Attila Hotel Ulan Bator

... at all of even leaving the bar!! So dangerous as Mongolia is reknowned for pickpockets!! Anyway - someone removed by boots - so I'm told and apparantly I took a shower but couldn't find my room after it - a total blackout by us both!!

29th Sept - woke up in a rush - late - with horrific hangovers!! Serves us right - but to the delight of our travelling group. Feeling very ill, we boarded the minibus to take us ...

... the pavement can be expected... we decided to limit the number of times we'd cross these roads!

The city appears to be developing fast with a lot of construction work taking place on the outskirts. In the centre there is an ultra modern area, with high rise buildings around a modern square, then the older more run down street surrounding it. Just like the roads out of the city, the ...

... of this...
WE gave up in the end, left him to his devices, and went to find the district police station through the pouring rain. They spoke no English, and had absolutely no concept of what a report is, and when I gave them a name and number of our officer Ganbold, they got excited, went off for ten minutes, and signed to us later that we need to go to the central police station, because this detective is stationed there.
An hour and a pizza later we were ...

I had a pretty good sleep last night, our tent was boiling at one point as the fire was just too hot but it cooled down after a while. I was awoken buy a Mongolian lady making the fire at 6am and saw that it was really good weather outside dso I decided to go hiking instead of lying in bed. I wasnt sure how long the weather would hold up as it rained so much yesterday, I managed to have a good few hours walking around ...

... resources were exported to the Soviet Union and despite subsequent industrialisation (as the Chinese had kept Mongolia poor), Mongolia remains an extremely poor country.

Mongolia does not have the infrastructure to develop it's own natural resources and nearly everything has to be exported and 'finished off' elsewhere and as an example of madhouse economics, is then re-imported including some of the cashmere goods for which it is famous.
Ulan Bator, Mongolia roberc02

... Zaisan Memorial. The city is only small and it only took me a day to see everything here. The people are generally really nice and friendly but you do get alot of beggars on the street. One guy deserved an oscar he came up to me outside Bogd Khan Palace and asked if I was english and then gave me a printed out English piece of paper which read that 2 years ago a fire in his house killed his whole family and then the guy who only seconds ago was ...

... session who actually went to a Russian school. His English was perfect, but I found out that he is 12 years old and can speak English, Mongolian, and Russian. It amazes me that there are these schools so available to them. I can not think of a single school that I could have gone to where I could be taught everyday in a different language. Also, what an opportunity it is for a person who wants to become a teacher. Apparently the teachers are all ...

... but when you’re surrounded by such poverty you can hardly leave food, so we struggled on gulping it down.

The next morning we departed early following a breakfast of rice and milk and headed towards the old capital city (Kharkhorin). Along the way we saw more foxes, buzzards and our first eagles. We stopped for lunch around 11:00 and then continued to Erdene Zuu Khiid, the first Buddist monastry in Mongolia. In the afternoon we ...

... a Russian-made nuclear bomb shelter on wheels (as you will see, this beast could withstand anything) and leave Ulan Bator. Driving out of the city, we see absolutely pristine rolling green countryside, dotted by hundreds of sheep and horses. Huge hawks and vultures catch air currents and glide effortlessly through the sky about us. Occasionally, we'd pass men wearing traditional dels galloping by on horses, herding sheep. About 20 km out of the ...

... soared to 35 degrees it was shorts on and shade for lunchtime to avoid the burning sun. It wasn't far before we reached a national park which boasted towering mountains above the Gobi desert and lying in the mountain canyons was an ice glacier which ran over 3km in length. We set off walking through the canyon and sliding over the ice which was so strange to see in the desert never mind the heat of the day. It was stunning and after 3km of walking on the Glacier it was time to ...