The TransMongolian to Ulaan Bataar

Sunset as we entered Mongolia.
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Departing Russia

Finally, it was time to leave Russia.  We'd spent the best part of a month there, between St Petersburg, Moscow and finally Irkutsk.  My impressions of the country are quite mixed.  Initially it feels extremely unfriendly; once we learned enough Cyrillic to get around on the Metro and a couple of words of Russian, it only seemed slightly unfriendly.  Also, the people turned out to be far more polite and approachable than they appeared during our first few days.  That said, I think we were both a little relieved to be on our way.  The Russians are good fun once you can get them talking (and drinking, more importantly), but Russia is pretty hard work, and definitely not a particularly jovial place.

Although others have told us they hated Ulan Bataar, we've enjoyed it

Cathal, Cindy, and two of the Buryat men we met on the train. The guy on the right speaks five languages!
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Needless to say, we were pretty excited to be heading off to Mongolia.  Together with Marieke and Cindy, two girls we met at Baikaler, we boarded train #364, bound for Ulaan Bataar.  The journey was to take about a day and a half.  We got pretty lucky with the sleeping arrangements; although there were four beds in each compartment, nobody ever showed up to claim the other two so we had the cabin to ourselves the whole way.

Niamh continues the story...

Into Mongolia

View inside the monastery complex
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I for one was very excited about going to Mongolia, it was high up my list of places to go. The train trundled through the night and we could see lake Baikal on the left side lit up in the night, the odd car driving across it. This was the most difficult stretch of railway to build on the Trans Siberian route because the terrain was swampy and mountainous, but it made for interesting scenery, even at night.

The next day was mainly consumed with about 9 hours of border crossings – exiting Russia and entering Mongolia. Up to this point, despite hearing many worrying stories we’d had no real trouble with Russian Officials and we didn’t expect any this time as all our stuff was in order.

Stupa in Gandan Monastery
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We were mainly concerned with spending our remaining roubles on beer, which we’d done successfully until Cathal discovered another stash in his money belt. So Cathal and Cindy hopped off to the shop at Naushki and bought several bottles of champagne, beer and Russian Chocolate. It was just after that a Customs official turned up in our compartment and checked our arrival card and customs declaration. He looked a bit concerned and tried to intimate that we had not got the correct registration for all our destinations in Russia. We knew we’d had to do it only once so played dumb. He then wrote down 1,030 and said we needed to give him that amount of money and left the compartment. We knew the fine was a lot more than that so there and then I was adamant he wasn’t getting anything off us.

Main temple, Gandan Monastery
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I checked with Cindy and Marike who’d had no hassle. Reckoned he saw all the champers and beer and decided we wouldn’t miss our remaining beer money. He came back and got all huffy with us we were still playing dumb and we could hear other officials get on the train and then he disappeared, so no money was handed over. All a bit dodgy.

The other customs officials were fine, checked us and the compartment thoroughly and then we pulled into Sukh Bataar station for the Mongolian border control. These people were lovely, lots of forms but they were very smiley and no hassle, and then we were finally on our way to Ulan Bataar for 7am the next morning.

Looking out over UB from the Gandan Monastery
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Ulan Bataar

On first impressions Ulan Bataar isn’t much to look at, the city is surrounded by smokestacks which tend to obscure the beautiful mountains that cradle it. There are gers on the outskirts in amongst all sorts of ramshackle housing. We got to our hostel and laid into a breakfast of chocolate spread and bread and then to bed. After a few hours we sat about and watched a few DVDs before venturing out and exploring the city a bit, mainly in search of an ATM and a supermarket. The following day we went off in search of the main city temple which we failed the find, going completely the wrong direction and it was so cold we simply headed back and relaxed again. The city is nice, with lots of building work going on. You see a fair few people in traditional dress – dels with bright sashes around the waist. We did eventually get to the temple – Gandantegchinlen Khiid (commonly called Gandan Khiid) which was beautiful, we wandered about all the buildings and watched the monks chanting (the young boys jostling each other like schoolboys) and generally admired the peaceful surroundings. Coming back from there we passed through the shanty town, across a sewer, passing by two dead dogs and up to the hill with a large ovo or pile of stones which are supposed to be lucky. It was easy to get a good view of the city which is a city of contrasts, incredibly poor people, stray dogs and rich folks driving around in Hummers and Pajeros through the dust.

More monastery
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The next few days were pretty relaxed - we met up with Justin and Zoe an English couple we'd met in Irkutsk - I called their mobile from a hilarious phone in the street - see picture and we all agreed to go on a trip together to the Gobi desert. (see separate entry).

On our return from the Gobi we checked back into the hostel and spent the first night washing the sand from all our crevices (nice). The next plan is to spend a few more days exploring the city and perhaps going on another trip. Watch this space...

Pretty roof
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We then went off to Terelj National Park - see Hiking and Dust Storms entry - straight after that we headed off to Kharkhorin (see entry).

We got back to UB and spent a day or two sending emails, doing laundry and watching DVDs. We vistited the Natural History Museum to see all the dinosaur stuff - see pictures. The museum would suit fans of taxidermy, there's more stuffed animals than I have ever seen, including 3 very rare snow leopards. Personally one would have been enough, I can imagine the action poses and didn't really need to see them!   It's quite interesting, but you can tell they have absolutely no money at all for their exhibitions all the signs look about 30 years old.

Ornate monastery roof against a lovely blue sky
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We also went to the National Museum of Mongolian History which was brilliant. Highly recommended.

Although others have told us they hated Ulan Bataar, we've enjoyed it. The city has everything you need, with some good museums and friendly people. It's very dusty and there's a good few street kids wandering about which is sad - but we've given some money to Save the Children.  Mostly though it's very interesting and chilled out. I imagine it's quite different in summer, the heat combined with the dust and fumes would make it pretty hellish. However it's nearly time to leave.

You see these all over UB. This one is outside the temple
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We've been trying to get onward train tickets to Beijing which is proving quite tricky. We've now been to the ticketing office three times and no joy. It's not that the trains are full, it's that the Trans-Siberian comes from Russia, but until it enters Mongolia they have no idea how many tickets are available. We were told to turn up today to buy tickets, but after about an hour and a half of waiting, we were told to turn up at 6am tomorrow for the train at 8am.  Hopefully we'll manage to get on it, if we do, the next despatch will be from Beijing.  Fingers crossed.