Nadaam in Ulaanbaatar

We've spent most of our time in Ulaanbaatar getting stuff ready for our trip and enjoying the excellent restaurants. The city itself isn't particularly photogenic. The drivers are really horrendous here. Anywhere else in the world we would be slightly embarrassed running across the road. In Ulaanbaatar if you don't run you'll surely get hit. The locals run across and even Chris 'pushed' (cut off) two women and two children out of his way to finish crossing in fluster of terror!

From Nadaam in Ulaanbaatar

Like the Chinese, Mongolians don't wait in line and have little sense of personal space. At the bank two men came right up to the counter to look over our shoulders. The teller didn't seem to think this was unusual at all. One of them even pointed out where to sign on the paper. We have observed this friendly 'what's going on over here buddy' attitude in several different situations.

On Saturday we joined a tour organized by our guesthouse for the Nadaam festivities. Having every detail worked out for you really was a bit of a novelty for us. It was fun for the day, but certainly not something we'd like to do too often.

From Nadaam in Ulaanbaatar

The festivities themselves were, as expected, very colourful and entertaining. It's a story best told in pictures. We took several hundred photos of which the best 51 are in this album. The people watching was the best part. There were three clear groups present (all in large numbers): western tourists, urban Mongolians, and rural Mongolians.

From Nadaam in Ulaanbaatar