Theatre trip

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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 little infrastructure to welcome tourists: the hotels are youth hostels, aimed at backpakers and have few comforts, there is nothing here approaching the luxury sector, the best hotel barely has 2 stars. There are rumours of a Shangri-La being built at some point in the future but that will be in the desert or nearby. The city is surrounded by large factories, providing a lot of pollution to the ambiant air. The traffic system is pure chaos: they attempted installing traffic lights but most of them don't work and the ones that do have no effect on traffic. They might be used during Christmas to provide entertainment but I even doubt that. Another striking thing is that there isn't a single cover for the manholes to the sewers, as they have all been stolen to be sold as scrap metal. The entire picture is polluted, chaotic, noisy and disorganised but there does reign an atmosphere of fun and activity.

The old ger camps surrounding the city have all but gone, to be replaced by factories. The only ones still present in the neighbourhood are for tourist purposes and hold restaurants or tour organisers. The beauty of Mongolia lies in its countryside, not in its cities.

We are finalising our preparations for the trip to Gobi. We are driving tomorrow morning 7 hours by jeep, south, to a ger camp. Three horses and a guide will meet us there and we shall directly get moving and head north-west to the old imperial city of Gengis Khan, Karakorum or Kharkhorim in mongolian, the capital until the soviet made it Ulan-Bataar. It will be three days of serious riding in the desert, with baking sun and feature-less terrain, certainly a pain, quite litteraly, to the bum during the ride but what a memory for later (you should see the mongolian sadles! far from comfort). We shall sleep in the open air and carry our own food and water, as taking tents would have involved Yaks and heavy equipment and, as such, slowing us down (also much greater costs). We have to cover about 30-40 kms a day, setting out very early before the sunrise, stopping for the better part of 4 hours during the middle of the day and carrying on until late at night, when the weather is fresh. The weather is promising to be baking during the day and freezing at night. The lady organising our tour said that we will build huge fires at night; am not sure where we will find the wood, but hey. I am glad we have a guide, as I would be rather lost without. On the 4th day, we rest in a ger, visit the city, where there will be a dress rehearsal of the nadaam during the day and, in the afternoon, set out for Ulan-Bataar, reaching it at about 20:00. Apparently, we are crossing the most interesting part of the desert, as it is the most changing in landscapes. We are starting out in the huge steppes; on the second day, we shall reach the sand dunes to finally end up, during the third, in the mountainous region just to the south west of Ulan-Bataar.

Am really quite excited but it is now time to head to the circus (as a spectator of course).

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Comments

[Mike Cooperman]

Interesting blog!
I would like to hear more about your trip to the Mongolian countryside. Thanks!

[Nick]

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