First few days Mongolia

My stop in Ullan Baator has been for 5 days now and tonight is my last night so here is a quick post on what I've seen and done.

In Ullan Baator I'm staying at the “Oasis” a hostel which is used as a bit of a central meeting point by all the independent bike and car travellers in Mongolia. I'd heard of it well before I left Australia always with a strong recommendation that it was where to go to get good current info, possibly team up with people and also get good accommodation. Its turned out to be all of these. Currently I'm one of 5 bike riders here and there are also a 4WD and a truck. All lovely people. The other really good thing about this hostel is it does a lot of work to help the local community – providing wash houses for them, employment and other things. A bit more expensive than other hostels but you feel it is going to a good cause.

 

Oasis Hostel - main building

 

The gers - which you sleep in.

 

and what they look like inside when 5 motorcyclists share.

 

And here are some of the more interesting other vehicles here:

 

- a bit more luggage space than mine (heading to Vladivostok and Japan)

 

and more again (Ruth and Michael heading to Vladivostok and SE Asia)

and lots more! (this Swiss couple have been on the road 6 years - now off to China)

 

As a result of the info and the people I've now teamed up with two Swiss motorcyclists, Claudia and David, for the next part of the trip – the plan is to head down to the Gobi desert tomorrow before spending another week or two exploring the middle and north of the country finally leaving from the north west corner back into Russia near late September. Teaming up means I can be a bit more adventurous about where I get to – especially down in the Gobi desert. The Swiss are very experienced dirt and sand riders and my only fear is I might be a bit slow for them – if thats the case we'll probably split up after the Gobi.

Whilst here I've spent the time giving the bike a thorough service, fortunately finding nothing worse than a couple of loose bolts, not bad for a twenty one year old bike doing 8000km so far over some pretty ordinary roads. Also of course I've had a look around the city itself. As you can see from the photo's below its not yet ready to win any awards for pristine beauty. Its feel is very much that of an Asian city rather than European, noise and crowds everywhere. Apparently its growth has been explosive over the last years; a few years ago there was hardly a car on the street and now it feels like grid lock most of the time. Mongolias economy is booming at present for the same reason as Australia's – mining and export of coal and minerals to China. Economic growth is supposed to be about 15% this year (and inflation somewhat similar) and thats sucking many from the countryside into the city.

 

General street scene

Earthworks appearing everywhere

And new buildings springing up.

Gridlock

 

and obligatory Irish Pub.

 

The Soviet era has left a lot of sometimes quite spectacular street monuments.

Fifty kilometres outside of Ullan Baator is a national park with a statue of the most famous Mongol of them all Chingiss Khan (this seems to be currently favoured spelling) – but no ordinary statue this one is of Statue of Liberty proportions – 40 metres tall and 250 tonnes of stainless steel.

 

All 40m of the statue of Chingiss Khan

Proving I was really there.

Apparently there is a lift in the horses tail and you can get up into the head – but it was closed when I got there so I have to content myself with photo's from out side the fence.

Nearby was this kid with a couple of falcons and a vulture like bird and for 2000 T (about a dollar fifty) you could have your photo taken with them – so I had to do the tourist thing.

 

Being the tourist.

This one looked mean.

 

Apparently western Mongolia is famous for the quality of its falcons – the King of Saudi Arabia is currently there for his annual falcon hunting holiday (and my connection to this is that on my way to Ullan Baator I was almost run off the road by a convoy of nineteen identical new black Toyota Landcruisers – which turns out are his support vehicles; and nothing is allowed to get in their way).

Here is some of the country side around UB – getting much starker than further north.

 

 

Look carefully at the background - that's snow on the hills.

 

The new rich class seem to favour European style houses

 

As well as the scenery getting starker so is the weather – suddenly down to 1 -2 degrees at night and a dusting of snow appearing on some of the hilltops around the city. I have a feeling I'm going to be wearing a lot more of my clothes over the next few weeks – especially as here I have a few hill passes to go through and then in Russia I reach the Altai Mountains and the Urals. This could get interesting.