I had done only the vaguest of research about the border crossing from China to Mongolia. I knew that thanks to a strange immigration law, it was mandatory to cross in a vehicle, and a train crossing didn't work with our timetable. So we decided to go with one of the locals making a killing renting themselves out as drivers for quick border hops. Because we had arrived remarkably early, we were ready to go well before the border opened and thus well before any touts were awake.
Erlian (also Erlianhaote or Erenhot or Ereen depending on how you feel) is a small city but with a bit more life than we expected. At five thirty in the morning people were setting up vegetable stalls, opening shops, dancing in the park, cracking whips in the park (for very loud exercise, I imagine), and erecting a huge sound system and stage for a music festival.
We harangued the earliest tout until he took us to be the first people of the day to cross into Mongolia, then at the border we were given free passage to the nearby town of Zamyn Uud. There we changed money and became aware that there was no cheap bus to the capital and that it was about twelve hours until the train left. This information was provided by a crowd of thirty or forty drivers all begging us to part with a large pile of bills in order to hire them. One highly multilingual woman (surely hired by the drivers) came over and told us in fine English about all the advantages of the car over other modes of transport - we could drink beer, stop for selfies, and listen to the radio. We bargained down to $10 more than the train and got in. As it happened, there was no beer, very few selfies, and the radio was Mongolian NPR.
If asked to guess the most popular car in the harsh climate of Mongolia, the Toyota Prius might never even enter your mind. But this was the vehicle whose middle seat I occupied for six hours to Ulaanbaatar, and the vehicle which filled the streets once we got there. Due to certain import regulations and pricing schemes, it is actually preposterously cheap to import unsold older Priuses from Japan to Mongolia. Although the average salary is very low, workers abroad can send back enough remittances to buy the car outright in a few months.
Another interesting thing about this is that they're all right-hand drive. About a third of non-Prius cars are also right-hand drive. Thus, on the drive-on-the-right roads of Mongolia, our driver tried out both lanes until he found one he liked best or other traffic forced him to change his mind. But on the whole we found Mongolian drivers incredibly polite and deferent, especially in light of six weeks in China and Vietnam.
Our guesthouse was easy enough to find and surprisingly close to the central square. The rest of the people living there seemed to be in various yet constant states of arrival and departure, filling the hall with luggage more often than not. The majority of budget accommodations in the city also offer tours, since practically every tourist wants to go to a park or desert at some point. Our host seemed impossibly busy at all times yet managed to be our guide for a day trip a few days into our stay, which I will detail soon.
The city of Ulaanbaatar gave us kind of a shock. It has much more of a Western feel to it, visible in architecture and advertisement and cars and food and everything - at every turn we were reminded that we were not in China. There was also not very much going on, at least not that we discovered at first. Outside the main avenues, restaurants were empty all day and streets were essentially silent. Tourists stuck out everywhere, perhaps more than we'd ever seen in one place. Even with the low turnout, prices were more expensive than I expected. These things kind of made us pine for the more familiar cities of China.
But then we took a day trip to one of the nearby national parks, and everything was better. I am a miserly person, and on this trip we've been especially tight-fisted, very often sacrificing our comfort for a few extra dollars. So when our host told us the price of the day trip he'd planned, we discussed it at length before agreeing. I'm very glad we went through with it, since he was a wonderful guide and filled the day with things to see and do.
We first went to a museum built under an enormous statue of Genghis Khan (who else), with sparse yet pretty exhibits about the Mongols and those who came before. You could climb out onto the statue a ways, but it was foggy and we couldn't see much. Near the base was a small collection of life size metal cavalry warriors. Our host said that the museum plans to eventually have ten thousand of them, which would just be hilariously oversized and cost a fortune. Apparently there are plans to charge people to put their own likeness on the soldier to help fund it - any takers?
Then we drove into the Gorkhi-Terelj park itself. Gorkhi means "wellspring" in Mongolian, and I suppose the Terelj river has its origin somewhere in the park. The first stop was on a stunning meadow with grazing yaks, shaded by mountains as the sun peeked through the mist. It was phenomenal. I ran from place to place taking photos under the amused looks of the farmers who had undoubtedly seen the same excitement hundreds of times.
Our next stop was Turtle Rock. Months ago as this trip was being planned, Auberon and I read about and saw pictures of this rock in the park that looked like a turtle. It stuck in our minds as the secret true goal of the trip - to travel thousands of miles over months to see a big rock. It was silliness of course but as the big moment drew near the excitement was real. The best thing was that this rock really did look like a turtle, and it was far larger than we thought. Many selfies were taken and we were thoroughly satisfied Right next to the rock was a tiny camp where we gladly parted with $5 to be led around on camelback for a few minutes. Then it was lunchtime, and after that we continued on into the park.
Pictured: Ulaanbaatar from an apartment building roof, Turtle Rock, and camel riders.
Footnote: the Mongolian name for Turtle Rock actually translates to Frog Rock, but everyone agrees that this is ridiculous.
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