Ulaanbaatar has lots of interesting things in it: museums, temples, palaces. But between those places the city is a little drab and austere, reminiscent of when Mongolia was part of the Soviet Union. Large, practical apartment blocks dominate, with dusty parks in-between, the newly wealthy inhabitants of the city spending more time in the new department stores. And did we mention the pickpockets? Someone told us before we got there that pockets in Ulaanbaatar are like Mongolian ATM machines…luckily we didn’t have anything stolen but this wasn’t without a lot of dodgy blokes trying….Now this might sound like we didn’t have a good time in the capital…but we did. Perhaps we liked the soviet aesthetics, or that some of the attempted robberies was so bad they became funny or maybe we just liked that the city had flushing toilets…who can say!
All the ways there and back again... 