Some Observations (Andrew)

The garbage trucks sound like ice cream trucks. As you can imagine this has been an ongoing source of frustration. That said, Cameron and I noticed that approximately 1 in 2 manhole covers has been removed and the hole filled up with garbage, so maybe the garbage truck is something to get excited about.

Gengkhis Khan (or Chenggis Khan as he's called here), is everywhere. He's on every bill, from the 50 (which is like 2 cents) to the 20,000, to vodka, on which he's referred to as "the man of the millennium". Unfortunately we've been unable to up anything to "Gengkhis Khan size" yet (as in, "Please Gengkhis Khan size my dumping order"). We'll keep trying.



mutton, rice and potatoes are the major players, and sometimes the only players, in most Mongolian dishes. The food is quite good however. With the exception of some pizza we had from a restaurant with "American Pizza technology" that didn't sit very well, we've both been quite happy. Ulaan Baator also has quite a lot of foreign food and a number of vegan restaurants.

Evidence of Mongolia's mining boom is everywhere. On the way in from the airport there are rows and rows of billboards, all in English, advertising, "precision drilling", giant dump trucks and different kinds of steel cable. In the newspaper, which has a version translated to English, literally three-quarters of articles were either about mines, mining or infrastructure for mines and there are "Business", "Economics", and "Finance" sections (in a 5 page paper!). Within a 50 or 60km radius from Ulaan Bataar there are dozens of very small open pit mines. Moosh told us they were mining building materials, whatever that may be.

What do purple pine cones, horse's milk, bathroom scales and landline telephones have in common? Those are things people sell on the side of the street. The pine cones seem to be some kind of seasonal treat but they are extremely labour intensive to eat and make your hands really sicky. Given a choice between the pine cone and the milk, however, definitely go for the pine cone. The milk comes in large metal containers and is served in a recycled bottle. Thirsty? The milk also has to be mixed constantly since it has no processing whatsoever, and often has small lumpy bits in it. It is also probably pretty warm from sitting in the sun all day. The scales are presumably for checking your weight (and look like any old bathroom scale). The landline telephones seem to have cellphone capabilities. We haven't figured that one out yet.

How do you tell a Mongolian person from a Chinese person? (this sounds like its going in a bad direction but trust me on this one). See if they drink milk. Mongolian's are not lactose intolerant. In fact horse's milk is particularly high in lactose and horses need to be milked 6x per day, so the people outside Ulaan Baatar probably have super human lactose tolerance. In the event the 'milk test' is inconclusive Mongolian people also look different than Chinese people (as Cameron noted earlier). You can use the 'milk test' to be rigorous.