Chitchat Is anyone going Mongolia

maxsanic said:

Went there once some years ago and personally I find it extremely colorless and boring unless you really like the grasslands and desert.

The capital Ulan Bator is dilapidated and backwards, approximately the developmental level of Bangkok in the 1980s with nothing much to do besides drinking and meat eating. This has much to do with Mongolian history whereby they are a nomadic tribe with no visible emphasis on urban building. Most of the so called attractions are simply contemporary crude creations that are targeted at tourists and are of little cultural or historical value.

Once you exit the city it's really just desert and grasslands. The stay in a yurt was a new experience for the first day, but otherwise becomes really tiresome as living conditions are just not up to par for most of us. It's a far cry from the usual farm stays we do in Australia. Highlight was doing the ATV in the desert, quite fun but not really worth all that effort to get there and it gets physically very uncomfortable riding that thing on sand after half an hour.

Another thing is anyone who wants to go there better know how to bargain. Everything is bargain even for places where there is supposedly a listed price and some of the prices quoted are totally out of norm so you should at least shop around a few places before committing to anything.

In short, go there only if you truly have a passion for nature, rural living and deserts. Friends who have visited both Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (China Province) tells me the latter is much better regardless of whether you prefer urban or rural tourism. Basically what you can find in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia has it in a better form.

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