Last days in UlaanBaatar

We arrived at the train station in UB at around 6:30AM, we had to quickly put all our bags on and depart the train. We walked through the train station and out into a car park where we hired a bus to take us from the station to our hotel. Once we got to the hotel we couldn’t check in so we decided to leave our bags and get cleaning equipment for our gear.
On the way to the state department store we stopped for breakfast and then continued. We bought everything that we needed and headed back to the hotel. This time we could check into the hotel so we got all our room keys and we were separated into groups for each room.

We had time to go up to our hotel room and completely empty our ruck sacks and day packs. This was so we could clean them and prevent any of us getting stopped at customs due to bringing mud or any other materials.
We were able to get most of our stuff cleaned up so we decided to leave for lunch.

For dinner we went to a restaurant called Bull where each person has their own hot plate and you get a platter of meats, vegetables, spices, noodles and sauces. You can combine anything you want into your pot and cook your own soup. Everyone had a lot of fun and it tasted really nice.

For one of our teammate’s birthday and because it was our Mongolian guide Yona’s last day with us we decided to do karaoke on the way back to the hotel. We were all picking songs and having heaps of fun singing really loudly. We ended up going until around 2:00 in the morning and everyone was very exhausted afterwards so we all went straight back to the hotel to sleep. We weren’t allowed to take footage of the karaoke so no one gets embarrassed, but this is a photo of the karaoke bar.

We decided to start the next day a bit earlier than usual so we could see as many tourist attractions as possible. We quickly ate breakfast and then headed off to the Buddhist monasteries.

It was a long walk but definitely worth it. The art work and designs of some of the buildings is really amazing. No photos are permitted inside the buildings so I will describe what we saw inside. As we walked inside the first monastery we saw the art work all around the walls describing the relationship of animals and the gods called deities. As you walk into the next section of the monastery there is a large room with seats all around the sides and lines of parallel benches for the monks in the middle. The monks sit on the benches with a stand infront of them and each monk has their own card with writing in it. They chant out what is written on the card.

As part of respecting the religion you walk around the room and give an offering such as money or food. All around the sides of the room are glass cabinets with large replicas of the Buddhist gods which are very detailed.

After walking around we exited the building and just outside there was a large metal pot which had some sort of material that was being burnt to create smoke. People walked around it collecting the smoke with their hand and sniffing it or rubbing it on their head. There were many buildings like this throughout the area. The monks even have a large college where they learn the 5 fields of minor Buddhist sciences which are the science of poetics, the science of synonymy, science of prosody, science of drama and the science of astrology. There are also 5 major Buddhist science areas which is the science of fine art, science of medicine, science of linguistics, science of philosophy and the inner science.

From there we went to a building with a giant statue covered in gold which was offered by the public. This building is actually one of the only original Buddhist temples left in Mongolia. After 1937 there was a massive purge of the Buddhist religion by the Russians. This left only a few buildings left and most of them have fallen apart over time. So this building is very sacred for the religion.

After we finished at the monasteries we walked back to the main city for lunch and then walked to the fine arts museum. The museum contains paintings, statues and relics of Mongolia. Some of the art looked amazing and very complicated.

We then walked to see traditional Mongolian dancing, singing and other performances. There were dancers who would dance to the music played by musicians with some very weird instruments.

We also got to experience Mongolian through singing which was unbelievable. It sounds like the singer is using two voices at once. It is truly unreal. The musicians had some very strange instruments – there were some guitar like instruments with two strings which they play with a fiddle bow. Some of the costumes shown at the end of the show looked very detailed and present the Mongolian tradition very well.

We went out for dinner, passing Seoul street which is full of restaurants and clubs.

We went back to the hotel to pack for our flight the next day so we ended staying up quite late to get it done. Once we jumped into bed we all fell asleep straight away.