually really classy and had a violin and piano player there and I felt really under dressed. It wasn't that expensive I forget the name its a pizza place though and upstairs is a strip bar. That night there was no hot water so I had an icy cold shower before I went to bed. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

08/07/08 This morning I set out with Joon (a Korean guy from New York State, US) for the monastery in UB. The monastery was really nice and in the first monastery we went to we saw the 26.5M tall Buddha! Wow. We joined in on the morning prayer at 10am. That was quite neat - the monks chanted and played their instruments. There were cute little monk boys - maybe no older than 12 who looked like they had no interest in being there, playing with each other in the back row.
Outside a man sold a lady sand.

Then we decided to go to the black market. It took about 40 minutes, a combination of asking in English, Russian and Korean but we finally managed to get there. At the market I looked in vain for about 2 hours for a chess set. For some reason I thought this would be the best souvenir for my family and naturally I couldn't find one. Me and Joon lost somewhere within those 2 hours and somehow - like a light at the end of the tunnel I stumbled onto a chess set. While I ummed and ahhed and tried to bargain the chess set to 10,000T (it was 35,000T - 80,000T depending which stall you looked at) I managed to bump into Joon. He came and observed the gift with me and said it was an awesome gift - so I haggled one down finally to 28,000T (about $28AUD). The Mongolians are not as easy to bargain with as the Chinese but then it seems not everyone sets their prices as high as they do. I saw this chess set again being sold for $60,000 at the Nadaam festival so I could see that I definitely got a bargain there. It was a heavy chess set and I dreaded traveling with it for the next few days. We got back to town by taxi - which we bargained down to 3,000T ($3AUD approx) and went to the ih brewery (ih is spelt in Russian Cyrillic) which is near the state circus where they sell nice pilsner beer (I recommend the hops and malt - no filter). A 500ml will set you back about 2,200T. It was the best beer I experienced in Mongolia. Went to Broadway for dinner - a Korean, Mongolian and maybe Chinese cuisine place. Had Korean Bibimap and seaweed rolls. Delicious.

09/07/08 So today I went to the book opening ceremony at the winter palace of Bud Khaan (where Mongolia's 8th living Buddha and last king, Jebtzun Damba Hutagt VIII lived for 20 years in) with Claire and Danny whilst Joon was looking at his visa. It was wet and raining but the palace was still beautiful. And in true Monogolian fashion, the book opening ceremony was running late and did not start until 12pm although it was meant to be starting at 11am. It did take up most of the day - however I thought it was worth it because we got to see contortionists, 2 throat singers and a musician. Also I won a crappy ( I mean amazing) prize of pictures and some sort of a map which I kindly sent to my family to enjoy instead of postcards. After this spectacle we went to lunch. It was a bar that we ended up in where they took about 40 minutes to serve up our meal - but my dish was quite tasty so it was worth it.

Afterwards me Danny and Clair went to the intellectual museum (which Debbie recommended as the best museum in UB) which was not so easy to find - even a lot of Mongolians that we asked didn't know about it. We finally got to it at 4:30pm and it closed at 6pm. It was 3,000T to get in (no student discount) but this place was the best. We were given a tour but the tour is not the best. The best is all the things you get to touch and play with some of the puzzles. The museum’s collection includes many world famous, rare and precious exhibits. For example, collection of over 200 different Mongolian puzzle chess sets made of gold, silver, gemstones and wood using interlocking methods and among them the smallest and the biggest Mongolian puzzle chess sets in the world are displayed. Moreover these famous puzzle exhibits include ‘Eiffel Tower’, ‘Statue of Liberty’, ‘Egyptian Pyramid’,’ Maugli’, ‘Ancient Temple’, ‘Sea Angel’, ‘Puzzle Spaceship’ which is composed of 673 different wooden pieces interlocked and requires 5000 locking tricks, ‘Mickey Mouse’, ‘Tom and Jerry’, ‘Cat Master’ and ‘The Doll. They were really annoying in the souvenir shop trying to explain all the puzzles but it was closing time when we were leaving so I guess they just wanted us to go. But its still my favorite museum in UB and I would recommend it to anyone in UB.

10/07/08 Awoke at 7:45am and went to the Natural History Museum. It did not open until 10am so we decided to skip it for the day and go to Terelj National park instead. We picked up some bread and cheese for lunch then hoped on the bus for Terelj at 11am. On the bus I met a Japanese, English speaking Mongolian who offered me a job teaching English (unfortunately couldn't take it as I only had a 3 week visa to stay in Mongolia and then I was off to Russia). It took about 1.5 hours to reach Terelj. Terelj is about 80km north east of UB, part of the Gorkhi National Park. Once we got there we hiked to turtle rock. We actually found two that looked like turtle rock but we had lunch at the main turtle rock (you'll know when you get to the main one as their are signs everywhere plus a small restaurant). It started to rain a bit and Joon was not too keen on hiking in the rain as he only had shorts and a shirt on. He went to the restaurant for a cuppa whilst I hired a horse for 4,000T (which I bargained down from 6,000T) for 1 hour. I didn't get a guide as I used to do dressage when I was younger so I thought I would be fine. Initially it wasn't as easy as I thought - firstly as its a wooden saddle that you ride on, and the horse does not respond to kicking or squeezing it with your thighs. The way to make the horses walk, trot, canter etc is to whip and scream 'chew' which was difficult for me as I seldom used a whip when I rode horses back home.

I rode to the monastery which Joon suggested I visit - over there yonder in the distance. This was the Gunjiinsun, a Manchurian influenced temple. It was about 30km from turtle rock. I was really impressed. After tying up my noble steed to graze on some grass I proceeded to walk to the entrance - admiring the peace and serenity around me). There was logs lying in front of the entrance so I figured it was closed for entrance at the moment. I hoped on my horse after having a brief moment and as I rode off I heard chanting emitting from the monastery. The ride back was quite fun - I traveled at a much quicker pace a mixture of a fast trot and a canter. I found the canter a bit difficult in the saddle and made a mental note to stand next time I trotted in a Mongolian saddle.

When I got back Joon was keen to also visit the monastery but it seemed we would be pushed for time as the last bus left for UB at 7pm. We hitch hiked back (and got a car after about 10 mins which was good). The guy driving was 18 and his mum was in the passenger seat she was 42. We tried to figure out where they were going and I said Ulanbataar - she made space for us on the back seat so I assumed she was going that way. We communicated in broken Russian - telling each other ages, my marital status and that she had another son who was 16. She also worked in Terelj. We got them to drop us off at the post office and I gave her the remainder of my delicious haribo lollies in gratitude (that I brought from the black market for about 1,680T). After our post office rendevou we headed back to the hostel that Joon got moved to. We managed to meat Dan and Clair on the way and we all headed to the ih brewery again for dinner. It was very full that night and I had tasty fish - with potato chips (as in crisps??) Like kettle chips. There was a band there that looked like Korn and played Blink 182 sounding songs. I booked the city tour of Nadaam for tomorrow for 55USD (it included breakfast, lunch and transport plus entry on the first and second day). It was good but it actually would have been cheaper to buy on the day or from scalpers or something.

11/07/08 Got up at 6:45am for the tour. Met the polish crew from that I had met in the desert that tried to convince me to join them to Ulan - Ude via Krasnoye Nose to Olkhon Island. Then I bumped into a girl who I had met whilst trekking Tiger Leaping Gorge and briefly seen again whilst I was in Beijing (she was also staying at Leo's). She was the Irish girl who had toured AU in a van for a year and a half. Her name was Eva and she was from Dublin. She turned out to be mad fun and I traveled with her for these next 3 days. After this she was off to Central Asia and the middle east.

I also met Scott from Auckland, New Zealand who had been traveling for 4 years - I think he had been on every continent and had also lived in Whistler for 10 months. The people who had signed up for the tour boarded the bus and arrived at the breakfast place. The breakfast was delicious - omelet with bacon, lettuce, croissants and cereal. I took some for later and so did Scott. After this we went to the main square and checked out the marching band procession and the Mongolians in traditional outfits riding on horses. It was really amazing - with a real Chingis Khan feel to it. A tourist ran in front of the conductor to take a photo of him and you should have seen one of the guys in the front row of the orchestra his face as he watched her in disbelief.

We rode to the opening ceremony after this. It was cool - full of contortionists, singers and musicians. Then all these Mongolians walked around in beautiful costumes. After the opening ceremony the wrestling started. After a few matches we headed to the other part of the stadium to watch the archery. After the archery we had some snacks - like cheborekas ( a russian dish - or maybe armenian but anyways they are big at the festival). Afterwards we headed to the horse races. They were fun to watch but a bit sad to see how many horses came through without kids on thier backs - which means they fell of part way. The winner goes by whose horse gets through first - and this year the winner had fallen off. The kids who compete are between 6 and 12 and about 6 died last year. We saw one fall in front of our eyes and a police man ran and grabbed him - the poor boy was limp in his hands. I hope that his mother wasnt watching. Anyways after meeting a few Mongolian men on horse back we went back to have some lunch - salad and sandwiches. This was part of our tour deal. We then headed back to the hostel - where Olgi (the owner) told us that there was some sort of concert at the main square at 8pm. We headed to the main square and there was no concert there - but fireworks did start at 11pm. We had some beers later that evening and me, Kate and Scott decided to go with Olgi to the Metro Palace ( a happening club in the Ulanbataar). It was an awesome night (it only cost 5000T to get in) and I managed to hitch a few of us a free ride home after the club😊

12/07/08 After being told of for bringing shame to the Golden Gobi me, Eva, Scott, Dan, Jason, Miep and Frisbee headed up to day 2 of Nadaam. We headed to the stadium to watch some wrestling then we checked out the archery. Me, Dan and Eva got some delicious fairy floss (or candy floss or cotton candy whatever you call it). Yum. Dan headed back to the hostel while the rest of us checked out the second round of wrestling.. After a while me and Eva left the stadium to walk around. On the way out we got interviewed by this news reporter (in russian) on what was our impressions of Nadaam. I spoke and translated for Eva. It was cool cause when we got back to the hostel Olgi and Dan said they saw us on TV - on the news! I still need to locate this video on U-Tube maybe Liz this is your new homework😊 Anyways after the interview we went to the archery and asked to particapate and shoot a few arrows however they were packing up and westerners were no longer given a chance to particapate. Went to the vegetarian cafe that night which I would really recommend if you get the chance. I had a luna soup with dumplings. Apparently the borsh is also really good at this place. I also shared a rice noodle salad with eva which was good. Later on that evening I went to the beer garden and met with Darrin and Alex near the Golden Gobi. Met this journalist and photogapher from the states who had done a 100km run around a lake. Crazy. Went home and had an awesome sleep.

13/07/08 Woke up around 9am after an awesome nights sleep. Decided to go to the museum of Natural History as the races proved to be too cumbersome to get to. Plus everyone seemed to be talking about the crazy awesome dinosaur bones you could see there - especially the terrible hands??? Did some interneting then went for lunch at the supermarket - which proved to be more expensive then eating out??? Forgot my camera and student card on the way to the museum so ran home and got it. Scott and Eva went on ahead. On the way to the museum this beggar came up to me and said it was her birthday. So I said ok Ill get you food but not money. So I took her to a kiosk and brought her some biscuits and a coke. The museum was good and I saw the huge terrible hands they were way bigger then T-rex - in fact they only found hands of this dinosaur so I bet he would have been a beast compared to T-rex!
Saw a few monkey bones and human bones and had a bit of a history lesson (dont ask as I probably forgot). Updated my blog afterwards and changed the Turiks to Rubles as I heard its quite hard to exchange Turiks anywhere outside of Mongolia.Went to Mongolian fast food for dinner - they told us they only had 3 dishes available off the menu although they seemed to be serving all sorts of types to other people. I got mine take away as I was starting to run late to the station. Got back to the hostel and grabbed my stuff said good bye to Eva (hopefully I'll see her again once I get to Europe) and hailed a taxi down. Got to the station for 3,000T I bargained it down then gave him a tip of some of the turiks I had left. Got some food and vodka and I swear 5,000T was stolen from my hand or I dropped it and someone quickly took it - it was there one minute then gone. Then I boarded the train for Irkutsk.

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Photos

11/07/08
The cute lil boy dressed up as a wrestler.

08/07/08
At the entrance of the monastry.

08/07/08
A temple within the monastry.

08/07/08
A temple within the monastry.

08/07/08
Some young monks within the monastry,

08/07/08
A temple within the monastry.

08/07/08
A temple within the monastry.

08/07/08
Within the monastry.

08/07/08
Within the monastry.

08/07/08
A temple within the monastry.

08/07/08
A temple within the monastry.

08/07/08
The man who sold sand outside the temple.

08/07/08
Within the monastry.

08/07/08
Within the monastry.

08/07/08
Within the main square.

08/07/08
The main square.

08/07/08
On the way to the black market through the city centre.

08/07/08
The wrestling palace. Thanks goes to Uurtsaikh Sangi:)

08/07/08
The kittens and the rabbits in the cage at the markets.

08/07/08
The dog at the blacket markets.

08/07/08
Joon at the Ikh brewery enjoying thier hops & malt.

Comments

[ak]

i think the Korean Dish
u r writing about has a name bibim-bab