Wednesday 17th October 2012 - Day 14 - Terelj National Park to Ulaan Baatar

We had quite an adventure last night! Jon discovered some coal in a bag outside our door so he got the fire roaring for the night and it was like a sauna, literally. We lay in bed just sweating. I kept stepping outside to cool off even though it was minus a lot of degrees! The trouble is we could not leave the door open as the two dogs we have befriended just come straight on in. At one point Jon opened the door a crack to let some air in and the black dog we named Bengie came straight in and under my bed. This was funny at first but after 10 minutes of chasing it around a round room under 3 beds in a sauna it was quite testing! The heat finally clamed down in the night enough to put a cover on when a lady knocked on the door and without any prompt from us she came in, lights on and started putting wood on the fire.

We got up and went to breakfast at 8.30am. We had lovely home cooked bread and jam followed by sausage and eggs. I saved some bread crusts for the dogs. We left at 9am and I was sorry to leave. We had a long drive back to the city as there was the dodgy roads and city traffic to contend with. We went straight to a monastery and learned about their Shamans, Buddha’s and Lamas. They are planning to build a 90m statue of the future lama and so far they have only made the feet. We did see a 26.5m statue of a Buddha and the monastery is the home of the 13^th Dalai Lama. We walked through two squares that were packed with pigeons. It is meant to be a symbol of offering by giving seeds to them.

We then went to a restaurant where we had a fry up where you went through a buffet selecting the raw ingredients and gave it to the chef who cooked it on a large metal plate in front of you. It was delicious. This was washed down with a complimentary shot of Vodka. We then went to a site of several temples in the heart of the city centre. It was like mixing the old with the new as it was surrounded by brand new modern sky scrapers. A lady walked us through all the small, old, cold, dark, wooden temples with Chucka translating for us. We then went to the main square and saw the Government building with a Genghis Khan statue situated in the centre.

Next was the museum which walked us through the history of Mongolia. We never had appreciated how powerful Mongolia was in the 12^th Century with Genghis taking over Russia, China, Turkey and other European countries. It was very interesting to see the development of how they have arrived at the modern day Mongolia. They have had three revolutions in the last century and once again they are suffering under a corrupt government where the rich are super rich and the poor are extremely poor. They are hoping for change in the government in the near future and if not, Chucka feels there will be another revolution by 2021.

It was now 4.30pm and we checked into our 4 star hotel where we had one hour before being picked up again. Jon chose to shower and I opted for sleep. He was not too pleased as the bathroom door is a sliding one that is stuck in the wall so zero privacy and the shower was boiling one minute and ice cold the next. Once picked up we went to a traditional Mongolian show of musicians, throat singers and dancers oh and don’t forget the contortionist. I have never seen one before in real life and quite frankly its just not right! The show was genuinely very good with lots of short acts keeping your attention. The finale was a sun dance with all the shaman masked characters dancing. These were the masks we had seen earlier in the temples.

We finally went to dinner in a posh restaurant looking out over the city. We were treated to a four course dinner all included, we have eaten more in Mongolia in the last two days then the whole of Russia! The toilets were so nice, with proper loo roll and even a toilet duck! There was also a cockatoo in a cage on the fireplace of the restaurant which was a bit odd. We did a quick supermarket trip to use up some of our Mongolian Tugriks as we are getting on a train at 7am and heading for the border to China! It’s a shame we are leaving so soon it feels as though we could have done with another day here.

Our guide Chucka is a very clever guy. He speaks Mongolian, Russian, English and French. He studied for a masters degree at Cambridge and lived in Norwich for 8 years. He is an avid Norwich football fan and he misses the 442 football magazine from WHSmiths so I have taken his address to send one to him when I’m back home. He lectures at a university in Mongolia but he had a car crash in a friends car and is having to guide to make up some extra cash to go to China to buy parts for the car. I forgot to mention that as the snow had gone this morning when we drove back through the valley that there was a golf course hiding underneath! Also we saw a yak and a fox yesterday, this is not very exciting but its pretty much the only wildlife we have seen so far. Mind you I am not too gutted that I have not seen a bear, wolf or mountain lion!