Mongolia, Ulan Bataar,

by Claudia Fiedler

Mongolia - Erdenet

Mongolia means the land of blue sky.
We arrived in Ulan Bataar in on a crisp Monday morning. After taking up residence at the Golden Gobi hostel near state department store, I went around guesthouses to find like minded people for a tour of north and central Mongolia.

At UB guesthouse, I met Emma from England and we decided to travel together until July 14th. Our idea was to take public buses wherever possible and either join a group or form a group for the leg of the journey that was not covered by public transport. We stoked up on food in UB, where the supermarkets are filled with delicacies from Germany and Russia including delicious bread and cheese.

The rift between countryside and city is so big that food stores in Ulaanbaatar offer German jam, butter from New Zealand, cheese from Russia, mustard from Czech Republic, and juice from Poland (these are just examples), but virtually no products of Mongolian origin besides yogurt, bread and sausage.

Mongolia lacks the technical means to produce and transport dairy products in winter; with temperatures below -30 C (-22 F) milk and cheese have to be heated rather than to be cooled! As a consequence, relying on imported foodstuff without access to local resources is an expensive endeavor for the average city dweller and shoestring traveler stretching the budget to its limits.

Our first stop was Erdenet, which we reached by bus from UB. The city was founded around 1975 and lives and dies with the copper mining industry. It has distinctively Eastern European character with Stalinist buildings and decrepit apartment blocks.

Like other Mongolian towns, it has a container market where old containers are used as stores selling everything from food to household items. The town has a sports complex with an excellent indoor Olympic size swimming pool which we were not able to use as it was closed. For dinner, we went to a restaurant called "Russian Kitchen" where we had yummy food and Mongolian beer (Bogol).

The owners and friends of the owners cheered us with some vodka and big smiles. One of the ladies spoke English and as it happened we all stayed at the same hotel. After more food and drinks at the hotel, I said goodbye to my new friends and promised to give Ulzii a call when I get back to UB. Ulzii is deputy director of the Mongolian labor department and one of her friend worked at the Copper mine in Erdenet.