Ulaanbaatar

Europe
July 10th 2010

Published: July 10th 2010

The bus to Ulaanbaatar was an interesting journey. It took us over 3 hours to cross the boarder, which was ok considering the train can take up to 11 hours. The Mongolians gave on of our passengers a warm welcome by trying to make her pay for a new visa due to her original one hadn't been signed correctly by the embassy. Luckily she stood up for herself and the 'error' magically disappeared.

The trip was made a little more enjoyable because the Austrian guy I sat next to and his friends spoke English, so I remembered how to speak again.

As soon as we had crossed the Mongolian border our bus driver, in his infinite wisdom and despite us already being late, decided to stop for a 40 minute lunch break. The boarder town was a dive, as most border towns are, and the restaurant matched the town. Dirty toilets, a rundown exterior and a dirty kiosk buzzing with flies. I could not believe that the tourists actually entered this place and ate there. I was wondering who would drive the bus after the passengers and driver came down with sudden food poisoning.

It was actually quite exciting to see my first glimpse of little round gers perched on the hillside and the camels, goats and sheep. Until now I had not seen much animal life from the train in Russia, but once in Mongolia you could immediately tell how integral animals are to Mongolian life.

We arrived in UB at 8.30 and my introduction to the city was not that great. I think due to it being dusk and the bus dropping us where we had no idea where we were, I felt a little uneasy. It did not help that the bus had to wait several minutes before the road was clear due to two drunk Mongols having a nasty punch up (which included a little blood) in the middle of the road.

Found the guesthouse which was not that flash but just good to be off the street in a strange town.

Next day I was lucky enough that the guesthouse found two other people who were doing the same 2 day tour to Terelj National Park that I had wanted to do. This meant that the price came down, but more importantly it would be very boring going by myself. It was also great that the couple were from Australia so we had a lot in common. Our driver was a real character who spoke only a few words of English but he was a champion in charades and very comical.

We were kind of dumped in the national park with our driver miming that he would come back to pick us up the next day. What time was anyone's guess. The park was very scenic with some magnificant rock formations, one called 'Turtle Rock' and was dotted with several ger camps. Most of these were set up for tourists but some Mongolian families also offered tourists to stay in their own gers.

It was typical that we had no idea what our itinerary was and things kind of just unfolded. We were sat down in a ger and served a late lunch of a kind of soup consisting of noodles, grisely meat and potatoes and again just left sitting there wondering what to do. We decided to do a short hike up to a monastery/meditation centre which was very picturesque. The weather was reminding me of Melbourne as it couldn't make up its mind if it was going to be hot, windy or raining so ended up doing all three.

For dinner we were served basically the same dish as lunch trying to be disguised as something else by changing the shape of the noodles. Just like the lunch, this dish had additional fibre added in the shape of little black hairs - ewwwww. Luckily we located a small shop in the park (as it is actually very touristy) where we bought of all things an Australian bottle of red wine and some chocolate. This was our lifesaver.

The bed in the ger was really hard like sleeping on a board and I kept waking up to turn over and start pain on the opposite side. In the early morning we were woken by the sounds of sheep, dops, goates etc. that sounded like they were being murdered. I think it just sounds like that when you're only half awake in the morning.

Breakfast was hard bread with some curdy stuff that looked like a cross between butter and cream, and some jam. I had naively thought that there might be some semblance of authenticity in our stay but was beginning to doubt it. We were not joining the Mongolian family in their ger so did not get to see their way of life close up. But we all agreed that they wouldn't be having bread and jam for breakfast. And our noodles from lunch and dinner must have come straight from a UB supermarket.

The Mongolian kids were very cute though and they liked to play games with us, running up and doing 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' type moves and pretend hitting each other with sticks! Some of them were dressed in traditional costume and we didn't know if that was for our benefit or not. The granny was a little scary and took no prisoners. She seemed to keep the family in order and looked like she could pack a mean punch. She was a comical sight dressed up in her long traditional robe with a fag hanging out the side of her mouth.

We went for a one hour horse 'ride' around the national park. Wasn't a proper ride when you're lead around by a Mongolian boy like a two year old. He was obviously very worried that the tourists couldn't control the horses and was contantly keeping an eye on us, even though the horses new the route well and obviously did it a few times each day.

Lunch was, guess what? The same potatoe, noodle and meat soup only this time without the soup part. After the 3rd meal, the food decided to take its revenge on my stomach and I was lucky it was time to head back to UB.

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