April 30th - arrival in Ulan Bataar

There was early spring weather in Mongolia, and so it was 3 degrees C at the morning instead of the usual -10 degrees. I arranged a taxi from the UB guesthouse in advance, and they sent a car to the airport. The first idea was to walk from the airport to UB, but my luggage was lost, also my walking boots were lost. But at least it was an advantage, because it was a car-free day in UB, and I had only my handluggage to carry to the guesthouse.

That's a rare view - empty streets in UB

The yellowish sky announced a sand storm, and later it became very windy. The people told me, the driving prohibition was for having clean air that day, but instead of smog there was this sand storm. But I borrowd a jacked and went to the Sukhbataar place, to see the new portal in front of an ugly soviet-style gouverment building. At daytimes the temperature was at 18 degrees, and 2 cm of sand everywhere.

Directly in front of this portal are two horseman figures, and the style looked to me similar to the terracotta army soldiers of Xi'An.

This is the horseman at the right side:

I visited the UB guesthouse last year for arranging a 10 days trip and to join my travel group. Some travellers told me that it is easier to find travel mates, and the breakfast was included, too.

I wasn't hungry the first day, but I consumed a lot of coffee, because the night was short. Unfortunately I added some cold water to the coffee, violated a vital health rule concerning the water and got terribly sick. To increase my pain I got a bad cold, and tried my new mongolian phrases in a pharmacy. Finally I got a russian copy of Immodium (the best diarrhea remedy I know).

Also I was hoping to find some travel mates for the far west of Mongolia.

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