Dodgy Mongolia

Trip Start Oct 22, 2005
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63
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Mongolia  ,
Thursday, January 12, 2006

After a very warm nights sleep we had breakfast inside the deserted hotel. The food here was amazing, breakfast was two courses. Four slices of toast with cheese and jam to begin, followed by a full hot meal. We rolled outside to have our first shower in three days and washed some of our dirty clothes. While Megs was enjoying her shower a guy came around and began scraping the snow off the roofs of the Gers. Rick jumped in and lent a hand with ours. By the time we had finished lunch was ready. We were still very full but sucked it up and ate another three courses. Megs was struggling to eat it all; these Mongolian's sure love their food! We then waited for our lift back to town. He arrived a little late but the roads were covered in snow and ice so we were lucky he managed to get through at all. Our driver was a nice guy who stopped at all the photogenic spots and pointed out rock formations for us.

Back in town the affiliated travel agent kindly allowed us to store our bags in their office and then they spent ten minutes warning us how unsafe the city was and to watch our daypacks. They don't even shop in certain stores due to the pickpockets. We reluctantly set off. Within five minutes our feet and hands were frozen but we had a quick look at the Sūkhbaatar Square, named after Damdin Sūkhbaatar the Mongolian revolutionary hero and leader of independent Mongolia. His statue resides in the centre of the square. To thaw out we headed to the State Department Store. This appeared to be a relic of the Soviet shopping experience. We looked around for a while and bought some food for the train at the supermarket. With little else to do we headed back to get our bags. The tour agent tried to hail us a cab but with them all whizzing past already full she flagged down a passing motorist on his way home and bundled us in. Thankfully he wasn't a murderer and dropped us off at the station even helping us with our bags.

We found our train and figured out the carriage number and beds then waited till we could board. When they allowed people to board we got on and were greeted by two guys already in our 4 bed cabin. They seemed nice helping Meg with her bags and showing her where to hang her coat. Rick however felt something was amiss and was wiser to their tricks. He saw one of them trying to open his day pack and felt them pat down his pockets while he tried to put the bags away in the top storage area. Turns out they were not even supposed to be in our cabin, let alone the train and they were just looking for easy targets. Thankfully we have everything locked and in zippered pockets so they got nothing. We'd also moved everything away from them. It's just another reason why we found Mongolia very dodgy. Thankfully our real cabin mates were two young uni students who spoke a little English. Rick enjoyed a beer and a chat with them, though we were surprised to see the beer in Mongolia is served in a soft drink bottle.
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