We pulled into Ulaanbaatar Station without any delay. It had been a pretty relaxed morning. I slept in a little (I did get up briefly to watch first light over the Mongolian Steppe, though. One of the most beautiful and colorful sunrises I have ever seen - refer to the picture in yesterday's post) and ate some breakfast, sitting in my compartment, staring out the window. I made some coffee and finished my book. I chatted awhile with the Aussies next door. It was a nice morning.
Ulaanbaatar Station is a small, one track station with a long concrete platform, and one station building with a few shops, a bank, etc. The platform is open to the public. No security, nothing to hold back potential porters, pickpockets, tour guides, family members, whatever. Every platform in every Chinese train station was heavily guarded and required that you show your passport and your tickets through three separate checkpoints before you can make it to the platform. I imagine this station in UB is a problem in summer when hundreds of potential tourists get off the train at the same time (there are two trains making this trip per week in summer - only one per week now) and are immediately overwhelmed by people wanting something from them. Beggars wanting change, porters wanting work, taxi drivers leading the disoriented, thieves having a go at the crowds. But it is too cold now and the passengers too few to draw out the hoards of train greeters. I had no problems today.
The one thing I absolutely had to do was find someone named Nasa (a cool name) who would be waiting for me at the platform in order to personally hand me my tickets to Irkutsk for a few days from now. Nasa turned out to a be a plump, Mongolian woman with a big smile. But I was not her only customer. She was the contact of the agency I used in Beijing to arrange my visas and my tickets on the trans-siberian. But she was also a tour guide. Her duty was to find me, hand me my tickets, and then find her real customers which just so happened to be my Aussie cabin mates. So I found her, got my tickets, and she led the Aussies away. They were off to the country to experience a homestay in a local ger community (gers are the traditional tents the nomadic Mongolians live in - most Mongolians, even in the city suburbs, still live in these tents). I remained behind on the platform.
I had booked a reservation at the Lotus Guesthouse, a hostel in the city run by a group of Mongolians who use the profits to maintain an orphanage in the coutryside outside the city. I had the address and I had earlier prepared a quick map that I could use to walk the 3 km distance into the city. After some minor difficulty reading the street signs (all in Cyrillic), I managed to make my way to the hostel door. The hostel is located in a small apartment within an old Soviet-style building - like all things Soviet, very rundown. You have to turn off the main road, and twist around several alley ways to find the discreet, metal door with a small sign indicating that this is in fact the door to the hostel. The huge, heavy, metal security door is a common one shared amonsgt the hostel and the other residents of apartments in that area. There is a punch-in code keypad to open the door. And next to the small sign with the name of the hostel is a smaller sign that says "doorbell" with an arrow pointing to an empty socket with some screws. There was no doorbell. And since the door led to a shared space and not just the hostel, I had no option but to wait for someone to pass through. But it was quiet. And my cellphone doesn't work in Mongolia. Wait, wait, wait.
Ten minutes later an American girl named Nilika approached the door to find me kicking at it and cursing up at the 3rd floor windows where I knew the hostel was located. She asked me if I was staying at the hostel and was surprised when I said I was and had a reservation because the owner of the hostel had told her it would only be her and a man from Bangladesh today. So despite my email confirmation from the owner on my reservation from a week ago, I was forgotten. And a good thing she found me too because the owner wasn't around for the rest of the day. She leaves the hostel to her guests each evening and returns home. I had never been to a hostel without workers.
Nilika let me in and I set up camp in one of the empty beds (I had many to choose from). Nilika, from Brooklyn, had grown up in Afghanistan where her father had worked. She is a white girl, fluent in Farsi, now living in Brooklyn, and on a business trip to Mongolia to oversee a new project for her work with the Asia Foundation, a group that supports humanity projects around Asia, including Afghanistan and Mongolia. She had been working for three weeks and was taking this last week as her vacation time. She also told me that tomorrow (Monday) was the start of the Mongolian White Moon Festival or their version of the new year based on the lunar calendar. Apparently, during this festival, all shops, government buildings, museums, tourist attractions are closed for a few weeks. Kind of rotten timing on my part. However, she told me she was staying with this hostel because she wanted to go out and see the orphanage. The orphangae would be celebrating the start of the new year themselves. Since I had no other plans and will likely not be able to create any, I said I'd tag along. I'm quite excited for it.
I also stocked up on water and basic essentials today since every shop throughout the city will be closed soon. And I was famished. Nilika recommended a German run cafe to me nearby that served good western and Mongolian food with english menus so I left for the cafe. The cafe was nice. The cafe workers were Mongolian and spoke impeccable English. And the old German woman sat behind a display of pastries and smiled as I walked through the door. I took a seat and ordered Mongolian milk tea (made with salt rather than sugar) and beef and vegetable borscht (an excellent Russian-style stew). I had never tasted anything so delicious. The food was excellent and a complete change to the Chinese food I had been eating for the last six months. I was quite satsified. There were other foreigners seated nearby. Two British business expatriates whom I surmised were here for the big resource race the world seems recently obsessed with out in Mongolia's vast resource-rich countryside. And there were two female monks in crimson robes, heads shaved, talking over what looked like a very serious matter. They both spoke in Australian English, one woman was white, the other looked Mongolian. A curious crowd in the restaurant today.
I finished my borscht, went up to the old German lady to pay and she asked me if I enjoyed the meal. I said I loved the meal and she told me, "well I would hope so! I made it after all. I've been making it for years and the secret ingredient is a little dash of liebe," spoken with an air of mysticism (liebe means love in German). She asked me where I was staying and when she found out I had met Nilika (small foreign crowd here), she asked me if I would deliver a book to her the next time I saw her because, "she can't keep it and since she only has a few days to read it, she should have it as soon as possible." The book looked dense, both in page numbers and subject matter...
I'm a bit disheartened by the fact that most everything will be closed during my stay here in UB. But getting the chance to visit the orphanage tomorrow will be fun, especially since we will be able to celebrate the festival with them.
I'll finish with a few Mongolia fun facts: UB is the coldest capital of any country in the world (it was -25C today), over 40% of all Mongolians live in UB which means there are more cows than people in the countryside, Genghis Khan's real name is Chingis Khan and he is like a god here with a 40 meter statue of him located just outside the city, and horse riding is a national sport and every year they hold a horse racing tournament in which the jockeys are no older than 7. Yeehaw!
Ulaanbaatar Station is a small, one track station with a long concrete platform, and one station building with a few shops, a bank, etc. The platform is open to the public. No security, nothing to hold back potential porters, pickpockets, tour guides, family members, whatever. Every platform in every Chinese train station was heavily guarded and required that you show your passport and your tickets through three separate checkpoints before you can make it to the platform. I imagine this station in UB is a problem in summer when hundreds of potential tourists get off the train at the same time (there are two trains making this trip per week in summer - only one per week now) and are immediately overwhelmed by people wanting something from them. Beggars wanting change, porters wanting work, taxi drivers leading the disoriented, thieves having a go at the crowds. But it is too cold now and the passengers too few to draw out the hoards of train greeters. I had no problems today.
The one thing I absolutely had to do was find someone named Nasa (a cool name) who would be waiting for me at the platform in order to personally hand me my tickets to Irkutsk for a few days from now. Nasa turned out to a be a plump, Mongolian woman with a big smile. But I was not her only customer. She was the contact of the agency I used in Beijing to arrange my visas and my tickets on the trans-siberian. But she was also a tour guide. Her duty was to find me, hand me my tickets, and then find her real customers which just so happened to be my Aussie cabin mates. So I found her, got my tickets, and she led the Aussies away. They were off to the country to experience a homestay in a local ger community (gers are the traditional tents the nomadic Mongolians live in - most Mongolians, even in the city suburbs, still live in these tents). I remained behind on the platform.
I had booked a reservation at the Lotus Guesthouse, a hostel in the city run by a group of Mongolians who use the profits to maintain an orphanage in the coutryside outside the city. I had the address and I had earlier prepared a quick map that I could use to walk the 3 km distance into the city. After some minor difficulty reading the street signs (all in Cyrillic), I managed to make my way to the hostel door. The hostel is located in a small apartment within an old Soviet-style building - like all things Soviet, very rundown. You have to turn off the main road, and twist around several alley ways to find the discreet, metal door with a small sign indicating that this is in fact the door to the hostel. The huge, heavy, metal security door is a common one shared amonsgt the hostel and the other residents of apartments in that area. There is a punch-in code keypad to open the door. And next to the small sign with the name of the hostel is a smaller sign that says "doorbell" with an arrow pointing to an empty socket with some screws. There was no doorbell. And since the door led to a shared space and not just the hostel, I had no option but to wait for someone to pass through. But it was quiet. And my cellphone doesn't work in Mongolia. Wait, wait, wait.
Ten minutes later an American girl named Nilika approached the door to find me kicking at it and cursing up at the 3rd floor windows where I knew the hostel was located. She asked me if I was staying at the hostel and was surprised when I said I was and had a reservation because the owner of the hostel had told her it would only be her and a man from Bangladesh today. So despite my email confirmation from the owner on my reservation from a week ago, I was forgotten. And a good thing she found me too because the owner wasn't around for the rest of the day. She leaves the hostel to her guests each evening and returns home. I had never been to a hostel without workers.
Nilika let me in and I set up camp in one of the empty beds (I had many to choose from). Nilika, from Brooklyn, had grown up in Afghanistan where her father had worked. She is a white girl, fluent in Farsi, now living in Brooklyn, and on a business trip to Mongolia to oversee a new project for her work with the Asia Foundation, a group that supports humanity projects around Asia, including Afghanistan and Mongolia. She had been working for three weeks and was taking this last week as her vacation time. She also told me that tomorrow (Monday) was the start of the Mongolian White Moon Festival or their version of the new year based on the lunar calendar. Apparently, during this festival, all shops, government buildings, museums, tourist attractions are closed for a few weeks. Kind of rotten timing on my part. However, she told me she was staying with this hostel because she wanted to go out and see the orphanage. The orphangae would be celebrating the start of the new year themselves. Since I had no other plans and will likely not be able to create any, I said I'd tag along. I'm quite excited for it.
I also stocked up on water and basic essentials today since every shop throughout the city will be closed soon. And I was famished. Nilika recommended a German run cafe to me nearby that served good western and Mongolian food with english menus so I left for the cafe. The cafe was nice. The cafe workers were Mongolian and spoke impeccable English. And the old German woman sat behind a display of pastries and smiled as I walked through the door. I took a seat and ordered Mongolian milk tea (made with salt rather than sugar) and beef and vegetable borscht (an excellent Russian-style stew). I had never tasted anything so delicious. The food was excellent and a complete change to the Chinese food I had been eating for the last six months. I was quite satsified. There were other foreigners seated nearby. Two British business expatriates whom I surmised were here for the big resource race the world seems recently obsessed with out in Mongolia's vast resource-rich countryside. And there were two female monks in crimson robes, heads shaved, talking over what looked like a very serious matter. They both spoke in Australian English, one woman was white, the other looked Mongolian. A curious crowd in the restaurant today.
I finished my borscht, went up to the old German lady to pay and she asked me if I enjoyed the meal. I said I loved the meal and she told me, "well I would hope so! I made it after all. I've been making it for years and the secret ingredient is a little dash of liebe," spoken with an air of mysticism (liebe means love in German). She asked me where I was staying and when she found out I had met Nilika (small foreign crowd here), she asked me if I would deliver a book to her the next time I saw her because, "she can't keep it and since she only has a few days to read it, she should have it as soon as possible." The book looked dense, both in page numbers and subject matter...
 |
| My meal of borscht and Mongolian milk tea (salted) |
I'm a bit disheartened by the fact that most everything will be closed during my stay here in UB. But getting the chance to visit the orphanage tomorrow will be fun, especially since we will be able to celebrate the festival with them.
I'll finish with a few Mongolia fun facts: UB is the coldest capital of any country in the world (it was -25C today), over 40% of all Mongolians live in UB which means there are more cows than people in the countryside, Genghis Khan's real name is Chingis Khan and he is like a god here with a 40 meter statue of him located just outside the city, and horse riding is a national sport and every year they hold a horse racing tournament in which the jockeys are no older than 7. Yeehaw!
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