Welcome to Mongolia

Last Friday I arrived in Ulan Bator. After a first tour in this City, we did a reunion of Olkhon Island. As it turned out that Graeme met a mongolian guy on his way from the border to the capital, Chinzu, the mongolian guy, wanted to meet us for dinner.

So one guy from Scotland, one from Denmark, one from Austria and an English couple went with Chinzu for dinner. Food was quite good and we were all surprised, that it was that cheap. After dinner Chinzu brought as to a Karaoke Bar. When I had a look through the list of available songs I found with “Live is Life” from Opus one austrian song. At that time it was clear to me that this was my turn. The conversation with Chinzu was quite difficult as he could hardly speak any english. During our Karaoke session one of his friends joined us and luckily she spoke English fluently.

Some songs and beers later, we moved on to another bar. The “Revolution” Bar in the city center was filled with Expats so English was the dominating language in this place. We had a quite funny end of the evening. As sell of alcohol after midnight is forbidden by law in Mongolia we left this place at 00:30 and went home.

The weekend I spent with more sightseeing and making my thoughts how my trip should continue. Finally on Sunday evening I made the decision that I will try to extend my Visa and stay until the Naadam festival in mid of July.

In the meanwhile Graeme, who was couchsurfing at a place of an owner of a tour agency, organised two trips for a very good price for us. One should bring us for 8 days to the Gobi desert in the south of the country and the other one should bring us for 9 days to Lake Khuvsgul in the North. Thanks for that!

On Monday it was quite an adventure to go to the Immigration Office. Until some years ago, this has been in the city center, but now it’s located outside at the airport. After organizing a passport photo, which took me 1,5 hours, I jumped on the right bus, but somehow I missed to get out at the right stop. So I had to walk back for 30 minutes. The process at the immigration office itself was quite easy and relaxed. Had to fill out two forms and pay some money and whithin 30 minutes everything was done. For going back to the city I took another bus and one I arrived there, I found myself at the train station and without knowing which bus would take me back to the hostel, I walked another 40 minutes back home.

Tuesday was time for some more sightseeing. Graeme and myself visited two monasteries in the city. It was the Bhogdan Khan- and the Choijin Lama Monastery right in the heart of the city center. At Bhogdan Khan we met per coincidence Chinzu, our mongolian friend, but as we were not too keen on talking to him, it was good, that we didn’t have much time for us.

Wednesday and Thursday we spent with doing some organization and preparations for our trips.