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Published: July 12th 2006
We pulled into Ulaan Baatar, fondly known as UB at 8:00 and walked a couple of kilometres to Zaya's Guesthouse, where we were told to leave our bags and come back at 13:00. We left our packs and went out to find somewhere for breakfast. We found a Mongolian fast-food eaterie close to the hostel, where I had sausage stir-fry which actually wasn't too bad. We spent the next few hours checking out a number of tour operators trying to find a reasonable price for a tour to the Gobi desert and eventually stumbled accross the Golden Gobi Guesthouse, who if we book through them, can also offer us a bed for the Naadam Festival which starts when we return. Beds for this period are scarce and already mostly booked out, so this effectively sealed the deal. All we have to do now is find a few more people to join the tour which will bring the cost down and we're good to go. We returned to Zaya's to do our check-in and then spent a few hours relaxing and cleaning ourselves up before we headed to Dave's Place, UB's English pub in the evening to partake in the pub quiz. Due to numbers, we were paired up with a Scottish and Australian pair of Geologists who were boring as hell but with their brains and our excellent general knowledge, we combined well to take joint second place - a veritable acheivement in anybody's book.
Friday 30th June was Adam's birthday and after a long lie-in and a cup of Tetley Tea which was still in my pack from when we left the UK, we walked up to the Chinese embassy to apply for our visas. The process was possibly the easiest yet and after filling in the forms and handing over our passports, we headed to popular backpacker hangout Chez Bernard for a birthday breakfast of Bacon and Eggs. We went back to Zaya's for a couple of hours for a nap and to get ready before heading down to the Grand Khan Irish Bar. Full to the brim of Mongolians wearing fake replica football shirts, and with all the tables apparently reserved, we ended up perched on the bar drinking Guinness and watching Argentina V Germany in the world cup quarter finals. Sitting next to us were Steve-o, a slightly drunk Australian guy and 'Crazy' Davey the Israeli who was just off his face and flirting with every Mongolian girl in sight under the age of 21. We got talking and our own level of drunkenness increased significantly and soon we were on our way together to Strings, a popular UB nightclub. On the way out of the Irish bar, we ran into Patrick and Alida, a lovely Dutch couple who were also staying in Zaya's and they joined the party.
We pulled up at Strings and managed to blag Adam in for free on account of his new-found old age. The club itself was very cool, with a live band performing rather than a DJ and a good crowd of Mongolians and westerners intertwined with a few prostitutes for good measure. We drank a lot of Beer and a lot of Vodka and were kicked out at 3am when everyone else had left and the staff were itching to get home. Unperturbed by this, Steve-o knew another club just around the corner so we headed for the Collective Nightclub, which wasn't quite as chic as Strings but at least they served alcoholic drinks! After buying yet another round of vodkas, Patrick and I were beckoned to by one of the bouncers and after a few minutes it seemed like there was no getting away from it - we were both ushered to a table full of young Mongolian girls. The conversation began and within minutes Patrick had done the dirty on me. He told one of the girls that I was a rich, English music executive in Mongolia to find the next Brittney Spears, take her to England and make her famous. Then, to make matters worse, he jumped in a taxi and went home. Utter Bastard! I tried and tried to get out of it but with every sentence I came out with, I just seemed to dig myself in even deeper. The embarrasment was sealed when this poor girl started singing along to James Blunt as a kind of impromptu audition. Eventually, I managed to make my excuses, grab Adam who was deep in conversation with a random Mongolian at the bar and make for the taxi stand. We got back to Zaya's at 6am, still absolutely trolleyed.
We woke up the following afternoon at 15:00, still drunk and made our way to Chez Bernard for another birthday breakfast. Two fry-ups in two days - how disgusting! We spent a few more hours recovering underneath our duvets before heading up to Dave's Place to watch England v Portugal in the quarter finals of the world cup. Once again, England failed to perform, looked extrordinarily average, had a man sent off for his poor temperament and lost the game on penalties. Some things just never change, no matter where you are. The flip side was that we met a group of other travellers; Jason and Madelaine, an English couple and Morritz, a German Bio-Chemistry student who were looking for people to share the cost of a trip to the Gobi. Result!
Our final day in UB for the time being was spent making final arrangements for our Gobi tour, buying presents for families and so on. We went to the Golden Gobi to pay the balance on the tour cost, packed up our bags and tidied our room, then headed to bed for an early night at 0:00.
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Monica Stern
non-member comment
What about the yak's milk?
Seems like you are still in the UK - beer, beer, football, beer, fish and chips and beer! Whatever happened to the yak's milk and sheeps eyeballs??? Luv Mum xxx