Улаанбаатар

In the first station I was welcomed by an incredible cute dog/puppy and his herd which reminded me of my entry to Russia!

I arrived already at 6:10 am in Ulaanbaatar and actually my host didn’t respond me… I got accepted trice anyway so I just contacted the other two and they were still up to it. One was Australian and I wanted rather to stay with Mongolians. But the Mongolian one had to go to university so we made an appointment for the evening only. After I waited already the whole day as I couldn’t walk to much with my backpacks he wouldn’t show up. I was damn cold! As Russian mobiles are not at all working in Mongolia I asked someone to use his phone but my host didn’t answer. There I went to a internet café to call the other host but when I gave the first one another try it appeared he just arrived shortly after I left…

No good start in Mongolia so, but people here are very nice, mostly smiling and more open than in Russia. Several people addressed me and one American guy even offered me to use his computer (at his place), his mobile and even asked whether I had enough money.

My Russian SIM card is not working here so I got a Mongolian one: +976 9540 3880
Thanks for the sms, feels good to have backup from home! Hope nobody sent one to my Russian number since I’m in Mongolia, I will probably never get it…

Mongolia turned out to be a wonderful country and the people here are really amazing. I think never before I made so many friends in such a short time, even despite the language barriers we had sometimes to face. When I went to a supermarket three staff surrounded me, keen to help. I asked for Mongolian products, but actually nearly everything is imported, either from Russia or from China – or from Germany. ‘Gut und Günstig’ is a rather expensive brand here! Dalais family was unbelievable, they shared everything with me (just a shame the shower didn’t work well) and we had loads of fun, also with Junior, a only two weeks old kitten which they got the very same day I arrived. Dalai took me to the university and after I already visited a Russian one it was interesting to see a Mongolian one, too. Actually I spent quite some time in university, attending English classes, enjoying the cafeteria and I even ended up giving a German class when the teacher didn’t come. It was very interesting, because it was only beginners and I don’t speak Mongolian but we had fun anyway and actually I learned a lot about Mongolian family life, because that’s what we were talking about. (Ich habe _ Geschwister, _ Brueder und _ Schwestern. Meine Brueder sind _ Jahre alt…) Mongolian families are still quite traditional and later the parents are going to live with the youngest child’s family. In our class of young, modern Mongolians (in the capital) this was still widely agreed.

Ulaanbaatar is really small for a capital, but in the Rush hour one feels the people living here, especially if one tries to get in a public bus (; Its interesting how some things are dead cheap, like the others and on the other hand food is still nearly as expensive as in Germany… (where it’s actually pretty cheap, but still.)

PS: Forgot to tell you one story: When I headed to Beijing I had to be at the train station at 6 am in the morning. As it was Sunday there was no buses and I had to take a taxi. I even found one but there were two people in the front. Another obstacle was my non existent Mongolian and also they would not even know ‘train station’, but only the word ‘hotel’. So I made nice ‘chugga chugga choo choo’ noises, repeating ‘Beijing, China’ and showed them my ticket. Being happy having understood me they hit the road. Having been for quite some time in Ulaanbaatar I luckily knew the way to the train station and only because of this I could say when we went off that one. I first waited whether the driver knew a better way but then started again to explain I wanna go to the train station. Only after some arguing I understood they wanted to drive me to the airport and could resolve the misunderstanding. That was a close shave!