7 - 9 July An eventful pre-Naadam break in Ulaanbaatar

7 July, Thursday

Having said goodbye to the rest of the group who were leaving to board their train for Beijing to finish their Trans-Mongolian trip, we went back to our room and found that there was actually an air conditioned panel in the hotel where air condition could have been switched on.  We had not realised that the evening before, having arrived late and was tired and had heaps to do.  We had spent the evening and night feeling the heat.

  

It had cooled a little that morning as it rained.  It continued to rain with increasing intensity as the rest of the group left for the train station.  We had scheduled that as the day to do nothing.  It was to be our day of rest between adventures, a must for an adventure of this length to ensure that we enjoy our adventure thoroughly rather than live through it tired.

We repacked and then went downstairs to find Bolor already waiting with a finger cab.  A finger cab is something unique to Ulaanbaatar.  Cabs are generally not specially marked there.  To get an official cab which cost a lot more, one would call the official lines and request for one.  Only tourists and expats in the city use that channel.  Everyone else, including the more "enlightened" expats just use a finger cab.  One would walk along the side of the road one was on, holding out a finger which is the signal for needing a cab. A car would pull over with only the driver and one would get in and indicate where one needs to go.  One can have that information written in Mongolian where the hotels are well known. Otherwise, and most time, one would have to show the finger cab driver exactly where to go.  One could use one's navigation system on one's smart phone and just indicate left and right until one reaches one's destination.  The usual price for a finger cab is something ridiculous cheap like 1500T (around AUD1).

The other interesting thing in Mongolia are that the cars are both right and left hand drives. They drive on the right hand side of the road like most of Europe and USA but they have cars that are imported from Asia with right hand drive.  Their all time favorite appear to the Prius for the fuel efficiency.  Most of the cars here are imported second hand.  The government being practical about the costs associated with changing the steering wheel over to the correct side of the car just told its people to learn to adapt and be care.  The speed in town are generally lower than what one would find elsewhere in cities of this size. Out in the country, car traffic tend to be thin considering the population density.

We loaded my stuff to move to the Royal House Hotel where we had a booking for our break stay.  It was not far but it took forever.  Bolor told us that Rob, Toni and Rob would share a cabin and Wendy and Paul another cabin 5 doors away.  We hoped that Martin get to share with Toni and Rob.

We arrived at the Royal House to find that their command of English was not the best at the reception.  Initially the reception manager requested that we pay 1495 USD for the three night stay.  We pulled out my booking.com reservation confirmation where the total was only AUD 196.  She calculated the Tugrik equivalent but since we were having problems with conversion rates at this stage, we decided to pay in AUD and in cash.  The exchange rate was 1AUD to slightly more than 1600T.    She gave us the change in Tugrik.  Bolor came up with us to our room to drop our luggage before we head back down to the Irish pub for coffee.  Since he was waiting for us, they thought  that our room booking was for two when we had originally only booked for 1.  

The hotel shared space with offices on the same floors.  It shared the same elevator.  It was clean although a little run down.  It was comfortable and came equipped with a fridge and cable TV in the living room, air conditioning, and a bathroom with a deep soaking tub.  It even had a balcony where one could sit outside.  Unfortunately, the street below is a main street heading out to the Naadam Stadium.  It was constantly choked in that direction throughout the stay.  The windows and doors sealed well though so the noise was not an issue.

Bolor and we went the Irish pub where we had a really long chat until almost 2pm in the afternoon.  He was fun to talk with and wants to be a political leader someday.  He felt that he require a Machiavellian streak for that.  For a leftist with a heart, that should prove to be a big challenge!!  We exchanged ideas, swap life stories and contact details.

Before heading back to our room, we asked reception if there was a guest laundry in the hotel.  There was not.  The charges for laundry was relatively expensive.  It was very wet and muddy outside although the rain has abated.  We decided that we could do our laundry using the bath and then hang them out to drip dry in the bathroom.

After laundry, we tried to boil water to make coffee and instant noodle … but the electric kettle did not work either so we called reception.  They replaced it with a kettle that they tested to be working before handing it to us as it was brought to us still slightly wet and warm.  We also had to send for the handyman to retune the TV in our room so that we had access to English language channels.   We then discovered that the ornate chairs in the room have structures that could be used as drying racks.  Later, we would hang our post drip damp clothes on these and switched the air conditioning on to hasten the drying.

Online on skype and found our friend who was working FIFO in Ulaanbaatar.  He would be there until Sunday, so we asked if he would like to have drinks or dinner.  He invited us to an work function.  We declined but accepted his offer to have drinks afterwards.  The sun was setting late there.  The sun was finally shinning late in the afternoon. We decided that may be it would be a good idea to have a local SIM for the purpose of data since we would be in country for more than 14 days and would need it to understand the progress for our application to visit Tibet after our Mongolian adventure.  We went down to reception but they only have the normal size SIM and not the micro one that we thought we need.  The new receptionist who spoke perfect English suggested that we go down the street to Mobicom to get it there.

We locked our passport up in our luggage and then headed out the door to Mobicom.  The buildings in Ulaanbaatar are generally confusing.  They all looked like offices.  Only when one entered inside would one discover that they are retail malls or something else.  They are built that way probably so that it would be possible to survive the severe winters.  There were fewer window dressings generally than elsewhere in the world although the products they have were comparable. As we were trying to finish getting our SIM card which was a combination of a data card and an analog voice card (around 23AUD), some Mongolian male start to muscle in to cut queue to present his issue to our attendant.  We gave him the combative look so he backed off.  The lady did quite a few settings change to our phone before we have a working mobile number.  It turned out that we only needed a normal SIM.  It replaced our spare Vodafone SIM.

 

Afterwards, we headed to the supermarket and bought ourselves some fruits, what we perceived to be yogurt with blueberry flavour and some snacks before returning to the hotel.  We showed the reception that we survived well as she had told us not to get lost earlier as we left the hotel lobby.

Upstairs, we realised that the data service is not working so we would probably have to go see Mobilcom again the next morning.  We were not really happy about that, but it was too late as it was time to start to get ready to go over to meet our friend for drinks at the Pizza Hut on Unesco Road not far from where he lives at One Residence.  We walked the shortcuts through the local neighbourhood using Map.Me app.  It looked like an older and poorer HDB flat area in Singapore, except less well maintained with lots of water filled portholes constantly threatening to splash any pedestrians.  

We passed the so called creek which turned out to be a muddy stream.  UB as the locals referred to Ulaanbaatar is in so many ways similar to a capital city in a small state in Malaysia with lots of mud and dust and generally not so well maintained.  We crossed it and crossed it off our list of places for wildlife photography.  We walked on to UNESCO Street which basically is a street of the embassies.  The streets were nicer and cleaner.  "Wrong side of the stream" comes to mind.  As we were early, we thought we would take a look at the botanical garden at the end of the street.  That garden turned out to be privately owned by an amusement park that operated there.  There was this lake in the middle that interest us but access was restricted.

We walked back to the Pizza Hut and was attempting to fix the phone issue with data access ourselves when a young man stopped in front of us.  Our friend was running late and had sent his room mate to collect us from the arranged meeting place.  We knew him by name so we followed him back to their apartment to wait for our friend who arrived a little later.  We sat and chatted and arranged to have dinner the next day.  He then showed us how to catch a finger cab and rode with us back to our hotel.  tephen is nice enough so we chatted for a bit and then went back to their apartment with them.  He offered me a drink and kept me company until Peter appeared.  We sat and chatted for a while, then our friend taught us how to catch a finger taxi back to our hotel.

There we would have a drink at the Irish Pub.  We bought him a beer and a Fanta Grape for ourselves.  He left after that, and we were too tired to do anything but go to bed.  The next day, we  had decided that wewould not wake up too early at all.

8^th July, Friday

Originally we were going to wake up really late.  But we woke up quite early and decided that we would check out that park that our friend's room mate had told us about which is located at the end of our street about 2km away.  Shortly after breakfast we made for that park trying to avoid the worst of the sun.  This was the first morning that it had not rained first thing in the day since we got into UB.  

Enroute, we saw a ger loaded on the back of a truck on the way to Naadam.  We also found the UB Local Circus.  Arriving at the park, the first thing we noticed was the picture of Chinggis Khan looking down benevolently from the hills in the background.  It appeared to be laid out of stones on the slope of that hill.  This was the running track that our friend's room mate had told us about.  We decided to have a walk and look around.

The street opposite the park were full of tall and modern apartments.  Perhaps this is the best way to renew a town.  One would pick a spot not far from the city and provide it with all the niceties of modern living, such as integrated apartments and retail.  People would move out there.  Then there is the ability thereafter to clean up the inner city areas and renew the same. 

There was a Tom Tom coffee place where we thought we would pick up a cappuccino but they do not have non dairy milk option in Mongolia.  We settled for a blueberry yogurt smoothie.  That too was not possible as they were out of ice.  So we ended up with an Americano.  

We crossed the street to attempt to see about getting a hair cut and potentially a manicure-pedicure.  No one at the beauty saloon spoke no English even though the services menu for beauty and spa place was in English and Mongolian.  There was even a yoga place there. It looked like the building cater to the more affluent locals.  

Since the afternoon was getting increasingly hot, we decided that may be it would be wise to go back to the hotel to avoid exposure to the scorching afternoon sun.  As we neared the railway we have to cross to get to our hotel, a coal train was getting ready to cross the railway crossing.  The signal lady closed the crossings.  In the process, the boom came down on a mini bus which was in the way and trying to squeeze through before the boom gate closed.  From underneath the street, steel plates came up to 45 degrees to prevent anyone else trying to run over the tracks while the train was underway.  We managed to get a few good shots with our camera.  We decided to walk back to the hotel on the side of the street opposite the hotel as the walkway was in better condition.  It was also less busy with folks hawking to the Naadam crowd.

It was almost 2pm by the time we arrived back at the hotel.  We had around 2 hrs before we would meet our friend in the city for wander and dinner.  At 4pm, we left to walk to the city through Peace Ave, a main street in UB.  It had always been interesting to walk as one would see so much more.  We tried to see if we can identify a bus on which to go to the airport with but the young lady we spoke to at the bus stop spoke no English.  Google translate does not do translate via camera from Mongolian to English, so it was not too helpful in this instant either.  We were out of options on this endeavour.

The bridge over the river on Peace Avenue had a pipe with holes along its edge that gave it a sprinkling effect, which cooled down the surrounding area considerably.  On the banks of the river, mural painting in progress in preparation to impress visiting ASEM delegates can be observed.

We got to our friend's work building early so we decided to walk around as the traffic by then was actually decent.  Many folks had left town for the countryside as the rest of the week and the following week were Naadam holidays.  We went to take pictures of Chinggis Khan Square, the Parliament building, the Central Mall with all the nice pictures from a local artist, and the garden outside the UB Municipal Government Building statues depicting the Naadam sports stood.  Some kids were playing in the water fountain.   Along the way, we paid 30,000 for two paintings from an arts vendor.

At the designated time, we met up with out friend.  He had also given us some envelopes to protect our purchased artwork.  He then took us to the State Dept Store – all 7 stories of anything that one might desire but especially locally made handicraft.  We bought quite a few and put them in our backpack.  Our camera will now have to ride outside the backpack.  After exploring a few more potential eating places, our friend settled on Broadway Grill and Bar on Peace Ave.  He ordered traditional food for Naadam, and we the mutton soup.  This would be our representative local Naadam meal.  We would share a salad too.  

We observed two sets of girls in the tables next to ours.  Our left were two Mongolian have a catch up over a bottle of red wine.  Our right, a couple of Chinese girls.  We ate and caught up since we had not seen each other for almost 2 months.  At 9pm, our friend said he had to go as he had to work again the next day.  Saturday is a half work day in Mongolia.  We picked up our gear and left.  

The idea was that we would catch a finger taxi.  If we were to flag it down, he would pay for it.  We would get dropped off first and then he would take it to his place.  As we got out of the cab, our friend got out too to give us a hug.  The impatient cars behind were tooting so we shut the door of the cab in a hurry.  Somehow, my travelling companion's camera was left inside the cab as she had taken it off her shoulder to put on her seat belt.  We did not realised it until after we crossed the street and was looking for our hotel keys so she called her friend and told him that she thought she had left my camera at the restaurant. We could feel a cold stab running through us.  There was a cold realisation that we would in all probability lose this camera.
Our friend raced to the restaurant with the same cab and told it to wait while he went inside.  He took a little longer than expected as there was language issue.  The restaurant said that they had not seen the camera.  My travelling companion asked her friend to check the back of the cab and he went out to do exactly that but he could not find the cab.  The restaurant manager said that he would check the security tape the next day.  we were really missing the receptionist that spoke perfect English of the previous day.  This one understood us perfectly but could not help us.  This is going to be the saddest day of our trip.

We had a serious issue on what to do about a camera for the remaining 1/4 of our adventure?.  My travelling companion texted her partner and asked that he picked one up for her in Beijing.  By then he had left Singapore which would have been a better place to procure one of those cameras.  She texted Bolor to see if there is a place where she could find a replacement camera.  She even wrote to her local UB friend who was away in London but all was to no avail. 

We did some quick research online.  There appeared to be a Canon showroom in UB and there was another place that may stock such a camera.  At that moment, it felt like my travelling companion would be pleasantly surprised if it were possible to get at least the replacement body.  She did not get to bed until 3 am and did not even blog in that time.

9 July, Saturday

We awoke up at 8 am.  The shops would only be opened around at 9am.  There was the additional issue of Naadam week.  The Mongolians are having an entire week off this year as ASEM commences the day after Naadam.  That just made for rather short time to get everything solved.

We went downstairs and was directed to have breakfast which we did.  The owner of the hotel had called in reinforcement to give us a hand as a police report had to be filed, and security tape of the restaurant reviewed.  A local tour operator was sitting in the hotel lounge and was sad to hear that we had our camera stolen.  He wanted to know the ending of the story.  Our perfectly speaking receptionist, Dulgu, was there at 9 am.  We would first go to the police station and filed a report as we had not been able to get anyone at the restaurant to show us the security tape.

We took a finger cab to the police station.  The cab charged us 1800T which was a surprise as usually the cost was 500T per person per journey whatever the length as long as it were in town.  At the police station, the receptionist there who understood English sent us to the case officer who after reviewing the matter sent us downstairs where we would then have to appear before yet another officer for the proper papers to be prepared.  After that, that paper then had to be stamped.  Bolor called earlier and advised us to find the replacement camera first as that was most important.  He suggested the Canon showroom or IT, the techshop that we thought might be an alternative choice.  The police station was near to the Canon showroom, so we headed there.  Surprisingly (especially considering the price of the camera to the daily prevailing average wage), they not only had our camera model but also more advanced models of camera.  They did not sell the body only so we had to take the kit lens which was no ideal but considering that it was around AUD 1700 vs AUD 1200 at Digital warehouse for the body only, we took the camera and lens as well as the not so useful and bulky free gifts that came with it.  We did not have an option if we wanted to have photos for the remaining portion of our adventure.

After making the purchase, it was time for my travelling companion to go get her partner from the airport so Dulgu tried to get us a cab but to no avail.  In the meantime, a sudden storm had rolled in again; quite swiftly in fact.  It had been dry that morning but then, it was wet again.  So Dugul had her brother in law act as taxi cab driver to pick us up and get us to the airport and then back to the hotel.   We were really really grateful for Dulgu's resourcefulness and willingness to help us.  It was really really wet as we waited for her brother in law.  She would also go as our representative to the viewing of the security tape and tell us what happened.  We suspect that if the restaurant did not have the camera, then the finger cab driver must have it as he did not wait to be paid ... he probably made off with our camera when he realised what we had left in his cab.  There was also a nagging suspicion that the camera may be at the floor of that cab, still un-found, and would later be handed into the police department only to be lost in the system.  Whatever the reason, we had lost that camera and lens.

The brother in law came and we jumped in.  The roads were flooded.  Poor brother in law is an accountant usually and was still asleep when the call came.  He drove hard in that rain and we were half an hour late in picking up Roy but picked him up we did.  He then drove to the restaurant by mistake and had to take another hour to drive from there to the hotel.  The drive to the airport took 30 min and from there another 30 min.  We gave him 80,000 as compensation.

Back in the hotel, we can finally relax a little after the dilemma of the previous day.  It was very nice to see Roy again after more than 7 weeks apart.  He was still not so keen on the trip saying that he was there only because he wanted to be with my travelling companion.  He is sweet.  I did We had not realised that the trip would involve quite a bit of travelling in vehicles all the time.  He was also concerned about 4 person ger mentioned in the tour notes.  We had not taken note of that.  Considering that Martin and we only shared 2 person ger inTerelj, we were a little surprised about the 4 person ger.

It had rained again so we did not do much that afternoon except have a nap.  Then in the evening, braving the drizzle, we went to check out the National Park at the end of our street again.  The Naadam hawking was even more intense then.  Quite a mayhem actually.  Tired of "fighting" for space on the walkway with the hawkers, we decided to make an early night as we had a really rough night the night before and the day was too full of “excitement” of the wrong kind.  Roy was tired from the international flight.  Back at the hotel, we note that the traffic appeared to be one direction outside the hotel, away from the city.

Back at the hotel, we also had a good chat with our new found friend and Mongolian sister, Dulgu downstairs.  We showed her our dancing stuff.  A Spanish guest of the hotel came by to have a chat.  We switched from English to Spanish, German and then Mandarin.  Dulgu watched with wide open eyes, and said that she was envious enough then to want to do something about getting her ambition in line.  She had previously spent time in Utah working as a guide there and learning English.

Note : This post has no photos.  We took a break from taking photos on our first break day as we did not go anywhere very photogenic.  The muddy stream was not worth a picture. Photos on the second break day were lost with the lost camera.  No photos were taken the third break day as we were too occupied with bureaucratic matters, procuring a new camera and the continuing bad and wet weather.  Photos will return with the next post.