Ulan Bator, Mongolia
October 24, 2013
Time to get out of the city a bit today and away from the Smog of Ulan Bator.
I’ve got a trip out to a few different Ger camps in the National Park sorted for Sunday so thought I would go for a look at the crazy massive Ghengis Khan statue that is about 50 miles out of Ulan Bator nestling among the hills. It’s the biggest statue of Ghengis Khan in the world apparently so let’s just see how big this bad lad is I thought! It takes a little work to get there even though it’s only 50 miles out. I hopped on a bus to a village about 30 miles East of the city, cracking value at about 30p each way and once there I took a little wander about in search of more transport.
It’s hard at times in Mongolia to tell what is a taxi and whats not as that’s what I needed to get hold of in order to do the next little stretch to the statue. Sure enough though a lady pulls up in a little car and through maps I’m able to point her to where I want to get to. She doesn’t speak any English at all and my Mongolian is limited to say the least. She asks for the equivalent of about £7 to take me on the 40 mile round trip as well as obviously waiting while I’m there and I don’t have the heart to haggle at that price so I hop in and away we go slowly tootling past the snow capped hills. It’s quite beautiful really, the landscape is rugged but very picturesque with the snow all round.
Half an hour later and the gleaming silver head of Ghengis starts to show itself on the horizon. Then more and more and more……this thing is ridiculous! It’s massive to say the least. Fair enough I guess its a tourist attraction but it’s impressive non the less. Ghengis to the locals seems like everything. Ghengis statues everyhwere, the Ghengis beer brewery, Ghengis street this and that, Ghengis Khan airport….and so on and so on.
I head upstairs and am surprised to see that my driver is happily following and snapping away with pictures on her phone. For living so close this is the first time she’s seen the statue and she’s obviously impressed, so I pay for her entrance as well, it’s only a couple of pounds and she seems so happy to come in and take a look around with me. You can get up to the top where the horse’s head is and take a look around and there is a pretty decent Museum downstairs in the base full of 10th-14th century artifacts. Everything from coins to armour, the earliest of guns from the 12th Century, canons etc. It’s worth spending an hour or so wandering round the museum and taking in just how vast this statue is.
Heading back my little travel companion for the day is much more friendly having been taken round the museum and keeps feeding me her home-made biscuits and doing her best to try to chat/communicate with me, it’s really nice and she is really warm to me. Before I know it I’m hoping back on to the crammed bus back to the city, the smog hanging over the city clearly visible from miles away.
Once back I take a quick trip up to the top of the blue sky tower for a birds eye view over the city stretching out below me. The city sits in a massive valley and sprawls across all of it. The poorest people living up on the sides of the surrounding hills, their little colourful huts dotted about. The rest of the day is an easy one really. A few more beers in the Chinggis club and some more Korean for tea. It is so so tasty, and there is so much of it that I can’t resist trying more.
