There ARE things to do here, honest!
Trip Start
Aug 11, 2006
1
21
27
Trip End
Nov 19, 2006
Ulan Baator,
Mongolia
Monday, October 23, 2006
I stayed with some poeple that I met on Olkhon - Carolin, Hamish, Ann, Helle, a swiss guy called Sebastian that we found on the train, and alas, the annoying Kers followed us too. Managed to evade him though after we got to the hostel, huzzah! It's nice being with people I've already know for a week or so
Gandan Khiid
. Not long in normal terms, but in traveller terms it's ages! We relaxed for a couple of days at the hostel - a really nice place called the Golden Gobi (if you're ever in Ulaan Baator, this is the place to be!). Finally had a shower, hooray!Our first morning was quite surreal - I had about an hour and a half sleep on the train, after partying with Anna and Dan (that I met in St Petersburg) in the restaurant car, and arguing with the knofe wielding Kazakh couple that locked me out of the compartment (Mum, don't fret, it was fine!), so I didn't really know what was going on. we ended up at a Mongolian wrestling game - I've never seen so many grown men in their underwear before! Mongolian wrestling is quite odd - the men wear a little waistcoat, shiny pants and a pointy hat that someone looks after for them while thay fight, about 20 at a time, in individual matches. I'm not sure, I spent a lot of the time napping on Hamish's shoulder. Before matches, and if they win, they do an 'eagle dance' - there's a pole that the run around flapping thier arms at. The girl at the hostel, Ugi, said it was to ask for good luck or something. After this, Carolin and I went to the ominously named Black Market in search of thick tights and other warm clothes for out trip - i think it was bigger than the Ismailovo market in Moscow, and definetly scarier. There's pickpockets everywhere - a nasty man stuck his hand in Carolin's pocket, but she only had a business card from the hostel in there, thank god. There was all sorts of stuff - the usual at, but also traditional clothes (Carolin and I are having a jacket made each by a tailor that comes to the hostel), ger parts, huge huge winter boots, bits of animal, tacky chinese tat, you want it, they'll have it!
The attraction of Mongolia though, isn't the capital, but the countryside. There's the Gobi desert in the south, the Altai mountains in the west, and a big lake in the north. It takes days and days to get to these places though, because there aren't really roads, just rough tracks. We've decided to compromise and take a 10 day jeep trip around central Mongolia - there's big sand dunes and a few lakes to see, and a whole lot of empty space.
