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We arrived in Ulaan Baatar (the capital of Mongolia) around 7am and Zaya the hostel owner collected us from the train station.The first thing we noticed about Ulaan Baatar was the amount of traffic and the noise, especially from car horns.The next thing was that pedestrians didn't seem to have any right of way, even when crossing on a pedestrian crossing or crossing on a green light, cars didn't stop they just seemed to swerve around you or you would have to stop for them.So crossing the road was a mission in itself.We would either walk a long way down the road past where we wanted to go just to use the underpass so we could cross under the road safely and then have to walk all the way back to where we wanted to go.Or we would cross the road when a local person crossed, we figured they knew what they were doing.Or we would cross with a large group of people, safety in numbers, as Guy says "power to the people".Our room wasn't going to be ready until 1pm so we settled in for some breakfast at the hostel.We then had a wander around town to get our bearings and decided to find the office where we needed to collect our Mongolia to China train tickets.Armed with Russian directions, it wasn't long before we were in what we thought was the right building, even the security guards at the front desk confirmed we were in the right building. They sent us off to office number 117 as per the directions, but it was full of students at computers, clearly the wrong room, then they sent us to office 104 which had an empty desk and a telephone which people kept coming in to use.We stood there for quite a while waiting for someone, then finally a woman walked in and we asked her if this was the right office for Ghengis Travel agency - she said no that we were in fact in the wrong building.She drew us up a rough map and with Guy's great sense of direction he navigated us to the right building which was a few blocks away.Having collected our train tickets we asked if they could help us with applying for our Chinese visa as Real Russia in London had advised they could, as apparently it was suppose to be a real mission. She told us to come back at 9:30am the following morning and she would accompany us to the Embassy.So we went back to the hostel and jumped on the internet as we needed to book a flight out of China and book a hostel -proof that we were actually leaving China and where we were staying whilst in China.We decided that our next destination after China would be India and this time we would book a tour as we also wanted to go to Nepal.We ended up booking a 19 day tour from Delhi to Kathmandu.So the next day all prepared with our flight and hostel booking confirmations and passports, we met back at Ghengis travel agency and one of their staff members walked down to the embassy with us, only to be told that it was a national holiday in China and the embassy was closed until Wednesday. We agreed to meet up again at their offices two days later (the embassy was only open Monday, Wednesday and Friday).The rest of the day we spent checking out the Gandan Monastery which was very lively.It is still a working monastery and there were lots of monks chanting, although it did feel a little bit intrusive sitting watching them.That evening we went out for dinner to a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet, Silk Road which had a terrace over looking the Chojin Lama Monastry.The waiter was a bit taken back when we asked if we could have a table outside on the terrace, as he thought it was far too cold.We both assured him it wasn't, well guess it was going into winter for them, but the sun was still shining, it really was a pleasant evening and not at all that cold. He shrugged his shoulders and set a table up for us outside (all of the outside tables had been packed away for winter). As we sat enjoying the view, local diners inside the restaurant were staring out of the windows at the crazy foreigners sitting outside.The waiter seemed quite concerned about us freezing to death that he brought out a couple of blankets to wrap around our shoulders.We had a lovely evening, even though the food wasn't Mongolian, it was in fact Italian.Wednesday morning finally arrived and it was time for us to try and apply for our Chinese visas again. We met back at Ghengis travel agency and once again one of their staff walked us down to the embassy. We arrived at 9:30am when it opened and joined the queue which was already about 30 people long. Although it wasn't really a queue but more a scrum of people, as we found out both Mongolians and Chinese don't know the meaning of queues, something the English do very well.The embassy would open the door and let a few people in, but as soon as the door opened people would surge forward and try and push their way through the door before they shut it.There was one Mongolian woman who tried to push her way past a Western man who was next in line to go in. He was having none of it and started pushing her back and saying "hey stop pushing in!"But somehow she managed to worm her way in and actually punched him on her way past. We patiently waited our turn, however the queue was taking a long time (problem being it was only open from 9:30am - 12:30pm) and we felt a bit sorry for the guy from the travel agency as we were taking up a lot of his time. As there were quite a few Western people in the queue we figured it couldn't be that hard to complete a couple of forms and told him we should be ok if he wanted to go back to work.So we said thank you and goodbye and continued the wait.We finally made it inside, filled out our application forms and handed them in with our supporting documents. It couldn't have been easier.Real Russia in London had told us it would be very difficult to get our Chinese visas, that it would have to be filled in in either Chinese or Mongolian (application form was in English) and we would need an original hotel confirmation courieredover from China which would cost us around US$100. But we didn't need any of this.Our applications were now submitted and we just had to wait a week to collect them.Whilst we waited for our visas we decided to head out of the city and into the countryside.We chose to spend 3 nights in a traditional ger tent in the Terelj national park.We were going to stay with a traditional Nomadic family but we couldn't find additional people to split the cost of the hire of the vehicle, driver and fuel costs.Plus Shannene had a dickey tummy for the whole time we were at the ger so probably best we didn't stay with the family as their toilet was just two blanks of wood and a whole in the ground!!We ended up booking through a travel agency and we stayed in a ger camp which had a proper toilet block and cold, cold showers!! It was really nice to leave the city behind and get some fresh country air. The landscape, once you got out of the city reminded us very much of the South Island of New Zealand, Otago/Canterbury.Our driver didn't speak English, but just got on with the job of driving us over the bumpy and pot holed roads to our destination, which was about 100-120 kms away.We didn't know it at the time but our driver was taking us on a scenic route, if we had known we would have asked him to stop so we could take photos. He did stop at one point by a rock and rather enthusiastically said "photo photo" whilst waving his hands around. Not quite sure what we were taking a photo of, but did so nonetheless. It wasn't until later when we looked back at our photos we saw it was actually Turtle Rock, a rock formation shaped in fact like a turtle, we just couldn't see it at the time. We jumped back in the van and carried on our way.Now what we knew of the ger camp was from photos that the travel agency had shown us- beautiful photos of ger tents set up by a lovely river.We diverted off the main road and entered the national park, it was gorgeous just like the photos. We thought our camp has to be one of these, but then we turned around and drove out again. We both looked at each other and said "where the heck are we going?!". But we just sat back and enjoyed the scenery, what else could we do, besides our driver didn't understand us. We tried to talk to him but he would just smile back at us.We came up around one bend and from out of nowhere a huge shiny silver monstrosity of Chinggis (Ghengis) Khan sitting nobly atop one ofhis horses was upon us. As we got closer it was as if he was actually riding his horse towards us.Our driver stopped and said "photo photo" and waved his arms around again, so we jumped out and snapped a couple of photos. We are led to believe it was a museum, but they still seemed to be building it.We finally arrived at our camp and it was very much like the photos they showed us, we were beginning to feel a wee bit skeptical about the whole thing but were pleasantly surprised when we arrived. We had a whole ger to ourselves (in fact we had the whole camp to ourselves) and it was really lovely inside, with our own pot belly stove which Guy stoked every night to keep us warm and snug as it got very cold during the nights/early morning. We were the only ones staying there which we didn't mind too much, we were grateful for the peace and tranquility.We arrived in time for lunch - all of our meals were included in the price we paid.We had warned them that Shannene is veggie, which they said they catered for.Mutton seems to be a big part of Mongolians staple diet.The first dish we received was a soup laden with mutton. There were quite a few veggies in it so we think they thought that it might disguise the fact that there was meat in it.We tried our best to explain to the girl (the chef) that Shannene didn't eat meat, we were almost about to start making moo-ing and baa-ing noises when we think she finally understood.We awaited the next dish - dumplings.Guy cut into his - mmmm.....mutton. Then Shannene cut into hers - ahhh veggies, no meat to be found. Lunch was a strange set up, there we were just the two of us in this big ger shaped building and amongst a lot of tables there was one lonely table set up for 2 people and Mongolian music playing on repeat in the background. After lunch on our first day the girl who had cooked our food showed us how they make their dumplings and how they fold them up into various different ways and shapes.We put on aprons and had a go at folding the little parcels. Very entertaining for both her and us - she made them look so easy. Wish we had our cameras on us as our ones looked so sad and pathetic next to hers. She definitely had a giggle at our expense. That afternoon we went for a walk, although we couldn't go too far as Shannene's tummy was still a bit dodgey. The next morning we had to try and explain to the girl who cooked our food that Shannene wasn't feeling well and not to cook her any food for lunch, however Guy would still be eating. We didn't want to offend her, or for her to think that her cooking had made her ill. Shannene had a restful afternoon and Guy had his lunch for one.There wasn't a lot to do, we gave horse riding a miss, probably not such a good idea with a dickey tummy.However it was nice just to kick back and relax and chill out for a few days and go for a few walks.After our 3 days were up we headed back to Ulaan Baatar to pick up our Chinese visas, we were granted a 30 day single entry visa.It wasn't as hard as we had been led to believe, however we did meet a group of 20 American students who were on a 9 month study trip who did encounter a few problems.They had tried to apply for their Chinese visas at the embassy in Mongolia, just as we had done.However the visa application man had said no to all of them before they could even submit their application forms as he had tried to get a visa to enter America and he was denied.So if he couldn't get a visa to enter their country then he wasn't going to let them get one for his country China.We still don't know how or if they got their visas, but it definitely wasn't through the embassy in Mongolia. We're not really sure if that's how the system is suppose to work, we're just glad he was in a good mood when we applied for our visas, but guess you can't argue with him. Once back in Ulaan Baatar we checked back into Zaya's hostel, but as all of the rooms were full at her main hostel we stayed at one of her apartments down the road. It had 2 bedrooms, bathroom, toilet and a kitchen, which we had all to ourselves for a couple of days.We scored the best room, a double room with a balcony and our own TV - although the only programmes in English were the National Geographic channel and an Australian channel (rather random) which didn't show Neighbours much to Guy's disappointment, just some other cheesy Aussie soap. The apartment over looked a very noisy square off the main road. It had lots of amusement rides, but didn't seem to have many customers.They would play music really, really loud, but would play the same music everyday and if the young guys manning the amusement rides really, really liked a song theywould keep repeating it over and over and over again.There was one song that they particularly liked called "Let it Shine", no sooner had it finished and they would play it again. Not sure who sings it, but they got quite excited by it and would jump around playing air guitar, singing along.We were thoroughly over it by the 4th time in a row they played it and that was just on the first day.As we had a kitchen we cooked a lot of our own meals. The supermarket was just the over the road from our apartment and had quite a good selection of food, and the biggest bags of 3 n 1 coffee sachets you could ever find.But we did have to guess at a few things as to what they were. For example, one night Guy bought some frozen dumplings for our tea.A lot of the packets had pictures of cows on them, so we figured they were made of meat.But one packet had carrots on it, so we figured they would be veggie, seemed logical.So we bought them and Guy cooked them up that night. He cut open one to test it and it was full of meat, not one single carrot to be found. You would think that if words failed you, you could at least rely on pictures for explanation, but not in this case.We did also try one of the Mongolian fast food outlets for dinner one night. A lot of the dishes were made of meat, mutton in fact and every time we pointed at a veggie dish, the waitress shook her head, guess it wasn't on the menu tonight. So Shannene ended up ordering a couple of salads which came out drenched in a thick mayonnaise and Guy had a dumpling dish (the picture he pointed at had a plateful of them) so he just asked for one. The waitress looked at him and put one finger up, to say just one, which he confirmed. When his dish came out it was just one single little dumpling on a plate, now we know why she seemed so surprised when he just ordered one.The restaurant lived up to its "Fast Food" name as the food was on the table within minutes, which was good as Guy had to order something else as one lonedumpling wasn't going to fill the gap. The following day we walked to Bogd Khaan Palace Museum. As in Russia you had to pay an additional cost on top of your entrance fee to take photos (this we found to be a common theme during our trip, along with foreigners having to pay hugely inflated entrance fees than locals, who paid considerably less).We decided against paying the camera fee as it was about 2-3 times the cost of the entrance fee, plus the woman in the ticket booth didn't ask us.The plan was, Guy would act as the look out and Shannene would secretly snap a few photos. We went along like this for a while when Guy noticed the security cameras everywhere and we thought we'd been busted and and someone would nab us when we left and demand we pay the money, but no one said anything.We met some people later that day who had also been and hadn't paid, but freely snapped away with no questions asked, so we'd wished we'd taken a few more photos now.We then huffed it up the hill to the memorial of the unknown soldier, given to Mongolia by Russia.It had a great view overlooking the somewhat hazy, smog filled city.The next day after a lazy start we thought we'd go to the Museum of Natural History.It didn't quite compare with it's counterpart in London. It did have a big collection of rocks and some of the taxidermy was dismal if not a little bit frightening - there was one particular penguin which seemed stretched beyond recognition and since when do deers have fangs.However their dinosaur section was very impressive and had a large collection of bones, fossilized eggs and reconstructed skeletons.That evening we went for a few beers at an Irish pub (no matter where in the world you are there's always an Irish pub) we thought we might meet a few Westerners to share travel stories with, but it was full of locals. We also tried the London pub too, but yet again full of locals. On our last night in Ulaan Baatar we decided to book tickets to a traditional Mongolian music and dance show- apparently something that should not be missed.The show had an early start time of 6pm, so figured we would get something to eat afterwards. We put on our best traveling clothes, Shannene even put on a bit of mascara and Guy a shirt, albeit a very crinkled one - big night out on the tiles for us. When we got there the doors hadn't yet opened, but a woman came up to us and asked if we had tickets to the show tonight, which we replied yes. We thought she had tickets she was trying to sell, but she then began to tell us the show was canceled, much to our disappointment. We then walked over to the ticket office and she explained to us that the show was canceled tonight due to there being no electricity, but we could go again the following night. We told her that we were leaving tomorrow and requested a refund, which she gave us.We reckon that we were the only ones attending the show that evening (we were only joking that morning, how funny it would be if we were the only ones there) as they perform the show daily and it wasn't high season. So we were all dressed up with no where to go.We decided to go to what we can only describe as a gastro-pub for dinner.As we were walking to the pub we were standing on the footpath waiting to cross the road, when a car pulled up in front of us.The driver had his window down and was just smiling at us.We had no idea what he wanted, he didn't say a thing, but just kept smiling.Then suddenly he pointed up the road, still not saying anything, but still just smiling.Guy then remembered that he'd read about how drivers stop and pick up pedestrians heading in the same direction. They agree upon the price of the fare before they hop in the car.Not a bad idea, kind of like car pooling, helps the driver with his/her petrol money and probably cheaper than a taxi.However we were just trying to cross the road, so we waved him on and he drove off, probably still smiling,At the pub a group of locals joined our table and we started chatting to one of them. His name was Tsolomon and he had lived in Dublin and New York and also spoke perfect English. He was a really nice guy and he wrote down some bars/restaurants which he recommended we should go to and also his mobile number if we got stuck. Such a shame we were leaving the next morning as we didn't get to try out any of the places he had written down, if only we had met him a few days earlier.We left early the next morning, we had an 8:30am train to Beijing to catch.
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