Blogs from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Asia - page 6

Naran Tuul market is known by everyone locally as the Black Market, though not everything sold there is counterfeit. I went today with the intention of buying flip-flops, but when I found a pair I liked and asked the stallholder for help, she shouted "net, net" and angrily shoo-ed me away from the stall, so I came away empty-handed. It was anyway interesting to walk around the market, which is so huge that it is overwhelming and disorientating to begin with. The biggest sections are clothes, shoes and fabrics and there is a large food hall where you can buy whole carcasses, but the most intersting part is the section for kitting out a ger, where I saw all the ephemera I had become accustomed to observing in gers multiplied by thousands. It was surreal to ... read more

The National History Museum has a monument outside stating "No to death penalty". Inside, the museum doesn't seem especially political as you walk through the earlier rooms, charting Stone Age history through to modern nomadic life, via traditional constumes and Chinggis Khaan. But the later rooms of the museum are the most interesting, describing the perceived oppression first by the Chinese and then by the Soviet Union rule. Mongolia appears to have always resented Chinese rule - even now, I have heard Mongolians lament that Inner Mongolia remains part of China - but the Russians were initially relatively welcome as they had supported Mongolians as a way to free themselves from China. The usual features of Soviet rule - forced co-operatives, purges - extended to Mongolia. The museum has an interesting section on the rewards given ... read more

Zaisan Memorial is the best place to get a view of Ulaanbaatar from above, on a hill on the outskirts of the city. It only took about 40 minutes to walk there from the city centre, which shows how small an area Ulaanbaatar covers. From the Memorial it is easy to see the problem the city faces: more and more Mongolians want to move to Ulaanbaatar, but the city is surrounded by mountains and further expansion is almost impossible. Ulaanbaatar is therefore crowded, and housing is expensive because there is not enough of it. The traffic jams are also horrendous and there is now a system whereby most vehicles are banned from entering the city on one day of the week , depending on the final digit of the numberplate (only weekdays, everyone can go in ... read more

Last night we stayed in a really beautiful setting with a delightful family on the floor of their ger. It took a while to fall asleep because the light in their ger attracted many moths, and once the light was turned off they began falling onto the floor with a tapping noise, or onto us, which was disconcerting to begin with. Our only goal today was to get back to the city, but we did have time for a final walk through the landscape before setting off, which I really appreciated as I will be in the city for the next few days. They journey was punctuated by van issues - air in the brakes, then a puncture - but we then reached the tarmac-ed road into the city. I didn't notice the pollution especially when ... read more

Tomorrow I will embark on a 12-day tour of the Gobi desert, with two people I hardly know at all, an Italian guy and a German guy. Today I spent a day enjoying being able to eat for the first time in a few days, sorting out what I did and didn't need to take (I am leaving my two dresses and one pair of heels at the hostel) and thinking about not having internet or phone access for the next 12 days. This led me to consider how internet-dependent I am, and that maybe it is not such a bad thing to have enforced separation from outside communication. I also went for a walk down Peace Avenue, the main street in central Ulaanbaatar, which is pleasant enough, not beautiful but interesting enough buildings and shops, ... read more