I arrived in Ulan Bator at 6am on the Trans-Siberian and got picked up at the station by the lady from UB Guesthouse.. She picked a few of us up and took us to the hostel.
Once at the hostel we met Mr. Kim who runs the place and he got straight down to business. Organising a tour and pretty much forced me onto one, by not showing me any other options, it wasnt until i spoke to other people that i realised their were loads more options to choose from.
After picking a tour Me and a couple from the hostel Maxime & Jill went out and had a walk around Ulan Bator to get some food and see some sights.
There wasnt much to see apart from a temple which was already closed and a huge square with a few statues.
Afterwards we met a french guy from the hostel and powerwalked to the outside of Ulan Bator to try reach a huge Monument to watch the sunset but we only got half way there, so stopped on a bridge and watched it set.
We then had a long walk back to the hostel in the dark as UB has very few street lights. It was very sketchy as we had been warned about pick pockets and i had my camera with me and could see people eyeing it up.
The next day we left for Terelj Park at 6am and had the sketchiest drive out there ever, at one point a bus had forced us into oncoming traffic and all cars just had to stop until the bus moved on, Mental.
Once we got to the park we got showed to our Ger which had 4 beds inside so Me, Maxime, Jill and a guy from Amsterdam called Richard shared.
We went out and climbed about some rocks and explored the place for a bit. The camp was surrounded by huge mountains and massive cliffs which was cool.
Later in the day we went horse riding which was really cool, our guide was a 15 year old boy called Kana and his dad told us Kana owns over 100 horses and hires them out to different camps elsewhere in Mongolia, but because of wolves he only keeps 10 at out camp.
My horse didn’t seem to like the harness in its mouth so it was constantly just shaking its head up and down trying to get it out. It made me feel very nervous, felt like it was just gonna shoot of any second. Kana also kept smacking it on the ass with some rope which made it run quite fast for a while, was shiting myself.
After a while i started getting a hang of it and got to a gallop (i think).
Didn’t take my camera on the horse incase i fell off or something and broke it but i wish i had now.
The family we were staying with had 3 dogs, and one was just a puppy probably less than a year old, so Richard named him Bobby (Tin Tin’s dogs name in Holland) and let him stay in the ger with us for the night, the next day we were told not to as he will just get used to the heat and when winter comes he will just die because he’s not used to the cold. The next night it snowed and Bobby just clawed at the door all night, felt so bad haha.
Apparently the dogs are kept outside to scare away wolves that would come and kill the horses at night.
On the first night the dog that looked like a wolf wouldn’t stop barking and we reckon wolves were probably near by.
On the second night it went from around 25 degrees during the day to like -5 or -10 degrees at night and then snowed. Was crazy seeing 2 extremes in the space of 2 days.
We were also joined by a couple from London, Simon and Rosie, who were really cool. We ended up playing a card game called Golf which was good and drinking a good bit of vodka.
On the 3rd day we left around 1pm and headed back for UB in the snow, the drive wasnt nearly as sketchy as it was on the way out. I thought it would have been worse because of the snow but it was fine.
