Mutton-Mouthed Wild West
Ulaanbaatar is the sort of capital city you inherit when your ancestors were nomads, your closest neighbour is Russia and you sit on top of staggering amounts of recently-tapped mineral wealth.
Bowlegged ex-horsemen lean onto canes next to rich young things. Both travel over cracked footpaths past drab Soviet-era tenaments, outlying gers and just-built skyscrapers, skirting crumbling roads where everyone is a taxi driver but no-one covers manholes.
We had arrived in spring, when wealthy locals and expats dine in restaurants behind carparks boasting enough Hummers to mobilise a drug war. During winter, when Ulaanbaatar earns its position as world's coldest capital, the poor burn tyres for warmth and street kids crawl below the roads to sleep near heating pipes and rest from the pickpocketing that causes locals to wear moneybelts and caution visitors against carrying bank cards.
It was a brilliant place to sit a while, with days where sunset wasn’t even close until 10 pm. I alternated between our hostel and a nearby bakery. Our hostel was sunlit and mostly empty; there I read, rested and worked through a plastic bag of cherry-flavoured coffee sachets. The bakery was just down the road. It was French. There I caught up on machine coffee, croissants, panini and gourmet cheese.
Mongolia is its barren beauty and a capital city that almost comes full-circle to transcend its ugliness. Mongolia was the Gobi. Mongolia was the gouda.
Ulaanbaatar is the sort of capital city you inherit when your ancestors were nomads, your closest neighbour is Russia and you sit on top of staggering amounts of recently-tapped mineral wealth.
Bowlegged ex-horsemen lean onto canes next to rich young things. Both travel over cracked footpaths past drab Soviet-era tenaments, outlying gers and just-built skyscrapers, skirting crumbling roads where everyone is a taxi driver but no-one covers manholes.
We had arrived in spring, when wealthy locals and expats dine in restaurants behind carparks boasting enough Hummers to mobilise a drug war. During winter, when Ulaanbaatar earns its position as world's coldest capital, the poor burn tyres for warmth and street kids crawl below the roads to sleep near heating pipes and rest from the pickpocketing that causes locals to wear moneybelts and caution visitors against carrying bank cards.
It was a brilliant place to sit a while, with days where sunset wasn’t even close until 10 pm. I alternated between our hostel and a nearby bakery. Our hostel was sunlit and mostly empty; there I read, rested and worked through a plastic bag of cherry-flavoured coffee sachets. The bakery was just down the road. It was French. There I caught up on machine coffee, croissants, panini and gourmet cheese.
Mongolia is its barren beauty and a capital city that almost comes full-circle to transcend its ugliness. Mongolia was the Gobi. Mongolia was the gouda.
Love reading your blog Dan...especially when you talk about the food!! More food stories please!
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