Three days in Ulaanbaatar

Early in the morning we arrived in Ulaanbaatar and to our surprise Binderja and Mongoo (our guides for couple of days organised by Lena & Barbara - thanks!) picked us up from the train station...good job they did as our Hotel had forgotten all about us, as they were hosting the Mongolian Olympic Judo team for the World Cup which was happening next door. After a bit of to and fro Binderja had sorted the room for us and we shared the Hotel with a bunch of very fit looking individuals, including the current World Champion!














Above is in the centre of the city. A buzzing mad place which does not have much mercy for cyclists or pedestrians for that matter!
Below are the suburbs a sprawling ,maze of houses and city gers in fenced of squares, all have electricity but no running water or sewer.















Our hosts organised a visit to a Shaman in a city ger where we enjoyed a lovely cup of Tsai, green tea with milk and salt, well and plenty of cakes.















Our hosts also insisted that the city was too dangerous to ride (they have a point - we saw about three traffic accidents per day) so whenever we had to ride (to/from hotel;to/from their home) we were escorted with their car, which is here getting a wash.















On day two Binderja, Mongoo and their daughter Dagina very patiently drove us around town in the blazing heat so we could do our errands in preparation for our trip (maps, spare parts etc.) Inbetween we stopped off at Gandan Monastry which was very impressive.




















For good luck people feed the pigeons, just like Dagina does here.
















We received fantastic hospitatlity and were encouraged to "eat, eat, eat" and got to know many Mongolian specialities, including the amazing variety of dairy based produce. Binderja cooked us a great power soup with home made pasta and we were invited to stay a couple of nights at their home, which helped fix Tim's stomach.















On our last morning the three got up early with us and escorted us 25km out of town so we could get started with our adventure in the countryside. Thanks guys!