Things to do in Ulaanbaatar

by Philip Deaton
(Harrogate, England, UK)

Things to do in Ulaanbaatar - we headed straight for a restaurant, to eat something other than mutton and dumplings! The order was placed for steak, chips, egg and salad. To our horror it was mutton steak, but this still didn't stop it from vanishing off the plate in the blink of an eye.

Upon arrival back at Gana's, the first destination was the bathroom, to take my first shower in 6 days! 20 minutes later and i was beginning to resemble some form of living creature.

Unfortunately we were then told that there was a problem in staying at the hostel, as it was getting too cold. They kindly took us to their family apartment instead, which was just 2 blocks away and with central heating, perfect.

Unpacked and settled, Julia and I headed out to meet the guys from the tour for a few farewell drinks. We went to Daves Bar, Khan Brau, the Grand Khaan Irish bar and back to Daves to watch the football at midnight. Mr Lee, ever the competitive character, ended up playing drinking games with Ed, whilst Shuhei ended up in the toilets been sick! Quite an entertaining end to the trip.

The next week was spent waiting for Bobby, at the UB guesthouse, to find some other backpackers to do the Gobi desert trip with us. Unfortunately this was not to be. We therefore filled the days by visiting the Naadam Stadium, Buddah Park, Zaisan Memorial for sweeping views of the city and Natural History Museum, which contained some pretty cool dinosaur skeletons.

Things to do in Ulaanbaatar on a night time - we frequented a couple of our favorite bars and restaurants. Bohemia is recommendable, for a cheap western meal, The Black Dolphin served us large, quality, cheap portions of Mongolian food, whilst we found an excellent Chinese restaurant and gave our tastebuds a sample of what was in store for the following months.

Our favorite bar was definitely the Grand Khan Irish Bar, which although slightly expensive for Mongolia ($1.80 a beer), was always busy, with attentive staff, live music and plenty of bar snacks.

Unfortunately we were unable to buy any direct tickets out of Ulaanbaatar to Beijing, so instead we caught the train out on Sunday night, to the border crossing of Erenhot/Erlian, for the next leg of our adventure!

Things to do in Ulaanbaatar - I also picked up an unbelievably cheap haircut, only $0.80, maybe you could tell?!