In the Steppes of Ghengis Khan

Greetings from Mongolia!

I have been here for 3 days now and its pretty cool. Its a lot different from Russia, (people smile, cars sometimes let you cross the road etc), and there is sunshine, very very bright sunshine. Its still a little cold, but warmer than Siberia! Since arriving in Mongolia, I have also been reintroduced to an old concept - advertising! Everywhere I look there are signs (mostly in English), directing me to 'Bar Pub', 'London Pop', 'Cafe Internet', 'Traditional Mongolian Fast Food' etc. In Russia everything was hidden away with almost no signs, and when there was a sign it was in Russian Cyrillic. Even at train stations or on the underground in Moscow, the station name was barely ever visible, so it was always a bit of guess work to understand where you were.

Ulan Bator is a fairly small city, wedged in between a couple of mountain ranges, which can be seen for various points in the city. A couple of years ago they decided to drop the Russian style street names, 'Karl Marx Ave' 'Lenin Street' etc, which were so popular throughout Siberia, in favour for more Mongolian personalities 'Genghis Khan Ave' etc. In fact Genghis Khan features a lot here; he has been reincarnated as a street, a beer, an expensive vodka, a bar, a restaurant and a hotel, as well as statues of him outside the national government building etc. It is still a soviet style town however, and looks and feels (in some aspects) like a Russian city. Mongolia became independent from China in 1911 and was then taken over and restructured under Russian influence. Ulan bator actually means 'Red Hero', a hangover from the communist times, and has only been a fixed city for about 60 years, (before this it was a groups of Ger's [tents] which moved around every few months).

I have visited the main monastery, the square and the natural history museum, (many dinosaur bones and eggs have been found here). Yesterday I took a trip out to the countryside and stayed in a traditional Ger, (a round white tent made of wood and sheep's wool for insulation), and have eaten some traditional foods. We visited a local family who had a colour TV, video and fridge inside their Ger, something we had not expected. This morning we woke up in our Ger and after breakfast we went horse riding round the Steppes, with mountains on each side. We stopped halfway and visited another Ger were we were given a series of drinks. The first was hot yam's milk, followed by cold fermented horse milk, then a strange bright orange beer with bits floating in it, then a shot of Mongolian vodka. The horse milk was so disgusting, every time I placed the cup on the table, the Mongolian man would say 'Drink Drink!' and pass me back the cup! After this we wrote our horses back to our Ger to collect our stuff. On the way mine slipped in some ice and fell over. I had to try and hold onto a wooden fence, while trying to free my leg from the saddle in case the horse ran off. We then road the horse to the bus stop, and changed into a mini bus that would bring us back to Ulan Bator, leaving me the rest off the day to do a little more sight seeing, and to purchase the compulsory bottle of Genghis Khan vodka!

In a Mongolian restaurant today I met a couple of Russian's who took me to Strings, the local nightclub where a live band were playing covers of any songs people requested, they were very good. I returned to my hostel for a few more beers with some other travellers, and now I should go to bed as its 4:00am and I have to be up at &am for my train to Beijing. So the next time you'll here from me will be when I'm in China, a 30 hour train journey from here!

TTFN
Phil :-)