In Ulan Bator

So We are in Ulan Bator at the moment and still staying at Manlai's guesthouse. The city itself is generally in a pretty ugly state with large concrete boxes of appartments and seemingly wery little resources to restore the city's once beautyful details and roads. But there is development. Restoration of old and building of new areas with innovative architecture.
Here's a new set of luxury appartments:


Yesterday we took a hike and climbed up to the Zaisan Memorial, which is a soviet-built landmark overlooking the city.

Here are some nice views from along the way:

Gers on the slope of a hill:

"The International Buddha park"

The Zansai Memorial itself:






The Memorial has an impressive mosaic inside it's ring describing the victory of the soviets over the japanese and the nazis and the friendship and peace between the soviets and mongolians. The soviets have also taken a mongolian into space, which the mosaic also illustrates.

Here's a funny detail: locals found our looks(two blondes and a redheaded redbearded guy) exotic enough to take a picture of themselves with us on two separate occasions. Also a lot of honking of horns and remarks yelled from cars driving by.

Here's a detail I thought was one of the nicest parts of the mosaic:


After the climb we decided to grab a snack out of a stall at the beginning of the stairs up to the memorial:


Later that evening Ile and Pete decided to go out for a beer in a nearby restaurant to celebrate the "one week mark" of our journey. I was tired and not really in the mood for a beer, so I decided to stay behind and be plain boring and watch a movie..
Guess what: the guys were about to almost get mugged!
Luckily the boys came out with only Pete getting a few scraches.
Here's about how it wend down:
They were on their way back from the restaurant -there are wery few (working) streetlights in town- and they decided to take a leak in the bushes. One of three guys came from somewhere behind and knocked Pete on the back of his head. Pete fell down, but luckily Ile kicked this guy and started to yell out loud. Pete got up meanwhile and also started yelling, so the posse decided to flee. Later on we pondered about it and came to a conclusion that the guys probably thought that they were drunk and that Ile might have been a girl due to his long hair and the darkness. What a surprise for them when he repelled the attack! Lesson learned: Beware, humanity ain't always kind -especially when in need.

You might also want to check out Ile's and Pete's Blog from my links