We're Not In Russia Anymore, Toto

As soon as we arrived we raced off to get our tickets to Beijing. This is no reflection on Mongolia - every tourist we’ve met since we left Moscow planned to attend Nadaam and then continue to Beijing, so we were in a mild conniption about tickets being sold out. There is only one train a week. Mongolia seems great and all, but we have Pandas and possibly Tibet (yes, that again – rumor is they will reopen Tibet July 25th, which just happens to be the exact date we hoped to arrive!) to get to.




Guess who this is!



Tickets in hand, we headed off in search of our hotel, a task rendered more challenging by the fact that Mongolians don’t really use street addresses – all businesses have them and that is what is in all the English language guides to assist you in locating them, but almost no buildings have numbers on them. They also have a fun practice where a street might go by multiple names! They don’t list all the names together – they just switch them out periodically, so that you can’t understand why you seem to be someplace entirely different when you know you haven’t turned.



Their uniforms are more fun than ours



This luggage hampered roaming (every person, place and thing everywhere tells you not to wander about with bags during Nadaam) turned out to be perfect as we stumbled into Suhbaatar Square just in time for a perfectly gorgeous military review/parade. Every unit had its own marvelous traditional Mongolian horsehair standard and after we watched each unit march by, then came the cavalry units! The horses were followed by tanks, which were followed by rockets launchers. Last, but not least, the enormous missiles!

Missiles!



Mongol calvary brought to you by Benneton!







The exact center of UB



The population of Mongolia is just under 3 million, almost half of whom live in UB. At least 2/3rds of those were jostling us for prime camera angles in the square. It was a huge, riotously happy, colorful and patriotic scene. No problem finding a flag for Zada here – there are two flying from every vehicle and vendors pushing flags, flag umbrellas, stickers, tattoos and tea cozies. Lots of people were turned out in the traditional calf length, heavy silk coat (many positively crusted over with medals recognizing various sorts of meritorious service to the country) and pointed boots – absolutely gorgeous.

View from our hotel



Once we finally unloaded those stupid, wretched, loathsome bags (next trip everyone gets only a toothbrush and a change of underwear), we went back out to find lunch and the much extolled Mongolian handicrafts. Both ventures were extremely successful. There isn’t much of a vegetarian culture in Mongolia, but what we found was delicious. Also, some of the expat community has dedicated their time in UB to sharing their own cultural marvels (like crème brulee) with their hosts. The crafts are wonderful. Fantastic felted wool creations, gorgeous hand embroidery and of course, cashmere everything.