Travel | 27. Crossing over to Mongolia

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

This was the day my Russian visa ran out, so time o exit the country.

The bus ride was not that pleasant but luckily quite short. The bus made regular pit stops so we could take a walk and use the “toilet” or “hellhole” as we playfully call it.

Seriously, that shit pit is at least 7 meters deep! Imagine yourself in a slightly hungover state doing your business, well knowing that a man can fit through that hole.

After the border control, we stopped by an old hotel to grab some eats. We came to the conclusion, Jasper, me and Elise, that it has probably downgraded from 5 stars to 4 stars due to the age of the complex.

Oh, yeah. We met Vladimira from Slovakia on the bus. She was on her way to meet her Canadian boyfriend Chris in Ulaanbaatar. They have been doing volunteer work around the globe and are later on their way to Irkutsk, Russia.

Together (Ayuna, Irina, Vladimira, Elise, and Jasper) we had some grub at the luxurious hotel. Jasper, of course, had brought his own extraordinary lunch.

Approaching Ulaanbaatar, finally after 14 hours!

Elise and Jasper stayed in one hostel, Chris and Vladimira in one and me, Ayuna and Irene didn’t have a place yet. After I tried and failed to navigate to UB guesthouse (one of the hostels we “knew”), Ayuna gave it a shot. And after she failed too, we asked some people around and found our way. None of us had any bookings but they had 3 dorm beds to spare so we stayed.

Anyhow. After dumping stuff in hostel, we took a nightly walk to find a restaurant.

The State Department Store! (it has some vertical axix wind turbines in front of it along with sad amount of PV panels, you know just for show. I doubt they are enough to even power the lighting)

After a short walk we decided to go for an indian restaurant nearby the Beetles monument. The food was alright! (albeit little expensive)

Afterwards it was to supermarket for some… Wait a minute… Horse milk? (no, it was beer we bought)

We went back to the guesthouse after 23.00 and it was totally dead! Everyone sleeping. And the reason was clear: “kitchen closed at 23.00”, “no watching TV after 23.00” not that we needed any of that. Enjoyed the beer in the comfort of our chamber.

(First published 15/10/2011 at LiveJournal)