Arriving at Ulaanbataar – off to a good start
- Megan & Agathe
- 24 oct. 2017
- 2 min de lecture
We landed around 6am at our first destination: Ulaanbataar, capital city of Mongolia. When preparing our travels, Agathe and I agreed on two things: 1. spend money carefully 2. try and take on a local approach to our travels. With that mind-set we set off from Ulaanbataar airport with our bags on our back, bracing -7 C down a dirt track to find the local bus, which according to our guide would only be a short walk away. However, at the bus stop we find out buses only start from 9am and there is no warm place in sight to sit in until then. A couple of minutes later a 7 seater car pulls up with a little woman’s head popping out and screaming things in Mongolian. We run over with our map, pointing the city’s main square hoping to get closer to our guesthouse, she nods no with her head and leaves us feeling desperate on the side walk. A couple of seconds later though, the car reverses down the street and we get ushered into the already pretty filled up car. The man sitting next to us kindly paid our fare, as the car kept pulling in and filling up reaching 15 people in a 7 seater. As we get off, the same kind man flagged down an unofficial taxi and told us that the driver would bring us to our guesthouse. However, things didn’t really go as planned as the driver had no idea where we were headed and decided to drop us off on the other side of the city. Although walking in the freezing cold, carrying our massive bags for an hour hadn’t been our original plan, it did give us the opportunity to get a feel for Ulaanbataar! The city is incredibly big and rather developed, with many skyscrapers and people dressed exactly like back home. However, there is still a Soviet feel to the place giving it a quite harsh and cold atmosphere. We eventually managed to get to our guesthouse to find ourselves in a room with two other French girls, Lea and Flore, who had been on the same flight as us and had arrived a good hour earlier!
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