Fear And Loathing In Ulaanbaatar
Nearly 800,000 Mongolians live in the Ger Districts of Ulaanbaatar. Gers are the traditional dwellings of the nomadic people and while they are known to withstand the extreme temperatures, there is no running water and waste disposal is problematic. The wood and coal burning stoves are a massive source of pollution making Ulaanbaatar one of the most polluted cities in the world.
Brought up on Black Beauty and a weekly subscription of Horse and Pony magazine, I’d long fantasized about galloping across the vast Mongolian steppe on horseback. I’d ridden horses from a young age and although I ditched my once favourite hobby for boys and booze in my teens and twenties, it still remained one of my biggest loves.
Ultimately, it was my experience living as an ex-pat in Korea that would galvanise my decision to travel to Mongolia. South Korea is a typical densely populated east Asian country. Most cities have populations in their millions and the heavy air pollution is a daily reality. After almost three years spent living and working in Seoul, I had started to crave wide open spaces clean air and escape from the crowds. I’d already decided to go to Lake Baikal in Siberia, on my way back to Europe, which was just a “stone’s throw” from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital so in the end, it worked out nicely.
Apart from having my backpack mysteriously peed on during a transfer in Moscow, my arrival into Mongolia was one of the most bizarre airport experiences I’ve ever had. Back in 2018, there had been a lot of commotion in the media regarding the USA, Trump and North Korea. Mongolia had been cited as a potential neutral meeting point for both parties to convene. At the time I was relieved to have moved away from South Korea because of the looming insecurity there, especially as I had been living 30 km from the North-South divide.
I know, this picture sucks. I’ll have more on my Mongolian Steppe story, promise!
You could, therefore, understand my bewilderment at discovering a twenty-strong delegation of North Korean security agents at the baggage reclaim area in Ulaanbaatar airport. It was utter pandemonium. People’s bags had gone missing, the North Korean agents were shouting orders at each other and no one seemed to have a clue what was going on. The tension in the air was palpable. I didn’t want the North Korean Agents to see me staring but I was dying to observe them. Their expressions were stern, and their movements were calculated and robotic. I suppose I was trying to find some kind of humanity in their faces, especially in the women. I suddenly started to feel a foreboding sense of paranoia come over me. In South Korea, I had become quite deeply involved with an NGO called TNKR (Teaching North Korean Refugees). I taught English on a voluntary basis to North Korean defectors, I attended talks by defectors and ended up becoming friends with a few of them. What if the agents knew? I decided that the best thing to do was to get the hell out of there. Years of booze, partying and smoking weed has the potential to make you an irrational paranoid wreck. I realise now that that was one of those moments, although at the time, the fear was real.
It didn’t help that my taxi had been flanked on all sides by SUVs with blacked-out windows, which coincidentally, or so I hoped, were taking the agents to their destination. To say I was relieved to reach my host family would be a gargantuan understatement. Although equally as bizarre, I could now start to relax a little, get out of my head and put things into perspective. I’d arranged a low-budget tour with a guide who I found on an online platform called Couch Surfing. I would stay at her house the first night, then head off into the Mongolian wilderness with a group of other travellers the following day. Upon arrival at the run-down apartment block, I was greeted by a small, wiry Mongolian man who looked like he’d been ravaged by a life of hardships and booze. He was all gums and no chat. It was the guide’s father. He didn’t speak a word of English but that was kind of expected. If you want your travel experiences to go smoothly, you have to learn to manage your own expectations. This involves some prior research about the host country. I knew that in Mongolia I was potentially in for a rough ride in which case it was better not to have any expectations at all. We squeezed into a dingy little elevator and finally arrived at the family’s modest one-bedroom apartment.
That’s when I met Michael. Michael was a backpacking French video maker who was taking some footage of the tours in exchange for free travel. God, was I pleased to see him. After a day fraught with uncomfortable unfamiliarity, his presence was a breath of fresh air. He had an openness and transparency about him that immediately made me feel at ease. Michael had been on the road with our guide for a few weeks and was a confident traveller who seemed familiar with the Mongolian way of things. He even seemed to be enjoying his time in Ulaanbaatar which I found utterly unfathomable.
My first impressions of the place were bleak, to say the least; an apocalyptic Asian wild west came to mind. The air was filled with dust and thick black exhaust fumes. Everywhere you looked were dilapidated run-down buildings and roads riddled with potholes. It wasn’t until I set out to explore rural Mongolia that I really started to appreciate its enchantment. Admittedly, my introduction to the city had been overshadowed by my experience with the North Koreans. Later I would realise that the dusty hell hole that was Ulaanbaatar offered an intriguing contrast to the serene expanses of the surrounding countryside.
My photos of Ulaanbaatar city are limited due to not wanting to get my phone nicked. I did, however, happen upon this curious collection of busts in a gift ger (gift shop?) on a day trip out of the city. This is just the tip of the iceberg of bizarre possibilities that Mongolia has to offer.