29 October – 2 November 2013

With only three days left in Mongolia/UB, and a list of things that we wanted to do before heading back to China, we decided to kick it off with a trip to the Zanabazar museum, showing the best of Mongolian traditional art from 3000 BC to the present day. After a homely lunch at the Kongor guesthouse we took the bus to the train station to buy our tickets to the border. Satisfied with our purches we returned to the guesthouse to enjoy a cup of tea and a delightful piece of chocolate brownie from Wendy’s, our favourite bakery in UB. We made plans for the next days over a tasty final dinner at Luna Blanca and went to bed.

After a lie-in and another tasty breakie (fresh yoghurt, bread, jam, chocolate) we set off for a shopping tour around UB. First stop was the black market, where we successfully bargained and collected some Christmas presents. Also Clara purchased some nice warm socks to send home in a box right away, since they would not be needed in the south of China. Quite content with our goods we continued our route to Mary and Martha’s fair-trade shop, the first in Mongolia. After a full afternoon of wandering through UB and its souvenir shops we were both quite excited for our very last dinner in Mongolia... the Indian restaurant around the corner. It was a simply delicious/big/spicy/yummie dinner and the perfect way to conclude a fantastic month in Mongolia.

The next morning we couldn’t lie-in because we had a massive packing session ahead of us. After a morning of slightly more mundane jobs we rewarded ourselves with a farewell lunch at the Stupa Buddhist cafe – another favourite we had to say goodbye to. After a digestive tea we headed to the national museum of Mongolia. By complete chance when we arrived all the international delegates of an economic-social conference were about to be treated to a show of traditional dancing, throat singing and music... And we snuck in and watched from the back. We assumed it was like the Mongolian national performing arts academy/orchestra/dance company, because it was AMAZING. A piece of Mongolian culture that we hadn’t discovered yet in the past month. After a quick wander around the museum, which despite its excellent displays seemed a bit less interesting, we returned for the last time to Khongor guesthouse to pick up our stuff and make our way to the train station. Hopped on our 20.00 train and trundled to Zamyn-Uud where we arrived the next morning.