After travelling for 13 hours by bus, over some of the worst roads I have encountered so far, I finally made it out of Russia and arrived in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. The bus terminal was quite far from the city center, and not feeling up to figuring out the Mongolian public transport system, I hauled a cab. Needless to say, the taxi driver didn't speak any english and addresses are not really a thing in UB. Luckily, the main avenue through the city is stuck in a permanent traffic jam, so we had about 50 minutes to figure out where I needed to go. Eventually we managed to call the hostel and they explained the driver where to go. During all of this, I got to enjoy the view of Ulan Bator at night. It is a very modern city, with a lot going on, a welcome change from the smaller Russian cities I had visited before.
Ulan Bator proved to be an interesting enough place to hang around for three days. The highlight without a doubt was when a British couple and I went to a big event in a place called 'the Wrestling Palace'. We took a taxi there, and once we arrived we had to figure out where to get tickets. It turned out we had to buy them from a van in the parking lot. Once inside, we arrived in a dim-lit, concrete hall. At this point we started to wonder if maybe we came to the wrong place. However, we went on and once inside we found a podium decorated with purple and gold. The event turned out to be singing competition. We stayed for a bit, but didn't bother to see who would become Mongolia's next idol.
A big wish for my stay in Mongolia however was to explore its countryside. Mongolia is one of the least densely populated countries in the world, beaten only by Greenland. Half of its population lives in the capital, and the large majority of the remaining people live nomadic lifestyles in tents. We got a group of backpackers together, added a driver and a guide and went into the 'wild' for 3 days.
On our first day we went into Terelj National Park, hiked up and into some interesting rock formations, and visited a monastery. We stayed in a summer ger owned by a Mongolian family who themselves were staying in a little house they had build. We kept a fire going in the ger's stove, and survived our first cold Mongolian night.
The next day, we went for a horse ride after breakfast, and then got back into our car to drive to our next sleeping address. On the way there, we stopped by the Genghis Khan Statue Complex. In the middle of nowhere (although almost every part of Mongolia can be described as such) stands a 40 meter tall, steel statue of the great Genghis Khan. It is honestly an impressive sight, and through a stairwell hidden in the horses tail you can make it up through the statue and look out over the surrounding hills.
Afterwards, we continued on to the Kazakh family where would spend our second nights. The family itself had a concrete winter ger where they were staying, and a second one was being built. Once again, they let us sleep in their summer ger.
This family herded goats and sheeps, and the animals had just gotten their young. Nomad families usually let their animals roam free in the wild during the day, and bring them back in at night. However, the baby animals can't walk far distances yet, so they have to remain in the barn while their parents graze. We made it in time to witness the daily reunion!
We spend our last night playing games and drinking some beers, and at one point went on an off-road quest to find a supermarket. The next day we somehow didn't manage to wake up in time for the seperation of the baby animals from their parents. So we had breakfast and went onto our final destination of our trip, another monastery, however this one had been destroyed during the reign of the Soviets.
The remainder of this final day was spend preparing for my next, 28 hour train journey. The next day I would embark early in the morning on the final leg of the Transmongolian railway, onwars to Beijing!
