Mongolia is calling

[Matt_01]

Next place was going to be the National Museum of Mongolian Dinosaurs. These are just photos of the walk there.

 

[Matt_01]

Inside the museum.

 

[Matt_01]

Just random photos as I was heading back to the hotel.

And after walking around 15km-16km time for the first beer in Mongolia

 

[Matt_01]

At around 5:30 I headed up to the lounge, it is not a hotel lounge as many of this site would know. It is more like a bar and restaurant. It has some good views of the city and I ended up eating there.

I had read that in Mongolia the main food group is meat and if you are vegetarian food options maybe limited. I am not a vegetarian and I had also read they like to cook the meat, This is the Mongolian version of medium rare. To wasn’t to bad and not as dry as one would think.

 

[Matt_01]

Later in the evening I just headed back out for an evening look. There was music playing and the traffic was still bad and the police whistles trying to direct traffic was some what amusing. The third photo will come back to haunt me but I will get to that on day 2.

 

[RooFlyer]

Is that Russian on the various buildings? Ulaanbaatar looks more interesting than I imagined. Value in TRs!

 

[Matt_01]

Day 2 - One leaving the hotel and the streets were quite, I just figured it was Saturday however there was a lot of noise come from Sukhbaatar Square so I went to find out what was going on. There had been some very busy people during the night as it did not look like this yesterday, it turns out it is Mother and Children’s Day which is a national public and has celebrated for over 60 years. I will fess up I didn’t know anything about Mother and Children’s Day, google provided that information.

 

[Matt_01]

Next stop was the National Amusement Park, it was a good place for the kids and I did not stay long. Just long enough to claim the ‘being there, done that’

 

[Matt_01]

As I am a bit of a train buff I decided to head towards the Ulaanbaatar Railway Central Station with the view to get on a train to go somewhere and back. These are just photos from along the way and it was further than I thought to get there.
The park still seems to be in building phase.

Further on there was a number of locomotives that where on display but it was locked up so the photos are from the outside.

 

[Matt_01]

After seeing the trains I thought I was almost there and soon found out I had a bit further to go and along the way found a market area, it seemed to have something for everyone.

 

[Matt_01]

Finally I arrived at the station and as I had known in the back of my mind there was no short trip to there and back available. Although I could not read the board I worked out from local departure times and the destination arrival times nothing would work. Looking at the passengers and their luggage they were in for the long haul.

 

[Matt_01]

Time to head back to the hotel and as per usual I am taking the long way so a couple of photos along the way to the Geser Temple.


I am sure this means something different and I will admit my thoughts were in the gutter.

No idea where these stairs led to and I wasn’t willing to find out.

Arrived at the temple.

 

[Matt_01]

Next stop the hotel and in no particular order, drop off the back pack, up date the TR, respond to MrsM TXT from this morning, get something to eat etc.
I noticed this on the way back - dam missed it by a few days but who am I kidding, I have never run a marathon and not about to start.

Dinner

I have noticed that ice cream shops are all over the place so gave it a go it was not bad

Up date TR - This is just my opinion, should you plan a trip to Mongolia and spend time in Ulaanbaatar give some consideration to the hotel location. From the central Sukhbaatar Square area most things to see are within a 1km radius. There may be other thing to see in the suburbs but I couldn’t find any. Even if there was there seems to be no taxis and public transport is via bus.

After 2 full days in Ulaanbaatar you can see almost every thing. I have another full day here tomorrow before heading out on the tour so rather than just wasting a day I booked onto a short notice trip to some place that is about 100km away and can be done in a day trip.

 

[Matt_01]

Is that Russian on the various buildings? Ulaanbaatar looks more interesting than I imagined. Value in TRs!

It could be, from what I understand Mongolia was a puppet state of the Soviet Union for around 70 years. After the collapse of of the Soviet Union Mongolia peacefully transitioned away from communism.

 

[Matt_01]

Day 3 - I am heading north around 100km to Aglag Buteel Temple which is quite new at around 10yo and buildings are still been added. I will most likely add a couple of posts for today’s activities. Up front I will state that a few photos and other comments may not be for all however IMO TRs are about real time experiences both good and bad.

The driver picked me up and took my back pack put it in the back of the wagon and pointed me to the front seat. He was a very nice chap and his English was very good. During our conversations me mentioned he had worked in the UK for 2-3 years and the US for 9 years, all good so far. Driving through Ulaanbaatar, the traffic and missing pot holes at times I thought I would have been better off in the back seat. The we had to pull over to get fuel, the petrol type as his wagon was almost empty. This is when I noticed a shed at the service station and I had a pretty good idea what it was.

If you haven’t worked it out the tip is bring your own loo paper and we are still in the outer suburbs of Ulaanbaatar.

When in discussion with the driver he often mentioned Ubi, I asked if this is the local lingo for the capital. He quickly responded with ‘no’ and went on to mention that most tourists cannot pronounce Ulaanbaatar correctly. Following this he asked me to say Ulaanbaatar and apparently I passed the pronunciation test.

 

[Matt_01]

On the way and back to Temple we had to slow down a number of times as the animals have the RoW. We arrived some 3 hours after pickup including a coffee stop and a snack on horse meat.

The temple grounds.

 

[Matt_01]

A few more photos of the temple and lunch. The milk tea is not was I was expecting, it is non pasteurised milk with salt and other things added. As for lunch the white meat is lambs tail which is basically fat.

 

[Matt_01]

The last stop was initially meant to be the first stop but it was not open. The Gandan Monastery.

 

[utaussiefan]

Fascinating trip report from Mongolia, I've always wanted to visit. If you get a chance, see some Mongolian contortion performance, there is a reason why they are the absolute best in Cirque Du Soleli.

 

[Matt_01]

Day 1 of the tour – I am heading off to stay with a nomadic family in the Gurvanbulag Valley. We drove for around 3 hours and in of nowhere turned left on to a dirt road for another 1.5hrs. Lovely family, great hospitality and it was interesting to see how they live. They have a couple of Gers one for living and sleeping and the other for cooking. They also have a separate Ger that is used when the tourists visit. Don’t have many other words rather than this is one of the reasons I wanted to come to Mongolia. So from now on just a few photos.

The wagon and photos taken on route.