Karaokorum Hotel

by Biedjee

Our last day in Ulaanbaatar in Karakorum hotel. And, in a way, also our first day, as during our previous visits to the city we didn't do much sightseeing (with the exception of our half-morning trip to the monastery). And while Ulaanbaatar is an ugly place, it certainly merits a visit.

But first we had to move hotels. As part of the Trans-Siberia train tickets we had had to book the first and last night in Mongolia in advance, including transfers to and from the train station (apparently too often tourists take the wrong train, so they've made it mandatory for foreigners to be accompanied to the compartment). Yesterday we had considered to simply leave our reservation in the Kharkoroum hotel for what it was and stay in the UB Guesthouse. However, as it happened our last night in the UB Guesthouse had been far from comfortable (quality of beds differs greatly from room to room), so we checked out anyway.
Hotel Kharkorum

A good choice, as it turned out, as the Kharkouroum hotel gave us a warm welcome back by not having a reservation for us and the only room still available was their bridal suite. The irony of spending the night in a bridal suite as brother and sister aside we were happy to be staying in such a large room, because this enabled us to hang up our still wet (but clean) laundry.

This being our last day in Ulaanbaatar we had a lot of ground to cover with all the things we still wanted to see and do. So Robbel and I drew up a schedule how we could take the most efficient route through town to do all these things. We amazed ourselves with our remarkably efficient route, which brought us along the national museum, Sukhbataar square, the post office, a coffee break, Internet, souvenir shopping, dumpling lunch, the cinema and finally dinner and drinks!