Yet again we were woken at 5am this morning. But this time it was by the staff at the Ger camp coming in to relight our fire.
Greg and Presh then got up and went to wander up the nearby hill to watch the sunrise.
Shanika and I then promptly went back to sleep.
A couple of hours later we were woken by Presh and Greg’s return. Apparently sunrise had been spectacular – and they had the photos to prove it. However, before they did that they promptly climbed back into bed to warm up. Breakfast was once again delicious – bread, jam, omelet, rice cake, and coleslaw.
And then at 10am headed straight back into Ulan Baater.
The afternoon was a whirlwind of sight seeing.
We went to the Gandan Monastery – which is the largest in the country. After the communist crackdowns on religion in the late 1930s approximately 13,000 monks were killed in Mongolia, and this was one of the only Monasteries to survive. It now has over 150 monks in residence – including, which i had never seen before, young monks in training. Some of the young monks looked as young as 10 years old. In one of the temples there were two chasing each other around in some form of game.
We had lunch at a Korean BBQ chicken cafe. Luckily they also catered to Greg who had Kimchi rice and salad. We ordered two plates of fries for the table not realising just how large the portions were going to be; turns out chicken in Mongolian means CHICKEN. I think we actually rolled down the steps of that place. After lunch we went to The State Department store – the main department store in the city – and stocked up on souvenirs. Both Greg and I are now sporting Mongolian slippers, some felt wall hangings, and I got myself a felt hand bag.
And that is all we had time for before having to head back to our hotel (the only hotel room we have had since Germany… ahh a clean bathroom). We were heading to a Mongolian “cultural” show in the evening.
I was slightly skeptical that this “cultural” show may be a tourist trap – but it turned out to be wonderful. It was mixture of traditional dance, folk music, and contortionists. The highlight is tied between the three contortionists (three young girls who didn’t seem to know that the human body can’t move in all directions at once), and the “throat singing”. The Throat singing was unlike anything I have heard before. The male performer could maintain base notes in his throat while creating a whistling type melody at the same time. It was hypnotising to watch (or should i say listen to).
The show went for an hour and then we braved the cold again to relocate to a Mongolian BBQ restaurant.
The restaurant was basically a mecca for expats and tourists. But it was a great place to go purely to watch the spectacle that it is. First you got a bowl and filled it with the stir fry ingredients you wanted, got another smaller bowl and concocted a sauce and then you took it to the guys working the large BBQ.
It was basically a large round grill with a hole in the middle. The staff took your bowl of ingredients and placed it in a perfect lines around teh grill, and then the men came along with two large metal rods and tossed it around until cooked (including a very clever trick of cracking an egg and throwing the shell down the whole in the middle with the metal rods) then threw you sauce on top and served it to you.
It was 14,0000 Tögrög (Mongolian dollars) which equates to $14 Australian – and you could go back as often as you so desired.
After this I got a lift back to the hotel with one of the Intrepid leader’s friends – and Greg went out with the other boys to hit the Ulann Baater night scene. (I believe he returned home a little after three am.)
The last two days have been so rushed it felt like we needed an extra couple of days (if not months) in Mongolia – which has been the unexpected highlight. The people are really lovely here (especially when compared to the majority of Russians we ran in to) and the landscape just begs to be further explored. But our train to Beijing is booked – so we will just have to organise to be back here very shortly.
Alice
