Ulaan Baatar

Pulling into Ulaan Baatar train station after 29 hours of train journey we eagerly jumped off the train and set about finding a hostel for a night or 2. Once settled in our huge double room, where it seemed we’d just kicked an entire family out of, we hit the town to explore a little and try to suss out some information on what to see and how to go about it in Mongolia. It quickly became apparent that everything required lots of time and a fair amount of money! Although living is very cheap it appears that the Mongolians have cottoned on to the needs and wants of international travellers and how to make a dollar or 2! Having chatted to a few tour agencies and been quoted silly money we found a note on our hostel wall asking for 2 people to join a couple who had been trying to arrange their own tour….perfect! We quickly tracked them down and chatted about what they wanted to do and what we had in mind and it all seemed to click – so a rough plan and route had been hatched, well to be fair to them they’d already done most of the hard work….we would spern the normal route of tour and just hire a driver, we would avoid the “tourist” camps and stay in either our own tents or in local nomadic family Gers along route, we would skip having a guide and chef and instead not have a clue where we were and cook our own food – all this meant that instead of paying around $75 a day we could bring the cost down to $30-$35 each per day. With the hard part done over the next day or so we checked out UB, which to be fair isn’t exactly the best city in the world but hopefully has enough on offer to keep us busy for a day or 2! Mongolia has at one time or another been both Soviet or Chinese ruled but it is now enjoying independency and it’s boom town of new Mongolian money is UB – it’s a wierd mix of old decaying Soviet tower blocks, crumbling Chinese temples and new multi million pound buildings. There are luxury Japanese cars and trendy fashion labels everywhere but still the city has hot water shut downs for parts of the year, limited lighting in lots of buildings and street kids everywhere who live underground in the sewege systems to escape the harsh conditions!!