We left at roughly 11 in the morning to make our way to Ulan Ude. Due to some time pressure we were taking a taxi which cost 2 Euros in order to be at a good spot.
It is always a bit more tricky to do hitchhiking with three and more people, tricky is not meaning impossible!
How did the hitchhiking go?
I am always a person who believes in appearance and that when you look more motivated to be picked up, it will increase the chances.
I had the vibe that Marla and Tais were not so highly motivated and nobody was stopping in that time. Always tried to motivate them by saying “When people see that we all want to be picked up, it will happen!”
It was that we went further down the road, to the second entrance of the village. There we tried it all together again and it actually did work very well. The first guy stopped not long after we began.
He didn’t speak English, but still seemed like a nice person. Marla and I were quite in a rush in order to make it back on time, because the shared ride back to Mongolia was waiting for us. I had a positive feeling about it.
After he dropped us at the splitting point between Irkusk and Ulan Ude. It was a good location to continue. We were all hyped and not long after actually trying, people were stopping and taking us all the way to the city.
Final ride
It was so funny, two guys stopped and the car was super dirty and filled with things. There was no space for three people to sit, not even for one.
I was like “here we go, shitty ride, but it is a ride to town.” At the end something crazy happened. The guys jumped out of the car, opened the back of the car and shoved literally everything in there in less than a minute. I need to say that I was very impressed by them. The car was perfectly cleaned in such a small time.
The guys also were super nice and friendly, but of course they were not speaking English. They looked like a guy who is 100% from Russia, just the way you would imagine, but they said that they see themself als Buriat instead of Russian, which was interesting.
Of course everyone is having presumptions about any nation, but the first thought doesn’t need to be the right one.
Marla did the best she could while speaking with them, which I think worked quite well.
Last moments in Ulan Ude
We were a bit late, but that didn’t matter, because the people we waited for were also late, by over two hours. The driver was there, but not all passengers. We were still able to eat something at the Chinese restaurant, because the portions were big and tasted amazing.
Also Marla is having a tradition of buying earrings wherever she goes and that was something we were doing as well while waiting.
To reach a place to find what she searched for, we went to a shopping center. In that shopping center there were all brands you could imagine, also a shop with German kitchenware was there to find.
It was interesting seeing all that. Nevertheless we found her earrings and also some souvenirs for our apartment in Hamburg. We had too much Rubles left, because of being able to pay for the accommodation with paypal. With the rest of the money we paid at least for the shared ride and had a bit left now, but that is fine. Next time in Russia if banks are closed I am not completely screwed there.
Ulan Ude is an interesting city with a massive head sculpture of Lenin in the center of town and in general it was quite better than Marla had told me beforehand.
Getting back to Mongolia
The ride back was so amazing. The car was great and we were able to almost lay down completely. Adding to this, the driver was very experienced and knew exactly what to do in order to cross the border quickly.
Before the actual border the police stopped us to check passports. They took me out of traffic and we had to wait for quite some time in the darkness. Checking passports isn’t a strength of Russian officials.
After roughly 30 min we were able to continue and get to the border, where they also had to make some calls, but let me go after.
Getting into Mongolia was as expected quite simple and quick. We arrived in the city at roughly 4 in the morning, where there was no bus going. We just went to Marla’s uncle who drove us home to her mother.
Last weekend of the trip
We had one more weekend and a half week in the country. First we thought of doing some more exploring, but Marla wanted to spend time with friends and family, so we stayed in Ulaanbaatar.
We did quite some time in the last moments of the trip. On the first day we went to check out a yurt factory. I was thinking of making an airbnb with a yurt in Germany, for that I wanted to see how it is working with the yurts and how expensive they are.
When I buy one in Mongolia, including the shipping and all customs I would save more than 1000 Euros if I would get one in Germany. Still many things need to be considered, but I am very interested in finding alternative sources of income, so that might be an idea.
Getting to the yurt factory was quite a hustle, not knowing where exactly it is located. We had to drive through little villages and make tons of phone calls, but in the end we made it.
One uncle from Marla came as well, in order to see the quality and everything like that.
The price was decent, but it is important to also understand how the quality is, so that it can last quite long.
Checking out a store of the uncle
Another uncle from Marla is having a store for Snuff Bottles, which I explained in one of the first personal blogs of Mongolia. It was very cool seeing all his products. In general learning about how it is made.
After visiting the store we went to see the factory, in which the other uncle is working who drove us to her mother. Also other family members were there to meet, like every other day as well.
They are making a lot of work with very expensive materials and are making high end products.
Time with friends
There weren’t only family members whom we met, Marla also had many friends in the city and we tried to fit in everything in the limited time we had.
It was all a bit too much for me and I was overwhelmed by the amount of everything. In general it is not meeting one person and then going to have a day break, instead it is meeting several people every day and continuing that the next day as well.
Her friends were friendly and even spoke English with me, that was indeed a relief.
With her family it was different, but I was expecting that from the beginning.
What is up next?
In the next week you will be reading about the final days in Mongolia and also about some exciting stuff as well. So stay tuned!
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