Ulaanbator/ Ulaanbaatar/ Ulan Bator

Our last chapter ended in the evening of the 14th sun in the 6th moon of this year. We were about to leave the dwelling of Hohhot with a metallic worm destined for a new kingdom: The kingdom of the Dothraki. But to reach the capital of this land, we still had many miles to go. As mentioned in our last telling, we had booked the tickets for this one over the invisible library of all things but only to the last outpost of the lands of watermelons and an abundance of cctv cameras. The tickets for the metallic worm going directly to our next destination were costing far too much gold in our opinion. Our research had told us that there was a more gold-saving way. It might be a bit more of a hassle, but nothing we couldn't handle. Let me tell you how to do that: First step is to reach the line separating the two former mortal enemies. There is no high speed worm going there, instead we took advantage of our favourite form of travel: the overnight train. This one was a close relative to his central asian counterparts. For those who don't remember: The metallic worms in Central Asia are close to perfection and we have missed them dearly for the past 7 months. So, we happliy boarded this beautiful vessel at 10 bells in the evening in the capital of Inner Mongolia, excited for our next adventure.

This worm had one major disadvantage though: the time of arrival. At sunrise, around 5 bells, we were woken up by a rather strict looking character who was plainly telling us that we were arriving soon. And sure enough 20 minutes later, we exited our compartment together with all the other semi-awake travellers in the quiet town of Erlian, also called Erenhot, or Erenhote (whatever you prefer). The next step is getting to the crossing point of the border. This is not a walkable distance and there is no public transport going there. Most people now take a taxi. That option only takes you so far as you are also not allowed to walk over the border and then need another transportation vessel to get you to wherever you want to go from there. We instead found a driver who would take us not only to the border but also across and then to the train station in the land on the other side. Quite happy with this option we settled into his van. I don't know how much you know about opening hours of borders.I actually also don't know that much about it as we usually cross these at humane times (except overnight trains). The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the border between Erlian and Zamiin Uud opens at 8am. So from our point of view in a bit more than 2 hours. In that time our driver still had much on his agenda. First we drove to a rather empty looking drive way. He apparently wanted to go home to brush his teeth and change (it was early in the morning for him as well), while we waited in the carriage. Next he wanted to get breakfast at a local restaurant. There is no way that we leave the most important meal of the day to chance, so we also waited in the car and ate our own breakfast while he ate inside. Afterwards, we returned to the meeting hub of metal worms for the arrival of another of such a worm. We welcomed two more travellers into our carriage (it was around 7 bells at that time). With new just awakened people in his care, our driver set off to another restaurant to make sure that everyone was fed. We did not wait in the car this time but joined a very nice Mongolian lady for a chat. The driver had not picked the restaurant by chance as this happened to be the arrival spot for an overnight carriage. In the end we were six travellers who wanted to cross the border with his help. That was also the number of seats in his carriage so we thought great, let's go. In his opinion we were far too few people for his carriage so we were all made to change to another much smaller carriage. Already in Laos we got to know the magic of the vehicle extension charm called stool with which you can increase the number of people who fit into a vehicle by at least 25%. This was also used in this instance and shortly later we were whisked away towards the border.

The process of exiting the land of pointless passport controls and steamed buns took a lot longer than expected. I'm at least 60% sure that the guard who was responsible for checking our parchments was an intern or at least unfamiliar with about any passport. Sesy went first and could then witness the process of Arteys check. It seems that at every single one of the uncountable passport controls in this realm they took a photo which were all now appearing on the screen of this border guard. Should have expected that to be honest. 5 minutes later we found ourselves back in our magically extended carriage in the no man's land heading to the entrance of the realms of Mongolia. This went a lot smoother and counter our expectations we did not have to explain the guardian of this realm where we are from or that we are allowed to enter. I call this a win so early in the morning. Around 9.20 am local time we officially stepped into our last country of this trip.

Most travellers take another carriage (possibly also magically enhanced) from here to get to the Kings Landing of this kingdom. This is faster and in some people's wrong opinion more comfortable than taking a metal worm. Most carriage drivers at the border were also convinced that it was sheer impossible to even require the necessary parchment to board the worm. We ignored all of them and let our carriage drive us to the meeting point of the metal worm in Zamiin Uud (or Dzamin Uud, or Zamiyn Üüd). We could still take a carriage from there should we fail in the quest of getting the parchments.

We did not fail. The process involved a sprint to an ATM from Artey and a short discussion of Sesy with the merchant of the parchments but at 10 am local time we happily settled into the station waiting for our metal worm. This was another overnight metal worm and it would leave in around 8 hours. if you are now wondering why on earth we did not take the carriage that would make us arrive on the same day, let me tell you: Firstly, we were already tired that day and another 6-8 hours in a crammed carriage would not change that. So that day would not lead us to another adventure anyways. Secondly, we had planned to take the worm in the first place so we only had an accommodation from the next day onwards. Yes, we could have booked another one, but that costs effort and gold. This ties directly into my third point: the worm is cheaper than the car, not just if you count in that you don't have to pay for an inn that night but in general. Fourthly, we just love overnight trains and this was the last option to take one on this trip. Additionally, we had access to the library of all things and ecklectisity as Arthur Weasley would call it in the station so we had many ways how we could spend our time. We spend it by briefly checking the websites that were blocked in the lands of great firewalls and big empires, watching the last four episodes of Bridgerton, drinking tea and coffee, and eating lunch. No one can expect more of us after that morning. At 5 we departed our spot in the station to enter the metal worm. After waiting 20 minutes under the eye of Sauron, our mortal enemy (you might know him under the name sun), we were positively suprised by our compartment. We had a four berth compartment for ourselves. It had lights, a table and a plug. After dinner and an episode of Viking we settled into bed and slept peacefully until the morning.

About two hours earlier than expected we were shaken out of our slumber by our conductor. Why we had to get up 2 1/2 hours before our ETA is a mistery to me but we had slept about 8 hours so I was ok with it. We ate some breakfast, made us some tea and coffee with the hot water in the train and took the sheets off our beds. Our fellow travellers looked as dishevelled as we felt: All of us sleepy, with hair standing in all directions, wearing the clothes we had slept in. It is an amusing sight and leads to an atmosphere of very sympathetic chaos. At around half past 9 we finally arrived at our destination: the capital of the kingdom of modern day Dothraki: Ulanbator (add as many As as you like).

We walked to our guesthouse, ignoring as usual the offers for a carriage. Another positive suprise was that we already could enter our small room and had the chance to take a shower several hours before the official check in time. It is a wonder how much a shower can change you. It turned me from a grumpy troll to at least a half elf (or something similar). In our guesthouse we also met two other adventurers who were preparing for their quest into the desert. These two were crafters of moving pictures and want to document the development of reclining normadism in this kingdom. This sounds like a fascinating project and I really hope I can see the end result. At lunch time we left to have our first sample of Mongolian food. It was nothing like Chinese food and a lot more like Georgian food. We had meat dumplings with sour cream and some kind of meat balls with mashed potatoes and carrots. It tasted good, just a bit different to what we had expected from China's immediate neighbour. In the afternoon we went grocery shopping, finished writing a blog post, planned our tour for the next week and cooked ourselves some dinner in our hostel kitchen. We still went for a short walk afterwards and had some icecream before heading to bed.

Next morning we had one major thing on our agenda: Explore Ulaanbaatar. The city is a mixture between old Soviet style buildings, huge glass towers and some even older buildings. You can also see some gers scattered around (Mongolian yurts). There is a suprisingly high amount of korean influence in form of restaurants, mini markets (like CU and GS25) and snacks around. As we expected to get a lot of Mongolian food the next couple of days we decided to head back in time and have some Korean snacks for lunch. It was quite hot at that point and our mortal enemy was beating down upon us relentlessly. Our energy started fading and we decided to head back to our inn once more to wait for the cooler times of the day. A couple of hours later we wandered around the city once more. We acquired some supplies for our adventure into the desert which would start the next day and had some more icecream. A fitting end for a hot day.