Not a clear pic, but early this morning before I set of to teach the little angels the mountain was green, it was now emerged from behind the haze to show off the day's transformation
Not a clear pic, but early this morning before I set of to teach the little angels the mountain was green, it was now emerged from behind the haze to show off the day's transformation
September 20th. Better you than me.. But what an adventure.
^^^i fear that wasn't a nun and nor was it a stick
Have you sampled the nightlife there yet , Mandy?
^^ The blindfolds only came off if they were really naughty.
Yes, it is pretty wild and anything goes. Best thing to do is start at the Shangri La and enjoy some good food and drink at Skywalker. Then hit Seoul Street for bars before ending the night at Mint Club, stumble home at 5 am. A note on enjoying "other" party vices- weed is classified the same as heroin, so unless you hanker being locked up in an unheated jail for decades then decline the many offers you will get.
^ nice just read it has a bustling nightlife.
Theres a couple of expat clubs recommended on the below link, one group go out on a schoolnight (Wednesday nights) which probably explains the kid calling you a motherfucker today, also says to expect 9 months of winter, to get up a mountain on the weekends to avoid the pollution and to try and stay positive
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopi...aanbaatar.html
Top thread this mate, cheers for sharing
Ole Mongol saying, warrior without nutwarmer, needs only single camel to siam, pack yer bags ready for a Le Mans start the first payday after -25
Front page today's Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ider-city-life
Lily Kuo in Ulaanbaatar and Munkhchimeg Davaasharav
Mon 24 Sep 2018 01.29 BSTLast modified on Mon 24 Sep 2018 01.52 BST
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Erdenechimeg Sanlig and her grandchildren in the ger residential district in Mongolia Photograph: Byamba-Ochir/MPA for the GuardianMore than a decade ago, Darii Garam, 76, moved to Ulaanbaatar with her children so they could go to school and find work beyond herding animals in the countryside. Now, the pollution, set to worsen in the approaching winter, is getting to her.
“Even just going outside for a second, opening your door, your home fills with smoke, your clothes, everything smells like it,” she says moving around her ger, a spacious and neatly kept traditional Mongolian yurt, to make tea.
Darii lives on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, an area known as the ger district or sometimes, affectionately, the “g district”, where rural migrants have collected over the last two decades. Here, gers and houses built out of wood and other scrap material creep up the hills that box in Ulaanbaatar. Every winter, as many as 220,000 households burn coal to stay warm. When families can’t afford coal they sometimes burn tyres and other scraps.
Darii Garam inside her ger in Ulaanbaatar Photograph: Byamba-Ochir/MPA for the GuardianThe hospitals are packed every winter, as thousands of children fall sick. Visibility is so bad that two people can be walking hand in hand and not be able to see each other. Air pollution, or “smoke” as the residents call it, often reaches several times that of Beijing or Delhi.
“I wanted more for my children but the air is prohibitive,” Darii says. “I’ve never seen air pollution like this before… The food, pollution, everything, is really bad in Ulaanbaatar.”
Mongolia’s rural residents have flooded the capital in search of a better life. Now, as pollution worsens, officials and residents are looking for ways to lure people back to the countryside.
‘If we do not act, shall we all die?’
Today, Ulaanbaatar, a city designed to accommodate about half a million people, holds three times this number – almost half of the country’s population of three million. Harsh winters have killed off millions of livestock, forcing rural herders to the capital for work.
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In 2004, almost 70,000 people moved from rural areas to the city, equivalent to the population of an entire province. Since then as many as 45,000 have moved to the capital annually. Most collect in the ger district, an area officials say accounts for 80% of the city’s air pollution.
Under pressure, the government decided last year to ban migration, and recently extended the ban until 2020.
But high levels of pollution persist. About 15,000 people marched in Ulaanbaatar, last year protesting against the smog, in one of the country’s biggest demonstrations in years. In January, concentrations of PM2.5, breathable airborne particles, reached 3,320 micrograms per cubic meter, more than 133 times the level the World Health Organization deems safe.
“If we do not act, shall we all die burning whatever we want?” asked Batbayasgalan Jantsan, the city’s deputy mayor in charge of green development.
“What are the primary rights of human being?” he asks. “The right to life. The right to a healthy and safe environment. The state is obliged to provide that. The state has to protect its citizens from environmental pollution.”
Ulaanbaatar’s crowded ger district. Photograph: Byamba-Ochir Byambasuren/MPA for the GuardianMany say a migration ban alone is not enough to resolve the pollution problem. The real issue, experts and locals say, is the stark divide between the city and the countryside. Erdeneburen Ravjikh, the former state secretary of Mongolia’s ministry of construction and urban development, is on a mission to reverse this mass migration and repopulate the countryside.
‘I want to go back home’
Growing up in the steppe of southern Mongolia, Erdeneburen thought a lot about how to upgrade his rural hometown, Gurvansaikhan. There was no central heating, just coal-fired metal stoves. Getting water required a mile-long trek, and the bathrooms – wooden stalls outside – were brutal during the winter when temperatures fell to as low as -40C. “I used to freeze my arse off,” he says.
Most families lived in gers, and made their living by raising goats and selling cashmere. Many of the people Erdeneburen grew up with have left. He has also spent most of his adult life outside his hometown.
A herder family in rural Mongolia. Photograph: Byamba-Ochir Byambasuren/MPA for the Guardian“In order to fight air pollution, we need to develop the rural areas, to make life good so people stay,” he says. “The main reason people move to Ulaanbaatar is the quality of life – having proper heating, proper toilets, good water supply.”
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After four years of fundraising, designing, and construction, today, Gurvansaikhan looks more like a suburban neighbourhood dropped in the middle of the Gobi desert. Paved roads cut through the town, lined with solar-powered lamps. Residents share a wastewater treatment plant, a central heating system, and a water plant. City planners have even kept trees and shrubbery alive in the desert.
Officials at the city, provincial and national level are now working on a program to encourage citizens to migrate from Ulaanbaatar to the provinces. “Creating jobs in the countryside is important. This is what citizens want. They say, ‘I want to go back home, but I need a job’,” Batbayasgalan said.
Convincing people to move will take time. More than half of the country’s GDP is generated in Ulaanbaatar. Last year when unemployment in the city was 8.7%, in rural areas it was as high as 10.7%.
Erdenechimeg Sanlig came to the capital from the countryside six years ago with her children, following their oldest daughter to university. She goes home once a year and always finds that not much has changed.
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“Having animals is difficult,” she says, sitting on a neatly made bed inside their ger, a traditional Mongolian yurt on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar or tent. A television plays the local news. Next to a microwave, a cabinet holds a cup of toothbrushes and a roll of toilet paper. A pink table decorated with images of Disney princesses, for her three granddaughters, sits on the far side of the tent.
“In the countryside our children would not find jobs. It’s better here to find jobs,” she says.
Still, increasingly more residents in the ger district are growing tired of life in the capital. Many complain about the food, the congestion, as well as the pollution. Before the ban, migration to the capital had already been falling since 2014. Last year, the number of people leaving Ulaanbaatar exceeded the amount moving in for the first time since the 1990s.
Zolzaya Amgalan, 32, and her husband Myanganbaatar Tsend, 41, have been here for the last three years with their son and daughter. When their son was a little more than a year old and struggling to walk, a doctor diagnosed him with rickets, and advised the family take a break in the countryside for a year.
“The difference was obvious. In the countryside the air, food, everything is good for the kids,” Zolzaya said. “If there were more development [in the countryside], of course we would move. Everyone would want to move.”
^
Read that this morning also, and thought of Mandy. I've lived and worked in some shit places, but would have swerved UB, particularly for the salary of a teacher.
Presumably the people who have houses and flats have the "proper heating/piped hot water fro heating and washing" and the one's in the "G zone" burn whatever they can find. Or is it the the new industry creating the pollution?
So there is somewhere colder than UB in winter, and it ain't Antartica
Snow is back in town, holed up home full of spicy Chinese hot pot and now adding beer into the mix. The Mongolians take their heating systems seriously, and for that I am grateful!
Its September mate, what the hell are you going to be doing Dec 1st?
Hot here today 35 and clear. Seems the rainy season might be over. Heading to cool season. 22-28 soon.
I have to say I am a little concerned, I sometimes got the jumper out in the Thai cool season 555
I really do need to take it more seriously, the concept of deathly cold is a new thing to me.
Now in the winter, most folks try not to go outside much, but there is stuff to do if you want it. The river freezes and you can skate on it and sledding is also popular, but when night falls people get indoors, and with good reason. In some weird way, I am looking forward to surviving it, it sounds like the pollution is worse than the cold.
One thing UB doesn't lack is a place to get a good fix of Mexican food once a month at Rosewoods pop up Mexican food day.
About 20USD a head with a drink, it makes a change from the sometimes bland Mongolian food.
Remember the 6 Ps
I'l set up a supply dump here for you+trophy nong only 1000km from the warmth of the lads/lassies and middlesexers of Pattaya.
Having grown up on the tales of Amundsen Shackleton and Scott its all about prep
October tell head you doing a treasure trail hike etc that should get you to Inner Wrongholia and the Chinese frontier
Get yer ole Foreigners ID and slip the PBS a few wonga to Qishuang banna its a float to Laos and home free
Do not repeat NOT try to jump the fence on a camel
Recommend Gaymund Murphy's
English guile in everyday ruse
I am knitting you a cake with a file in and will send in a plain sealed cybille
PRIOR PREP PREVENTS PISS POOR PIES
Narntul is UB's answer of JJ market in BKK, although much colder. Not many pics as pickpockets and muggers can be an issue, so wanted to keep my wits about me.
It is mostly safe, you just need to be aware of what is happening around you and avoid groups of drunk men- unless you want to try out for the MongoliWrestlinging team.
Today's task was to get fur lined of sheep down lined boots for winter, went for sheep at the cost of $40
...^very snappy...so, which of the Village People wore those?...
There are some very odd products here in the shops compared to the rest of Asia- tinned horse, yak butter, fermented horse milk, and suspect vodka. Sadly, no Thai cooking sauces or curry pastes.
Fresh vegetables?
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