A Nomads' City

Ulaan Baatar is rather surreal. There are about two modern glass skyscrapers of which the Chinese are so proud and then it fades away to haphazard Russian style buildings and then it fades away again to shanty huts and then to gers. You can tell this is a nation without an architectural heritage. They're not quite sure how to do town-planning so they reckon they'll just stay in their gers.

There is a square in the middle, Sukhbaatar square. Sukhbaatar led the revolution for independence from China so applause all around. I often wonder what Mongolians think of their brethren in Inner Mongolia- which is Chinese owned. The square has the government building at the head which is actually rather nicely designed and consists of a honey coloured stone and blue glass to give a rather nice colouring. In the middle, up some large steps, sits a huge statue of Ghenghis Khan. There are other statues of his son Ogedai and his nephew Kublai Khan.

From our hotel you can see the ger district on the hills. Ulaan Baatar contains around half of Mongolia's population of 2.7 million and the newcomers bring their gers with them. I've never seen a city which turns into wilderness quite so quickly. One minute it is buses and buildings, the next white gers and rolling steppe. There are huge hills all around covered in pines. It reminds me of Scotland.

A dude on his horse rode past our cafe which made my day. The roads are choked with cars so he had to use the pavement and his horse didn't seem bothered at all. So cool.

Mongolians are also slightly punk ass. There is a hint of the mohican in some of the men's hairstyles and they like black leather. A couple of lads had some heavy beats blaring from a sound system and were convulsing appreciatively to it. In the square last night some were whizzing around on roller blades doing some neat tricks and dripping in coolness. The females have high heels, shades and tight jeans and look pretty fierce.

All the white males here have facial hair.

We went to Gandan monastery this morning which was slightly odd for me as it was actually a working monastery, unlike the Chinese ones. There was a service that we peeked into but seemed to be several old men chanting. One answered his phone half way through. Outside there were hundreds of pigeons flapping about.

We also went to the Natural Museum which had rocks in it and Mum likes rocks so that kept her happy. Mongolia is quite famous for fossil finds as they are well preserved in the Gobi desert.

At the station the bloke sent to get us had his piece of paper the wrong way round so we spent a while sat there like Paddington Bear before the problem was sorted and we were collected.

Mum was disappointed to find there was no McDonalds' here;)