Blogs from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Asia - page 42

Carolee and I are presently going through this Bill Murray/Groundhog Day nightmare where for the past 4 days we've woken up to find ourselves impossibly still in Ulaan Baatar. We rush to the train station to see if we can get ANY available ticket to China, receive a taunting "Ugui" (negatory) from the agent, then try to figure out how we will spend yet another remaining 10 hours in this city. Inevitably we succumb to our routine of finding a meal that doesn't include mutton or horse milk and spend a forced 2 hours on the internet before finally going back to the hostel to pray that we'll catch that next train back to China. Please don't get the wrong impression that Mongolia isn't a great place. It's truly an amazing country-- but the capital of ... read more

Llegamos muy temprano a Ulaan Bataar (UB) y desidimos andar a la calle central para encontrar un hostal,solopara darnos cuenta de que el mapa en la guia esta mal y muestra unas distancias muy incorrectas,trescientos metros para ellos es alrededor de un kilometro para nosotros. Nos recogieron a mitad de camino los duenyos de un hostal al que teniemos echado el ojo,o sea, que nos ahorramos parte de la caminata. UB es una ciudad muy pintoresca, pero no por la arquitectura ni nada visible,si no por el hecho de que solo ha sido la capital de Mongolia alrededor de 150 anyos y planean cambiar la capital en otros 50 anyos,esdecir, que se convertira mas o menos en una ciudad fantasma, ya que todos los trabajadores del Gobierno se tendran que trasladar a la nueva capital. Ulaan ... read more

Sain bain uu Well, it's amazing what a little communist vigour can do for one's spirit! We've had a very interesting few days, and despite the total lack of hot water for almost a week, we're doing better.School began last Thursday with quite the fanfare...two opening ceremonies, complete with a matronly, portly-bottomed Russian MC, cute kids doing Russian song and dance routines, balloons floating off into the sky (pollute the city a bit more, kids!) and some pretty serious uniforms (suits and stilettos), set off by the hundreds of bunches of flowers held by the kids for their new teachers. (We got none, as we're not class teachers, and felt suffieciently hard-done-by). Although the Russian songs were undeniably cute, our favourite part was incidentally the only Mongolian performance. A girl performed the national dance, which was ... read more

We arrived in UB yesterday, amidst quite some confusion about what the time was and how long our flight was meant to take. Gareth said 4 and a half hours, so we were quite concerned when they announced that the flight would take 2 hours. Glad that they hadn't just dropped us in the middle of the Gobi desert, we very much enjoyed the doughnuts we did coming in over the capital. The mountains are fabulous, the skies as blue as they say, and the scenery just like the postcards. The city is quite a dustbowl...very lively, but with perilous holes every few metres in the footpaths(?). Quite an obstacle course, and sure to catch Mel out at some stage. We were met at the airport by our director and colleague, who showed us to our ... read more

Just finished an exhausting day, doing all there was to do in Ulan-Bataar. The city itself is truly ugly: it is built in a deep valley of stunning beauty but, unfortuntely, most of it is soviet concrete architecture, badly constructed and horrible to look at. The streets are all parallel and perpendicular, there are few historical buildings in the city, bar two: the old winter palace and the large monastery to the south of the city, and most of those have been rebuilt. I have just been with Benedict to visit both: they are interesting to a point but lack in scale or craftsmanship. It is said that the soviets destroyed most of the two structures during one of the many wars. It is visible that both have been recently restored. The city in itself has ... read more