Mongolia

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Mongolia is the business. I awoke 4 days ago, still on the train from Moscow (5 days straight) to the rural steppes and plains of Mongolia. It was jut before sunrise and the rocky horizon glowed pink. The grassy yellow plains swept past in a blur, dotted with the odd lone or cluster of gers (yurts). It was a different world to the grimness of Russia. With it land-raping policies of open coal mines, chemical plants dominating vast rural areas, huge industrial chimneys belching out black smoke across the landscape, and desolate, gargantuan disused factories ruining any chances of a pleasant view from the train. Couple that with the shifty-eyed locals with the look of the experimented-on, full of disdain and rudeness towards any living thing not Russian, and Mongolia was a treat and a half.

The Russia-Mongolia border crossing took 7.5 hours. It was nice to get off the train for the first couple of hours and stroll about, visit the local shop, queue up for 20 minutes to buy some biscuits and marvel at the selection of tinned horsemeat on sale. But then it dragged on. So waking this morning was waking into a different realm.

Ulan Bator is a hideous dint on the landscape, thanks to Soviet town planning intervention, but relatively low-rise with gers intertwined with the city outskirts. My hostel is very well-run although the place itself is quite cramped. Free breakfast of white bread and Mongolian bootleg Nutella tasted like amber nectar after 5 days on the train with Russian bread and supernoodles.