A couple of days into Mongolia..!

The border crossing

So, picking up where I left off... I left Irkutsk a couple of days ago on the overnight train with the four other girls and a load of rather bossy old ladies. I managed to get a couple of hours sleep before we pulled up in Ulan Ude. Once there we hurried off the train and decided to walk to the bus station. After asking a couple of times, we finally made it there with about 20 minutes to spare. We walked in, however, and, after asking for the bus to Ulan Bator, were told that it didn't leave from there, but they weren't really sure where it was that it left from. As a result of this, with time rapidly running out, we asked at the row of taxis which were sitting waiting right next to the bus station, and a couple of taxi drivers accepted to drive us to the place where we could get the bus, almost at Lenin's head. Fortunately, this didn't prove to be too far away and we made it within a few minutes..! Once there, we crowded on for the 12 hour journey. A lot of the first half of the journey was uneventful, mostly because I was fast asleep for most of it, with the most interesting moment being the crossing between Russia and Mongolia, which took us a couple of hours, a lot of queues and joking around with the Mongolian officials, something which made the girls upset because they didn't approve of the lack of proffesionality demonstrated  by said officials (personally, I found the whole thing quite fun, apart from the waiting in queues).

Peace Avenue - Ulaanbaatar's main street

As soon as we crossed over the border, we stopped at a little place where we could eat. At this point I made friends with a Mongolian on the bus who spoke very good Russian and a fair amount of English, named Dashnyam, whom I proceeded to converse with for the rest of the bus trip as he taught me some rudimentary Mongolian and then just chatted in Runglish for the rest of the time. Eventually, however, we arrived at the bus station in Ulanbataar, which was a very strange place indeed and which resembled an abandoned building site. Fortunately, within seconds, our driver appeared and ushered us towards his car, which we crowded into and were driven to the Steppe Guest House, which has since then become the little haven for us foreigners. I instantly went out and got myself a Mongolian simcard so as to be able to deal with all of the Mongolians I come across, and in case of any emergencies in the desert. We then went out to dinner, where I had a chance to practice some of the rudimentary Russian which I learnt from Dashnyam and from the Lonely Planet elementary Mongolian phrasebook.

On my way to get my Chinese visa

Monday, as soon as I got up I went to the Chinese embassy. At the door, waiting for 9am (The embassy opens Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9am - 12midday) I met an American who told me that he was living abroad because he had been chased out of the USA by the FBI because he had been writing anti-governmental political articles which are published online (I didn't learn his name, although I would have been interested to know whom it was I talked to!). Eventually I went in and started hannding in all my documents, which for a British citizen, one would hope are as follows (including documents which I thought mey be necessary, but which I found no mention of anywhere): Filled in application form with phot attached  (where it says "Name in ethnic script", I merely wrote my name again in Latin characters), Supplementary Visa Application Form, Declaration of Acceptance of Terms and Conditions, Invitation Letter in Chinese and in English (I got this because I have a friend in China - if you don't have one, go through an agency or make some more friends), most recent bank statement, two separate Travel and Health insurance statements, a booking of a hostel in Beijing for a few days at the beginning of my journey, two copies of my HIV test taken for Russia and a page from the Chinese embassy in London, stating that I don't need an Air ticket booking record and hotel reservation if I've been invited by a permanent resident in China. Frankly, I thought this was ll enough. Unfortunately, I forgot two things, one of which they were willing to overlook, but not the other. The first of these was a contact telephone number in Mongolia so as to be contacted to pick the visa up, and the second being a copy of my friends in China's ID card... Sadly, that was less easy to get hold of instantly, so that crossed Wednesday off the list of days I could go to get the Chinese visa sorted!

The main entrance to the monastery

Obviously, having failed to sort the visa then meant that going to the Gobi desert would not be possible (I had started to suspect that it would be tricky to get back on time anyway, what with my parents coming on a visit to Irkutsk on the 12th!!) Hence, I told the girls that I wouldn't be going and I asked the Hostel to put me up for a week. After this, I dumped by papers back at the Hostel and then went with the four girls up to the buddhist monastery in Ulanbataar, one of the cities' main attractions, which required much turning of prayer wheels, and being quite touristy in general. We were also lucky enough to arrive on the day of the finalising of the mantra which the monks have been building over the past week (they build one a year, and then store them away somewhere, and considering they take a week to make, we were very lucky to come across one - I even  managed to get some film of them making the mantra..!). After this, however, the day took a turn for the worse, as Edel Maria got her wallet stolen. The thing is that the other four of us noticed, but none of us thought that it was hers, so we said nothing until she came out of the post office saying she couldn't find it. Obviously after this, we went straight back to the hostel and stayed in for the rest of the time. Jessica, one of the other girls already staying here decided to cheer Edel Maria up, and so gave her one of her five bubble-blowers to play with. At this point I also moved from my room into the other room with the four girld from Irkutsk (Anya, Edel Maria, Eva and Susanna) and the other three guests (Elsa, Jessica and Tom), whilst three new guests arrived to fill the other two rooms (Mitsuru, Toshi and Yumi, all Japanese).

Self, Susanna, Anya and Eva at the Gandantegchenling Monastery

The Giant statue of Genghis Khan

This morning at 9am, the other four headed off for the Gobi desert and I agreed to head off on a tour of the sights near Ulanbataar half an hour later with the three Japanese. Our first stop was the huge golden statue of buddah, and then the memorial of the victory of Russia and its allies in the Second World War, a place which provides a good view over the city, despite making us walk up quite a few steps to get to the top. After this, we drove for quite a while, as our driver casually pointed out eagles, camels etc on the sides of the road, as if giving them no second thought. Eventually, of course, we got to the giant statue of Genghis Khan which lies a few kilometres outside the city. We paid the entrance fee and then got a small 'tour' with a guide whose English made me think that we were actually in need of an interpreter (I managed better when I was directly translating from our driverk who spoke only Mongolian!!) Within the giant figure is a small museum, where I met a load of Polish tourists who were happy to converse with me in French and in Russian, which was quite amusing, and also the largest boot in the world, which is actually quite big! We then carried on up to the top of the monument, where you can see all around the surrounding area and also stand basically in the lap of the Great Khan.

Yumi, Toshi and Mitsuru in the yurt

Self on the mongolian pony

After this and waking our driver from his sleep, we carried on to the yurt village, where we entered the home of an elderly Mongolian man who gave us some tea, dried curd cheese and small bread rolls to eat, before bringing in huge plates of potato with cabbage and sheep, which were very filling, and very Mongolian indeed! After this we debated who was going to ride horses and when, and eventually decided that we would all go horse-riding for an hour, and Toshi and Yumi would go horse-riding the next day too. The start was a bit slower than we had initially intended, as of the five horses, three were constantly just stopping and eating grass, which meant the guide had to go back for them. For some reason I managed to control my horse fairly well, and got it to do most of what I said. However, the guide took a leap of faith in me by handing me the reigns to Mitsuru's horse as well (I may be able to ride, but I have no idea of what to do about holding somebody else's horse, so just stared at him blankly until he understood what was going on). After this, our guide took Toshi's horse by the reigns and lead it along, whilst I followed a short way behind coercing Mitsuru's and Yumi's horses into following mine. At one point, however, the guide instructed me how to make the horse accelerate. I, however, took it a bit too far, and the horse decided to go into something of a gallop (I now have a very bruised backside), which it stayed in until I managed to make it slow down. The other three, wisely chose not to follow suit, and we finished our outing by heading back to the yurt.

Mitsuru with Mongolian pony

View from turtle rock

After the yurt, we left Toshi and Yumi with the family, as they had decided to sleep there tonight, whereas Mitsuru and I carried on the trip to Turtle Rock, a formation which looks very much like a turtle. The potential for climbing in this area did leave me in awe, I must admit! The two of us scrambled up the rock and down into a cave in the side, from which you have a lovely vue of the valley - the top was pretty tempting, but I decided I'd rather not risk it! We then climbed back down, hopped in the car and drove back off again as the driver attempted (with only very limited success) to teach me how to sing a Mongolian song. As we drove, I asked the driver (in Mongolian, of course) whose sheep the sheep which were wandering around everywhere were. At first, he misunderstood, and assumed I was telling him that I was a sheep. Eventually, he cottonned on though, and then told me that all of the sheep there belong to the Mongolian people, and they're all welcome to them, as am I. I somehow find this hard to accept, so I'll assume that something was lost in translation here!

Tsolm, Tom, Elsa, Kiji, self and Mikio

Back at the hostel, Mitsuru immediately went to bed, whilst I met Mikio, yet another Japanese traveller who had arrived after I left. I then taught Mikio and Tom how to play the game 'durak', before we headed out with Elsa to meet up with Tsolm, a Mongolian friend of Tom's. We then went with her cousin Kuji and her friend Melody to a restaurant on the other end of town as part of a farewell thing for Elsa, Jessica and Tom, who are all heading off in the morning. After that, we thought of heading to the mountain to get a good night-time view of the city, but as today is the graduation day of all schools and universities in Ulanbataar, and that is where they celebrate, we changed our minds and headed back so that everyone could get their packing done and sleep before heading off tomorrow!