2025 Central Asia Adventure – Ulaanbaatar Mongolia
Today’s Huntington’s Disease report is about the “juvenile rigidity” subtype. Roughly 5-10 % of cases that begin before age 20 exhibit, instead of the classic chorea that most people picture, an almost opposite picture: extreme muscle stiffness, painful rigidity, bradykinesia (slow movement), and early seizures. Because the CAG repeat count is usually very high, often more than 60 and sometimes 100 to 200, the mutant huntingtin protein destroys the indirect-pathway striatal neurons first.
Hello from Ulaanbaatar, the twenty-first stop on the trip. I’m just going to go with the common abbreviation of UB for the rest of the trip report. Mongolia is now my 75th visited country. UB sits at an elevation of 1,350m / 4,430 feet, and is built in the center of a bowl, surrounded by mountains which makes it one of the worst air pollution capital cities in the world. It’s host to over 1.6 million people with half of Mongolia’s population living here. The climate is extreme, from -50C in the winter to +30C in the summer. Natural resources such as coal, gold, copper and oil are a source of revenue. The steppes people herd cows, sheep and goats, and use dogs and horses and camels to manage their flocks. Everyone here loves Elon Musk because his Starlink satellite Internet system has brought remote villages into modern times with easy connectivity that would be impossible to provide for the country any other way. This gives increased trade and educational opportunities, and social media groups for each village allow the kids to explore outside their towns, diversifying the gene pool.
Your standard country summary:
– Cool Ranch Doritos: No
– Spain & Wise Debit Cards Work: Almost never! Boo!
– Airalo Worldwide Telephone/Data/SMS eSIM Works: Yes
– VPN Works: Yes
– Cost of Living: $
– Currency: USD $1 ~ 3500 Tugrik, Euro â¬1 ~ 4100 Tugrik
– English Language Issues: Taught in schools, I had no issues at all, everyone in the city was near fluent
– Language: Mongolian is the official language, with several dialects due to the far-flung territory, and Cyrillic is the normal character set. They are trying to bring back the traditional Mongolian script Hudum. Russian also still widely used
– Government: Mongolia is a parliamentary republic, with the government ranked in the middle of the pack on global democracy indices with free and fair elections, but still has issues with corruption and minority rights.
Your Short History Lesson:
A tribal nomadic herding culture, symbolized by the large family-sized tent called a yurt, existed through the year 1206 when Chinggis Khaan (yes we’ve been spelling his name wrong for 900 years) united disparate tribes and literally conquered the known world at the time, east to the Pacific Ocean, west to the Caspian Sea, north into Russia and south to Greece and Thailand. Some areas were conquered, other outlying regions were just explored. After his death the empire continued until the 1600s through his heirs until it fragmented again, eventually being taken wholly by the Qing Chinese empire. In 1911 the Qing dynasty collapsed and Mongolia declared its independence. Only 10 years later the Soviets took over and declared the Mongolian People’s Republic, until the Soviet collapse in 1992 leading to the current form of government.
In the morning in Almaty I packed up and checked out. The front desk lady ordered a taxi, it was there in 1 minute for the 20 minute ride to the airport. The departure terminal is TINY. I had to wait in the empty check-in area until the staff showed up to open up one counter. There was only 1 person ahead of me to check in, nobody ahead in security or immigration. The immigration agent checked my passport like I was a spy at Checkpoint Charlie crossing the Berlin Wall in 1961. He looked at every page, looked under UV light, used a jeweler’s loupe to look in detail all over the picture page. He spent a good 5 minutes examining it, he must be bored. Luckily there was a sports bar showing videos of Mongolian sports events after security to sit down and have something to eat. I tried to get on the free airport Wifi but the Freedom company again wants a phone number to send an SMS to. Ugh. I clicked on Help and their AI chat box said there are passport scan kiosks in the airport which will let me join the Wifi. I checked and of course there are no passport scan kiosks to get on the Wifi in the airport. My server offered to get the SMS code to his phone and BAM I’m on the Wifi! Thank you so much for your help, I gave him a big tip of all of the rest of my Tajik money. I tried to look up the seating map for my flight, most of the seat web sites don’t even have Hunnu Air listed.
So I want to highlight something here – as you know I’m an airplane geek and I had previously watched a video from Flightradar24 about the Hunnu Air Almaty-UB route on a brand new Embraer E2 jet. The video is here if you want to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC7Rd5xJvn8
I booked specifically with Hunnu Air, hoping to get on this particular aircraft but sadly I ended up on an E1 version. Strangely the seats are labeled AC & DF. We pushed back from the gate 30 minutes early, with the plane maybe 20% full. The woman behind me got her blood pressure checked, I was crossing my fingers to not get a medical diversion somewhere along the way. Bad luck again with literally the worst airline meal I’ve ever had, it was hot in the cabin and I was assigned in the row ahead of the overwing exits so, my seat won’t recline, urgh. Definitely bring you own snacks with this airline!
We landed in UB at Chinggis Khaan Airport. Man, this guy’s name is on everything! You’d think he ruled the world or something! Nobody ahead of me at immigration and quickly through but they wanted the name of my hotel. Took out 200,000 Tugrik from an ATM, the exchange here rate is bananas! The currency exchange booth wouldn’t take my Kazak bills, come on, it’s just the next country over! Paid the standard taxi fare to the city: 100,000! This is because the airport is 50km from the city! And it’s damn cold on the short walk from the terminal to the car! I spoke with my driver the whole way, he took English in high school then went to an English learning academy. I see a lot of lights at one point, but it’s just a village of yurts, not the city. The driver says the city has 2 problems: traffic and road repair. There’s a strong sulfur smell in the air from the severe air pollution from burning coal for heating and cooking. Signs are a mixture of Russian and English. My driver knows the building where my serviced apartment is located and fought incredibly dense and chaotic traffic to get me there. I see the name over a door, entered the code they gave me, walked up one dimly lit staircase, through a door and spotted a lady at the end of the hallway. It’s 10pm and I was worried they wouldn’t be here for my arrival as check-in is listed only 2pm-5pm! I did message them ahead about my arrival time, they said “they’ll do their best to accommodate you on arrival.” 2 very sweet ladies showed me the huge room – 4 double beds, 2 couches, full kitchen and bathroom. I tried to pay by tapping and inserting my card into their machine – both failed but no error message from Wise. I unpacked and went just 5 meters next door to the “Nice 2CU” convenience store and got drinks and snacks. I tried to pay on the card again, same problem even though the terminal has a Visa logo on it – this could be a problem and I may have to go cash-only in this country. Check out the picture of all of the payment systems they take, but not my Visa debit card.
Slept OK on the extremely hard bed. Temperature is -5C and the weather report says cold and sunny for the rest of my trip. They must have not had anybody in the room before me for a long time because both taps put out scorching hot water, a guy from the office came in and turned a valve from “summer” to “winter” and the cold water started running. Weird. I worked with Grok on a list of places to see nearby, I walked out and encountered my first snow since 2021. Not a fan! Nearly next door was a small food hall, then the Mongolian Circus but it was closed and locked. Then past statues and large buildings, a cashmere store, a Chinese temple with a large crowd at some kind of announcement ceremony, then searched for the Fat Cat Jazz Club. Today is Halloween so I thought I would come to the show tonight, with absolutely nothing to dress up in. Next I walked past a Marco Polo statue, the State Opera and the massive Mongolian Parliament Building with a Chinggis statue in Sukhbaatar Square. Walked past the National Museum of Mongolia and went into the State Department Store to warm up, lots of cashmere items for sale as it seems to be a national icon from their 28 million goats, #2 producer in the world after China but considered the #1 in quality. Back home for a warm nap.
At 8pm I went back to the Fat Cat Jazz Club. Since it’s a special night, there is a 50,000 entrance fee, jeez. I tried to use my card, fail! I then tried to pay with cash, I gave her 60,000 and she had to go and hunt around to give me 10,000 back. I went to the bar, ordered a draft beer for 15,000 plus tax. No card, and no change for cash! An American woman next to me had the same problem so we tried to figure out how to make it work with what we had. I ended up ordering 2 beers for 31,000, gave the cashier 41,000 and got 10,000 change. Instead of letting me come back up for the second beer, she gave me both beers straight away. It’s Halloween so lots of people are dressed up – fairies, punk rockers, an Egyptian princesses but definitely the best of everyone was a woman dressed up as Bob Ross, with the afro and painter’s palette – fantastic, check out the picture! Of all the things to dress up in the world, she picked Bob Ross, in this part of the planet. I sat in a comfy couch and enjoyed the band. First up was a Sade song, then Spice Girls and Britney Spears, so not so much jazz. Ordered 2 more beers. Got kicked out of my seat because somebody had it “reserved”. Finished my last beer and walked to the big parliament square again, which looked great lit up at night.
The next morning I went over to the office for breakfast and the lady asked me to pay again. Tried the card – tap, swipe, insert. Instant fail on the machine, not even attempting to put the transaction through. Took a picture of what I need to get in cash to pay her. Later in the day I walked out to find an ATM and get dinner and saw one at a close by shopping mall. Found 3 machines against a wall, tried the first one, kept giving an error immediately. Tried another one and it worked! Pulled 700,000 to pay my hotel bill. Walked back to the Irish Pub I spotted along the way. Went inside, asked the host if they took Visa cards, yes he says. He asked me to choose a table, I pick one. I notice it’s strangely quiet for a Saturday night at 7pm. I took off my jacket and sat down and he says “Oh, the kitchen is closed now.” WTF? Out to the street and walked to a Subway, had a footlong tuna with COOL RANCH sauce!!!! Weirdly not that great of a combination, but hey it’s my first Cool Ranch sighting of the trip. Back in the room and I booked a tour to the Khaan statue and Gorkhi-Terelj national park, pickup at 8am tomorrow.
In the morning I had breakfast and paid cash for the room. My pickup is 50 minutes late, she says due to traffic. Turns out it’s a private tour, I’m the only one. My guide is Olivia, a native of UB but has lived and worked in Thailand and Taiwan, went to university for languages and translation, and her husband works for the government. She seconded the taxi driver’s view of traffic – it’s bad and now I get to see it in the daytime. Urban sprawl with no planning and no expansion of roads. Everyone has learned to barge into traffic, switch lanes, and beep to communicate with other drivers. We make progress but it just takes huge amounts of time to get anywhere in the morning and end of work time. We headed east out of the city to the Chinggis Khaan statue, in the middle of nowhere and made of shiny stainless steel, built by a company owned by the former Prime Minister and won a Guinness Record at 40 meters tall. It was built at this location due to a legend that Khaan threw down a golden sword here. There’s a museum in the basement showing artifacts from the Khaan times and the ancient Hudum script. We took a lift up and out the door onto an observation platform, you can see in the pictures the view across the steppe and back up at the statue. I talked with the only other tourists at the site, a couple from Prague who watch the same Honest Guides YouTube video guys that I do. Never exchange with guys in the street in Prague – they will give you worthless expired Belarussian notes! The road we’re on continues 2000km to the Pacific, but it’s in poor condition due to the weather and heavy truck traffic.
From the statue we went to the Gorkhi-Terelj national park and Turtle Rock. Legend has it that a rich man tried to build a palace on a spot next to the river. The mountain and river spirits called up a turtle from the underworld who rose up and crushed the half-built palace, then turned to stone. Even squinting, I just don’t see the turtle shape but no problem, enjoy your myth, the rock formation is pretty cool and just comes out of nowhere from the local geography. Nearby were small sturdy horses and camels available for rides but I passed. We drove back to the city and hit terrible traffic, but made it to a shopping mall with a rooftop walkway up a set of 612 steps to the Soviet-era Zaisan Memorial, with a circular mural of Mongols and Soviets defeating the Nazis, general cooperation between the two countries and celebrating the Soviet space program. The top of the monument is just over a mile above sea level and my lungs could tell after going up all those steps trying to suck in the super cold air. Olivia drove me close to my apartment but dropped me off a few blocks away due to complete gridlock.
I tried the Irish pub again for dinner and the doors were locked! I went to a nearby place called Gusto and had an enormous plate of sweet & sour chicken. Even though they said they took Visa, no variation on the attempts would get it to work. I counted out nearly all of my remaining Tugrik cash to pay the bill. Beware! Consider Mongolia a cash-only country! I picked up another 100,000 to tide me over until my flight out tomorrow afternoon.
I spent the evening planning the logistics of my flight. I’m flying to Hanoi Vietnam, but changing plane and airlines in Beijing’s smaller airport. Luckily there’s only one terminal so my research showed that I would be able to stay in the secure area and transit from one flight to another without going out through immigration and security, then back in again. Fingers crossed!
In the morning I printed out my boarding passes at a tiny shop next door for 2,000. Walked to the Irish pub for lunch – it’s closed again! Come on guys!!!!! I went to a nearby coffee shop and got a bagel sandwich, hot chocolate and a Wifi connection to write up the Beyneu-Shymkent train trip report. I thought she had given me a marshmallow on the side for my drink so I dropped it in. Turned out it was a tightly compressed hand towel to clean your fingers before & after eating! I discovered this when I pulled out a large chocolate-soaked towel from the bottom of my drink. Doh! Made my apologies to the barista and she made another one for me. Back to my hotel at the agreed pickup time for Olivia to drive me to the airport.
Bottom line: UB is … bleak. It’s a city and country just pummeled by the extreme weather, but the people are hardy and have adapted through the millennia and know how to survive and thrive. UB is the only real modern city in Mongolia and its uncontrolled growth seems to be stifling its own progress. On my tour I saw several old-school villages with hundreds of the iconic yurts and herds of animals everywhere, even meandering across the highway without a care in the world. UB is one of the most extreme places I’ve been and it was definitely worth the visit. There are trips you can take for 3 – 7 days where you are driven way out in the countryside and live in a yurt, which sounds very back-to-the-earth if you have the time and inclination to punish yourself this way. It’s possible to traverse Mongolia by road 7-14 days in a 4×4 truck, or rail but there is currently uncertainty about the borders with Russia and China, so only the boldest amongst us should attempt. My flight in and out was fast and easy and clearly the best way to experience UB but you’ll miss out on the rest of this vast country.
Next stop: Hanoi, Vietnam
