Ulaan Bataar

After another delightful donutty breakfast, we were driven out of camp Elstei back to Ulaan Bataar where we had the rest of the day to explore the city again (thankfully under nicer weather conditions) and then spent a comfortable night at a four star hotel. My back is in severe pain from that stupid horse yesterday. After a ridiculously cheap lunch with Ruth and Duncan, me and Ali visited the monestry again so that I could take more pictures. Afterwards, we made another visit to the state department store for some last minute purchases. I bought a beautiful Mongolian piece of art and Ali purchased some whimsical felt slippers (I would have loved a pair myself except they dont make them in my size - Mongols have very small feet!). We met back up with Duncan and Ruth at the hotel only to discover that Duncan had lost his wallet - possibly stolen. Luckily he didn't have much money in it, but has to deal with the inconvenience of not having a visa card for the rest of his trip.

We had another insanely cheap Korean meal at a restaurant not too far from the hotel. The food was plentyful and delicious. We paid 5000 tugriks (about 2 pounds) each for 1 main meal, 2 beers and 15 complimentary small appetizing dishes. I took a picture of our table covered in plates. At one point I forgot which plate I was eating from because there were that many. Our hotel was beautiful and a much needed pit stop after living in a tent for the past 2 days. The hotel is called Bayangol and is a luxurious oasis in the middle of a poverty stricken shanty-like city. Ulaan Bataar, with a population of 804,000 (a third of the country), is surrounded by mountains: Bogd Uul, Songino Khairkhan, Chingeltei and Bayanzurkh. They all make up the Khentii range. The city experiences climatic extremes with temperatures ranging from -49 in winter to 38 above in the summer. Despite the fact that Mongolia has been economically depressed for over 700 years and is struggling to get back on its feet from total zero, the people seem to be very high spirited and very welcoming to foreigners. Its actually quite refreshing to see a country that is barely touched by the 20th century outside the capital. The phones are clunky, the officials are corrupt and... unfortunately, not a single place to download our digital photos.