It is a country being very long high on my list and thanks to Marla it was time to finally visit.
It is at the beginning less of traveling and more of visiting some family to also have a lot of cultural experiences. The first time in Mongolia.
The arrival
We went from Hamburg by train to Frankfurt in a night train, sadly not a sleeping train, but I slept anyway. It was a quite rough ride though and when arriving at 7 in the morning, it wasn’t time to fly yet, still more than 8 hours to go, but I am not trusting the trains in Germany. That is a topic for another time.
I was learning some Mongolian, which I started roughly 1,5 weeks before, but I was able to order food and drinks on the plane. The plane was almost completely filled with non Mongolians which were usually different.
Next to me there was sitting a girl from Mongolia who was living in Switzerland for quite some time. So you could tell a Swiss accent which was easy to understand though. We three talked a lot and the time was flying. It was just super weird because there were no international movies, series or anything in the entertainment section. It were only things in Mongolian language without the option of translation.
When arriving in Ulaanbaatar there were very long lines at the immigration, for Mongolians and for foreigners. The funny thing was, even though there were more foreigners, we went through faster than the locals, which is hard for me to understand.
First impression
After being out of the immigration and receiving the luggage there was basically no possibilities to declare something just now and then a local was getting picked out to scan their luggage, but only the hand luggages.
We had to wait for Marla’s mother and brother to pick us up and the standart taxi drivers who try to get you in their car at the airport were not giving me any attention, which usually is different.
After being picked up, they did not really seem to be interested in getting to know me, but obviously they wanted to see their daughter and sister again after quite some time. The ride was not that long, but we were able to see some parts of the country already. mattress
Green mountains with many yurts everywhere. It was not so squeezed together, it was just spread out in the distance, those are things I like.
When seeing the capital and realizing that there were some power plants right in the city and not really outside, that felt a bit unusual, but the conditions of the roads were for sure a little bit better in the city, than Marla’s mother was telling me.
The place we stay in Mongolia
We are staying with her mother in the capital. It is a clean apartment which sadly is getting quite hot over the day, because it is still quite warm in Mongolia at this time (end of August).
We have a mattress for the ground which isn’t thick, but it is not necessary for me and I can still sleep decently.
The situation is that I need to work for the first week in Germany, but with the time difference it is a bit rough, 6 hours later, but still it is fine I guess.
Due to the fact that I will be only working for one week and having two weeks vacation after is making the one week very stressful, but somehow it is working out.
What have we been doing so far?
So far we went to see many people from Marla’s family. On the first day of a food festival in the main square. It wasn’t easy to find anything without meat, because it is very meat based, but that is just normal in Mongolia and in general in many countries in the north.
At basically the last food shop I was able to find something which would suit me. I tried to order in Mongolian, and that worked. I felt very proud that they answered in Mongolian and not in English. Sadly I wasn’t prepared well enough, so it was a bit embarrassing for me, but it will improve.
Going to the family wasn’t easy at first, because of the language barrier, but still they are all quite friendly to me and I believe the more I see them, the better it will get.
First little exploring of Mongolia
We went to the countryside in order to visit the Dschingis Khan monument in the countryside. I was driving the car and it went quite well, even though the traffic in the city sucks a lot!
We took more than 1,5 hours there, but managed to visit the statue. It is a huge monument in basically nowhere. You have an amazing landscape in the background and there are many tourists visiting.
We got that monument recommended by a friend, but just for seeing only that, it is not worth it. If you are around, then you should check it out for sure, it is something special.
You can walk stairs up and exit through his pants (basically where his dick is at) to a viewing point, from where you are having some good lookout. Honestly it is just nature which you are seeing and Chinggis Khan from close by.
While driving back I had to make some phone calls for work where we drove a bit deeper into nature to have a great lookout and enjoy the natural beauty of Mongolia for the first time on this trip. Also the wind was there, which made it even better.
Seeing old school friends
After the statue we went downtown where the traffic was super bad. We decided to walk for about 2 kilometers which wasn’t bad at all and probably faster. I took my working laptop with me, because I still had to do some callings. It was a long working day, but I don’t want my working place to not allow me to work abroad anymore. Because that is the best thing about the job.
We went out to eat and there I was ordering again, which is something I do like. Also the menu was just in Mongolian, I struggled a bit with it, but still it worked out well.
She was a nice person and we all spoke English together, which was a good refreshing moment. Sadly due to work I had to do many calls and was kind of off from the meetup, which still was good for Marla, so she could catch up the last time a bit.
Playing cards
Yesterday, we went to her aunt and we got there quite late. After work, we took a bus downtown, which costs not much, 28 cents for two people one way. 500 in their currency for one person.
The bus was super crowded and the traffic was bad, after we arrived downtown it was too late to catch our last bus. There are some guys who act like a taxi, along the bus ride. It cost us for 5 km around 1,3 Euros so it was quite cheap and we had no other option.
When arriving at her aunt’s, there were many people, cousins and other relatives running all around the apartment. It was very sweet because they were doing us a lot of food and especially doing it without meat, which was amazing for them to do.
We were drinking a beer together and also sea buckthorn wine which was quite interesting.
Even though we were quite late there (at almost 11pm) we stayed up with them until 4 in the morning playing cards.
We played Moshik ( Read here how the game works ) and it was very interesting and quite easy to understand. We played with money and for each point left at the end, you needed to pay 200 in their currency. It was a lot of fun and everyone was excited to play. Sometimes I was winning actually and left with profit which was great.
Getting home at night
The time was flying and we ended up somehow trying to get back home at 4 in the morning. We have been dropped roughly 5km away from Marla’s mothers place. There we took a taxi which was having higher rates than during the day, but we were just so tired and no bus was sadly driving, but at the end we paid a bit less than 3 Euros for it and didn’t have to get the hell up.
What is up next?
Next week the story will continue, I have no idea what will happen in the next week, so stay tuned!
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