More Rail and now Mongolia

Around 1 am we finally got our passports back from the Chinese border, then shortly after we had to surrender them to the Mongolian border.
Mongolia returned them around 3 or 4 am, I don’t remember much since I was pretty groggy from being woken up.

When I woke up a few hours later, closer to 8 am we were in the desert. It was so barren, so not much to see. We did see a few bits of cattle, camels, horses and goats. There were colorful little villages we did pass through that were pretty cool looking.

We had a couple short stops along the way but not long enough for us to get out and stretch our legs.

We were about 30 minutes to and hour late arriving into Ulaanbaatar, but our guide Toya and driver were waiting for us. Toya quickly navigated us to the bus to drop our belongings, and then head back into the rail station to exchange our money.
Afterwards we were taken directly to the hotel, assigned our rooms and given an hour to freshen up before we were on our way to the Mongolian Cultural show.

The cultural center wasn’t far from the hotel so we walked there. It was a jam packed show, so we had to split up and get seats wherever we could. The show was separated into three acts, and was amazing. The music, the throat singing, the dancing and the contortionist was fantastic. It was worth every penny.

Afterwards Alex took us to a restaurant where we could each order a meal, it was the first one we’ve done together that wasn’t family style. I finally got a vegetarian dish!
The food was great, and we all enjoyed our meals. Alex then asked if we wanted a night cap, where we said sure and went to the highly reviewed Sky Bar.

Sky Bar was cool, and it was nice to get to see another view of the city. It was so beautiful. It was the best way to end the day.Read more