Ulaan Baatar: 40% of the Mongols live here

In the footsteps of Gengis Khan

The Transmongolian train runs in green grasslands until the first ger appear from the windows and you arrive at the Ulaan Baatar station.

I get off the train for a break of a few days to discover this little beaten nation where nature, tranquility and silence are the boss.

I leave my luggage at the hotel and go to the central Sukhbaatar Square where I was greeted by a storm of sand and dust.

I then go to the Natural History Museum especially to see the dinosaurs.
After so many interesting rooms of fossils etc., finally arrive the waiting room but with disappointment I discover that right here it is forbidden to take pictures and the person strictly controls.
But I paid for pictures so I make a video from which I then extract the frames.

I leave the museum to go to the nearby monastery but soon it starts to rain and the crumbling streets do not help.
They immediately become torrents and motorists do not care about walker.
I do not find the monastery quickly and prefer to enter the sheltered market to eat something and do some shopping.
For less than 3 euros I fill some envelopes.

Walking away from the centera lot of people stop me amazed by the presence of a traveler in Ulaan Baatar.
Not many foreigners come here and everyone wants to talk to me.
It seems to be in an ancient oriental country of the 1200s where most of the population has only seen the “western consumer items” in a market so they are satisfied and happy.

It’s nice to disconnect from the world we’re used to and stay here for a few days.

I think the real Mongolia is away from Ulaan Baatar.
A few hours away by car are enough to show a practically uninhabited Mongolia. Just think that Mongolia is big as Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy put together and doesn’t reach 3 million inhabitants (of which about 40% lives in Ulaan Baatar ).

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After a few days spent in Ulaan Baatar and in the solitude of the steppe, the taxi took me to the station after a wrong journey to the airport (it seemed absurd to the taxi driver that I travel by rail).
The train leaves the capital and among the wooden “houses” you can see lots of ger.
The Mongols do not lose the nomad culture and tradition, even if they live in the city.