Mongolia: UlaanBaatar

From the moment we woke up in the train after our aweful experience at the border, we were stunned by Mongolia's beautiful scenery. Mist was clearing and the Russian flat silver birch land had faded to magnificent open spaces with high hills, where the first ger tents were showing up in the valleys. After an hour, we arrived in UlaanBaatar(UB), the capital of this enormous country that only counts 2 million inhabitants (of which 800.000 in UB). Although Mongolia might not be very known to us, its history is quite impressive. It was the birthplace og Ginghis Khan, and proof has been found that the original inhabitants of northern America, the Indians, were originally Mongolians that croosed the Bering street in Alaska.

UB is a fascinating city. Although it is dirty and very ugly, you feel good in its streets as sson as you dropped off your backpack and start wandering around. The people are friendly and the level of english speaking people is higher than expected. Unfortunately, we were also confronted with begging street children that live underground next to the pipes of the central heating system, a heritage of Mongolia's communist past. But these kids are not agressive (the first kid was very happy when Eline gave it her icecream), and nor is anything else in UB. What is also interesting is that they're building everywhere in UB (what we would feel later on...),as the country is very wanted by international lending institutions due to its efficient democracy, something very rare among underdeveloped countries.

After having taken some pictures on the main square, we went to Dave's place, an English pub at the main square, which looked like the typical place where westerners hang out in exotic countries in movies: a nice terrass on a public square where an Englishman in a white shirt reads his book by acup of tea or a G&T,depending on what time it is. As it was too late to go cultural (museums were about to close), we went for further exploration and headed to the public park. This was a discovery, that wasn't in the guides. The whole park was huge and in decay, but some children's attractions where up and running. These vibrant colours in that grey scenery were magnificant, and we took loads of pictures. We even risked our lives in a small wheel (reuzenrad)!!!

We had our first G&T in weeks and a pizza at Marco Polo, wrote some postcards and headed home quickly, as a storm came up. While walking, we noticed how dirty and dusty this town actually is, as we had to fight our way to a true 'dessert storm' of sand, dust and garbage.

The following day we visited a museum stuffed with stuffed animals (hehe) and dinosaur skeletons, and.... well that was about it... we wasted the rest of our day by looking for a bar we didn't find and a restaurant we couldn't find either.

The day after we started by hopping into the small monastery next to the hostel. It was great to have a look at this ceremony where real monks did everyday ceremonial rituals for the locals in that neighbourhood. (Buddhism is getting reintroduced in Mongolia after communism. This causes some funny side effects,like monks that read their sms's while chanting, or monks opening their car) As the chanting was getting us in some sort of trance after 10 minutes already, we headed for our first real sight, Gandantegchinlen Khiid monastery. Thiswas a marvellous sight, with an impressive huge Buddha and countless smaller statues around it. There were also many praying wheels, and Eline spinned them all... As this was my (F) first experience with the grandiosity and beauty of buddhist monasteries, I was stunned...
Afterwards we went to the winter palace of the Boghd Khan, whom used to be the spiritual and political leader of Mongolia during the times when chicken still had teeth. Here we saw some great buildings, and it was great to see that some building were not yet restaurated, so we could see how well they were preserved. We refused to pay to take pictures, as it was just too much, and we were followed by the cashier so she could check on us (really!) (bitch...). We took some great shots anyway (Ha!). Then we had a strange experince. We went to an hotel to get money, and the ATM seemed to work but didn't give any money. 3 minutes after complaining at the reception desk, 5 persons of that bank were there to investigate the case. Impressive, but also strange... An ATM that doesn't work well without a warning is indeed the worst advertising your bank can get, and the reaction was surprising but correct.
That evening we met up with Phil and Amy, which was great. After dinner, up to the hotel to catch some sleep,as our Green Route Extension started the next day...