Our Transiberian Adventue Part 6: Welcome to Mongolia, it's not China

After spending 3 weeks in Russia we were ready to reach Mongolia. I have always wanted to go so was excited and slightly nervous in case it did not reach expectations. I needn't have worried. Our first day was spent in the capital city of Ulaan Bator. It is pretty compact and we were able to walk to the city's square. They have one real skyscraper and the stock exchange has only just opened. We also learnt that there isn't a McDonalds in Mongolia- very refreshing to have a break from Multinational bingo. Mongolia's biggest hero is Ghengis Khan, he is literally every where. They have a big fat statue of him in the main square as well to show how massively impressive he was.




Afterwards we headed to the biggest Buddhist temple in Mongolia, this temple was luckily not destroyed in Communist times and has the biggest statue inside a building in the world (no photos allowed though)




In the Buddhist religion feeding pigeons is lucky....







The Mongolians seriously love the Beatles. This fab statue was right in the city centre. Our driver also a big fan (as well as a queen fan) and we had a nice singalong to yellow submarine.



We also discovered that Mongolians love a good  Irish pub. My personal favourite was this one as it had a ger with shamrocks on the top. The food was pretty good here too!


Our honcho, Anu  advised us that Mongolia's weather was pretty changeable...she wasn't wrong as one day was really warm and the next we had 3 inches of snow!!The journey to the Ger camp was an interesting one and involved us trekking up the mountain with all our stuff in the snow as the bus just wouldnt move any further.....








The views were absolutely stunning, especially with the snow. We climbed further up the mountain and admired the sights. It was great to stay in a ger as so many people in Mongolia are still nomadic. Apparently they tend to move with the seasons so move around 4 times a year to different areas that they return to. The government are pretty supportive of the nomadic way of life and offer free accommodation to the children of those still following this travelling way of life.


We ate a traditional Mongolian BBQ (with hot stones to warm the hands for good health) and enjoyed dressing up.


In Mongolia the traditional game is played with ankle bones and there are loads of different games you can play. Whoever knew you could have so much fun with bits of old bone!!




We saw wild horses which was pretty amazing as that is what Mongolia is famous for. We also enjoyed playing in the snow...





Our final adventure was to visit a lady in her Ger. She had 9 children and only 1 has continued with the Nomadic lifestyle, the others have moved to the city or other countries.



Mongolia is an absolutely amazing country and so friendly. We both 100 percent recommend a visit!!!