We actually have two guides, senior guide Oogii who's a university lecturer (something to do with communications) and Pudu, a history teacher, who's only 26 and is clearly learning the ropes. His English is very good but he's not yet fully fluent and has to translate some words in his head so some conversations take time.
Before I start with the city tour, I found another exciting loo with lots of instructions and buttons.
Mongolia is the most sparsely populated independent country on earth with a density of just 2 people per km² and just under half of its 3.58m population live in Ulaanbaatar (UB) which is also famous for being the coldest national capital (don't tell Ian). It's certainly not a particularly attractive city with a blend of nomadic traditional housing (gers), modern high-rises and Soviet-era architecture. The government is trying very hard to move people into modern housing from the large ger camps in the city as the burning of coal during the long, subs-zero, winter months is causing dreadful pollution.
Our first stop was the bustling central plaza Sükhbaatar Square, named after the revolutionary hero Damdin Sükhbaatar after his death in 1923. The square's name was changed to Chinggis Square (Mongolian spelling and pronunciation) in 2013 in honour of Genghis Khan, but the original name was restored in 2016.
The square is home to several important buildings.
Government State Palace
Central Cultural Palace
Mongolian State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet.
And of course it has a statue honouring its namesake, Damdin Sükhbaatar, in the middle.
The State Palace sports a massive statue of Chinggis in its centre.
On the left of the building is a statue of his third son and successor Ogedei Khan.
There is a similar statue of his grandson Kublai Khan on the left of the building but I didn't get a picture. This is one of Chinggis Khan's generals, likely either Bo'orchu or Muqali.
We think it must have been High School or University graduation day as there were loads and loads of teenagers around, many carrying bouquets of flowers.
Having taken the above shot, seemingly without being spotted, I walked away with the rest of the group. As we were leaving the square the young lady on the left came running up to me and asked if I could let her have a copy of my picture. I was happy to oblige but explained that it wasn't directly transferable as it was a camera shot and so Oogii took a photo on his phone of her social media page and I promised to send it when we got home. Sadly the account details are unreadable and so I won't be able to pass it on - I feel really mean!
We then visited the newly established Chinggis Khan museum which exhibits a large number of historical artefacts. It is quite an impressive building.
Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos of anything of interest.
From there we went to the Dashchoilin Monastery ger complex. Originally founded in the 1700s it was mostly destroyed in the 1930s by the Russians and the remaining buildings then repurposed as storage for the state circus. Following the democratic reforms in 1990s the buildings were restored and redesignated for worship and a new temple was built in 2000 to house a huge Buddha.
This monk kindly showed us around and was very interesting. The complex originally housed 100s of monks but nowadays there are just a few.
The huge Maitreya Buddha statue (The Future Buddha: Maitreya is recognized across Buddhist traditions as the bodhisattva who will achieve complete enlightenment and descend to Earth to teach the pure dharma once the teachings of Gautama Buddha have been forgotten. Unlike many traditional Buddha statues that sit cross-legged, Maitreya is depicted sitting upright on a throne with both legs lowered. This unique posture symbolizes readiness, indicating he is preparing to step down from the Tushita heaven into the human world)
By the time we finished here it was around 17:45 and time for dinner and we were taken to The Bull Hot Pot Restaurant where you have
your own induction hob built into the table in front of you.
We all got given aprons so presumably it's a messy process.
Firstly you choose a base soup (mushroom, tomato, spicy) then comes the large selection of raw vegetables, meats, pastas.
Once you’ve heated up your soup to simmering or boiling you than add your chosen ingredients and boil until they’re cooked
Just eat and enjoy - or not!