26th Feb and a bit more of a moan about Russia!..

Yay, escaping the Russian clutches of Ulan Ude! 7.30am bus, a Korean hand me down with crazy lights inside and thick plastic sheets inside the windows to keep the warm in. Also distorts whats outside so gives you a headache when you try and look out the window. Full bus.
Loo stops involve everyone dashing off to find a quiet spot of the wild countryside.
Russian boarder arrived fairly quickly, hearded off bus with luggage into first customs area to have everything x rayed and fill out pointless customs forms. We had to declare the laptop and fill out forms in double then wait for some butch woman to stamp them in a completely over the top and authortive way. Next we had to cross the big bad passport control. The passport control we were worried about because we
hadn’t registered our visa at any point along our journey. In case you don’t know Russia still thinks its in the middle of the cold war and is still convinced that us English people are all spies and masters of espionage. Yep, according to Russia we are all trying to steal state secrets and if they don’t keep their beady eyes on us then we will run off to the closest nuclear sub to start photographing their crappy missile systems, as a result we are supposed to have a stamp an a piece of paper from the post office in every town we stay three days or longer in. Unfortunately the details for this change depending on who you speak to and they change the rules almost every week so trying to get accurate up to date info is impossible. We were given information which suggested we only had to register if we stayed for longer than three working days in any one town and it was the responsibility of the accommodation owner to register us. This information was relatively new so was unlikely to have filtered down to the low end boarder guards protecting the Mongolian frontier. Sounded easy enough, problem was nobody wanted to register us without a heafty fee and the post office was a mad house so didn’t bother. The internet and guide books were filled with horror stories of large bribes being asked for, or fines all kinds of other crazy things. In preparation for a severe shake down we hid all our dollars, travellers cheques and money in very hard to find or undesirable places and made up a detailed story outlining everywhere we had been – what a coincidence we didn’t stay longer than three days anywhere! We had run through how we claim to be broke and stick to our guns not giving an inch and pretend to be more than happy to be detained by them, just try to be as much of a pain without any gain. More than anything we would keep talking about how the law has changed and you no longer have to register, blame it on the Russian embassy in London… just keep at em. We were prepared…
I (Sarah) was up first, much looking at me, flicking through the passport one way, then the other, asking if I speak Russian in Russian then looking confused when I said no. However it wasn’t long before one guard called another guard and I was off with my baggage into the back offices. After a little while of probably being the butt of the officers jokes, admitting I was a tourist and over and over saying I don’t speak Russian. A large female officer turned up who could speak English who began to question everywhere in Russia I had been and why.
Butch lady – “Why have you not registered anywhere.”
‘because you do not have to register anymore unless you have been somewhere for more than three working days’
‘Where did you get this information’
‘Its just the information we have’
‘You must have registered in every post office this is the law why have you not done this’
‘The Russian embassy told us that it’s the responsibility of hotel owners to register us but only after three days’
‘No this is not true in any way, you have to do this it’s the law’
And on and on it went until finally she relented and told me next time you come to Russia you must register in every town you visit. Do you have a friend with you?
I was finally let out and taken back to the control area where I was given my all important exit stamp, then saw that Sam was having a whole heap of his own problems..

You’d think it would be easier to leave a country than to enter, you’d think that they would be happy to see you leave and to pass the buck onto the next country and wash their hands of you. Not in Russia, not in the land where people take great pride in being pointlessly beaurocratic. Our entry into Russia was unsettlingly easy, someone must have realised because they were going to be a right pain in the ass when we tried to leave (no I wasn’t cavity searched). Sarah was whisked away, I was worried but had faith as we had rehearsed our stories thoroughly, still its funny how a couple of Russians in uniforms can make you nervous… do they really have the power to lock us up… are we being silly or naïve, whats the worst that could happen? Handed over my passport and waited for the guy to flick and look for the registration or lack of. Its difficult to know where to look when someone is staring at you trying to compare you to your photo… do I look down? No that’s a sign of guilt! Up? No that means I’m trying to hide something! I’ll look him in the eyes…. Ok its been 5 seconds now… don’t want to be accused of trying to stare him down.. ahhhh stop looking guilty! So this went on for ages, then they notice the problems on the back of the photo and called other people over. (there are only two customs desks at this boarder post so the rest of the bus are still queuing behind me) Boarder man two barked at me then started to peel my picture back, peeling it well beyond the point it had been peeled before and in 5 seconds doubling the damage. I shouted at him, told him that he was making it worse etc etc. Anyway they decide to inspect it by peeling it back further despite my protests, its now almost a third off. The two of them decide to get help from a higher authority, the only problem now is that the arseholes have peeled the picture back so much more it actually does look bad and the goon that comes down wont accept that it was his employees that caused the damage. This went on for ages, held the bus us for over an hour as they couldn’t let it go without us or a decision on what was happening to us. After going round and round in circles I was finally given a da instead of nyet and could jump on the bus, forward another 50 meters another Russian on board to check to make sure everyone had been checked twice, through a wire gate over no mans land, through another crappy gate then get ready to start the whole process all over again! Same problems, only this time Ivan and his buddies have made my job ten times harder… the guard called his boss who called his boss who luckily started to chuckle when I blamed it all on the Russians. Eventually after the woman who could speak a tiny bit of English told us to never come back to Mongolia again (we presume she meant with this passport!) we were let in! Again we had held the bus up for another hour, but it seemed the other passengers who were mainly Mongolian or Byriat were more concerned for us rather than annoyed (we were the only foreigners on the bus and it must have just looked like they were giving us extra crap for being foreign).
I can almost hear my Dad say I told you so, he suggested a number of times that I should get a new passport before I left, I was so determined to fill it up fully with stamps so didn’t. After arriving in UB we went to the British Embassy to check out how to get a new one.. the good news is that it is possible.. the bad news is that it takes 21 days (like everything else these days it would apparently be made in China!) which would mean overstaying the mongel visa, something we cannot really do. They can put an express recommendation through but Mongolia only receives a Queens post once every two weeks so its not going to help, it will have to be Beijing. So…. Once more, Mongolia into China, I hope all goes well, we are debating using a quick squige of prit stick or uhu but we are unsure if this will show up under a uv light (which they use to check very carefully..) The glue may stop them noticing, but if they do notice and spot the glue then things may look worse… We are not really sure what would happen if the Chinese turned us away as we would have already been stamped out of Mongolia so could not go back, we would be stuck between the two countries a bit like Tom Hanks in the terminal living on the little stretch of land between inner and outer Mongolia!

After crossing the boarder with Russia we drove for hours and hours without seeing any other towns, villages or cars, it really was a drive through nothing for 7 hours. Considering it was the main road between Mongolia and Russia there was no other traffic and only about 50% of the tarmac remained. The landscape consisted of gentle rolling hills and very wide flat valleys, everything seemed bone dry with little or no vegetation. If you could image the hills of North Wales stretched out in all directions with big gaps between them you’d be half way there. We would drive along a flat valley for 2 hours, rise at the end then over a pass into the next, over and over. All of a sudden, without warning after seeing absolutely nothing since the boarder we saw the sprawl of Ulaan Baatar ahead of us. Sarah and I laughed that in the future when people mention that Las Vegas is in the middle of nowhere we are going to bore stupid then and tell them ‘you should see UB’ The city is situated between four large rocky snow covered holy mountains which provide in impressive backdrop (and probably helps trap the dirty air). Most cities have their impressive tall landmark building, UB has its three huge smokestacks pumping out pollution from their three large thermal power stations something that would make Greenpeace wet their pants.

The capitol itself is a young city, first recorded in 1639 near a large monastery not far from its current location. As the city was made up of gers when the grasslands dried they just packed everything and moved the city to fresh pastures! Apparently in the early days the city was moved over 25 times, and given some very boring names such as camp, great camp and city of gers. When the Mongolians first claimed their independence from China (who had invaded and occupied since the late 17th century) they named the city the even more exciting name of capitol camp, the Chinese put an end to this craziness and invaded again, followed by the Russians and their communist revolution. It was the creative Russians who decided to call the city Ulaan Baatar which translates to….. ‘Red Hero!’

Nomadic lifestyles and building buildings don’t exactly go hand in hand so UB isn’t somewhere with lots of old buildings. The only real permanent buildings built were the monasteries but unfortunately the Russians destroyed virtually all of them in the (not so) great purges of the 1930’s. During this time almost all of Mongolia’s 700 temples were destroyed and some 17000 monks packed off never to be seen again, two sites were spared and used by the Soviets as a museum and showcase temple to prove religious freedom to visiting diplomats.. Since the collapse of the USSR and Mongolian independence religious freedom has been granted and some sites have been rebuilt, with this Buddhism seems to be flourishing again now. Anyway, back to the buildings… with most of the temples destroyed the Russians did what they do best and planned the city in a big council estate way providing enough demand for concrete and steel so their factories met their targets. Most buildings in UB are of Russian decent, the centre and the accommodation blocks all over but it doesn’t look too bad. The streets are wide with trees (a little dead looking) and the city was build with plenty of parks and squares so you can always find some open space if you need some. Since 1990 and the opening up of Mongolia’s economy plenty of new modern buildings have been built, often with a Mongolian twist which is nice. As it is winter at the moment all building is put on hold but walking around you see many new jobs on the go, we both feel if you came back in three years its going to look very different, there is even a huge Hilton being built.

One thing that Mongolians have managed to grasp which Russians have not is that if you own a business and you want it to be popular then you need to have a sign outside telling people what you do! It sounds crazy but many Russian shops or businesses are behind closed doors with absolutely nothing telling you whats inside, its not that we couldn’t read the writing, there was nothing there at all it feels like the workers like that because then there is less chance of them being bothered! UB rocks because if you want a bank you can find it, restaurant easy, internet café.. over there, perfect.

Instantly, despite UB having the reputation of being the mutton capital in the Mongolian mutton empire the food here is infinitely better than the food ever was in Russia. Russian cooking has two (more than likely many many more but this is what sticks with us) major problems…. Both of them seem to stem from genetic defects within Russian people themselves.. Number one is that Russian people seem to be completely afraid/scared/allergic or just not aware of vegetables. At first we thought ahh… this is all because the Russians are in the middle of nowhere and they cannot get the veg, but no! Coming to Mongolia has disproved that, we have a complete varity of all kinds of fruit and veg here and it is used a lot. In one restaurant in Russia the woman was asking which sides we wanted… we asked if they has any vegetable sides and the woman just laughed in our face like we had said something really funny, no Russian people don’t eat veg. We had fries and home cooked potatoes. What where the home cooked fries you ask?... time for point number two.
Russians have a complete infactuation with the herb dill. When we were first told about this in Moscow we thought it was quite funny and decided this would not bother us as we both like the herb… oh how this would change. Almost all the food we ordered came not just with a light sprinkling of dill but with handfuls dumped all over. Not only this, but all products contained dill - the pot noodles had dill in, the instant mash was flecked with dill, not cheese and chive crisps but cheese and dill, the cheese had dill in, it was everywhere! One buffet breakfast we ate at even had whole sprigs of dill with the tomato and cucumber and the Russians were picking it up and eating it whole on its own, they were loving it, it was like frickin cat nip for Russians. Anyway, the home cooked potatoes turned out to be fries but covered in huge amounts of dill which made us laugh.

Overall we were happy to arrive in UB. The guesthouse we found was central and although a little cramped, nice. The owner is Korean and a happy smiley chappy who has been very helpful to us.

Our first day in UB we spend walking about and getting used to our new surroundings, the centre of the city is small and most things are located on one of a couple of roads not far from where we are staying. We visited ‘Gandantegchinlen Khiid’ which roughly means ‘the great place of complete joy’ and is Mongolia’s largest temple. It was built in 1838 and was used up until the purges of the 30’s when it became a ‘show temple’ for foreign visitors up until 1990. The site was made up of a number of temples built around a courtyard which was a pleasant place to sit and people watch, you could also buy bird feed and feed the thousands of flying rats which were plaguing the area. Inside the main temple was a huge standing gold Buddha about 5 floors high surrounded by prayer wheels, the locals que up to walk around the statue and spin the wheels. The inside has a very spiritual feel with the sound of the chanting and the smell of the burning incense.
From here we walked past the museum of hunting, an old run down building which had seen better days, a long time ago. We had to find the cleaner of the nearby bar to fetch the keys and lead us upstairs, unlock the doors and turn on the lights. She then led us round the museum which was really just a couple of rooms of stuffed animals, mounted heads and endangered species pelts, with each new animal she would keep pronouncing the name in Mongolian until we repeated after her.
A short walk from here was the Mongolian natural history museum which despite the clear lack of funds it was a good effort and was very enjoyable. There was a great dinosaur section, with one apparently famous fossil of a velocirapter and protocerotops that were buried alive whilst in the midst of mortal combat 80 million years ago, quite amazing. Many dinosaur eggs and multiple woolly rhinos which they seemed to use as a space filler when they had nothing else to show. There was a large camel section, a room dedicated to the reintroduction of the worlds only remaining wild horses – the takhi, a geology section and more stuffed animals than you could possibly imagine. Another great room was dedicated to three famous Mongolians, each one had a wall display all about him.. there was the first Mongolian in the Cosmos, the first Mongolian in the Antarctic and the first Mongolian in the Everest (sic).
After the discovery of the Taj Mahal our first main meal in Mongolia was a red hot curry.. beautiful.