Moishe relied on Lonely Plant recommendation to book a hotel. Not the first time this particular guide proves to be absolute shit. The room cost us $14 but the prospect of sharing this bed was certainly worth it.

This is the hallway. Luggage to the left, bathroom to the right. Moishe is realizing the error of his ways.

Hotel was located in this typical Soviet-looking building. If you squint you can see the instruction for opening the front door in English (door code is 3-2-1). Apparently they are not worried about locals who know English.

We had about 2 hours before the flight in the morning. First thing - must exchange money at the bank. The bid offer was tiny - less than 1%. Compare with 5-10% to exchange Pounds for Dollars in London.

This super cool-looking guard was pacing the perimeter of the bank the entire time we were there. Guy means business.

I like how Study in Russia is written in English.

Realizing that I didn't pack thermals and the weather here was much colder than I had anticipated, we headed to the local mall to buy some warm clothing. I bought a pair of gym pants which I never used. Nice ladies actually took them back after we returned to UB 2 weeks later. They wrote down each transaction in a little notebook on the counter. Also note 2 pairs of underwear on the maneken.

Oh yes - here is a better view of the secret code instructions.

Hotel owner. Nice guy - speaks English and Russian.

We are at the airport - named after Chingiz Khan. His statue is outside. Mongols are taught that he was this great guy. Yuk

I just love stopping airplane blades in motion.

Moishe is psyched to be in Mongolia. This lasted about a week.

Our turboprop plane is on its way.

We are in Moron - районный центр.

Ей лучше это не видеть!

Got to the market where we found a car that is driving up to Tsaiganoor. The drive takes anywhere from 12 to 20 hours. Ikea bag is Moishe's - in it are our sleeping bags.

The wait for the ride commences. We got there at 3 and were told that the van will leave at 5. The guy talking to Moishe (only gestures+calculator) found out that we are Jewish and happily informed Moishe that he is a nazi and promised to jokingly cut his throat.

This is a bag of sand or cement. Real heavy.

I left Moishe with the fun folks at the market and went looking for a sim card. My taxi driver took me to his brother's house to buy his. Unfortunately the brother didn't know the password for the sim, so I ended up buying it from someone's girlfriend instead.

Back at the market.

Moishe making friends.

It's about 6 pm and we are not going anywhere. Apparently we need to find 13 passengers (there is room for 7 or 8) before we can proceed.

I offer the driver to pay double so we can leave today. That seems to do the trick - we leave at 8.