Ulaanbaatar

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Ulaanbaatar

 The population of this vast country is 3 million, and half live in Ulaanbaatar.  The air quality in Ulaanbaatar is good in the summer, now, but is among the worst cities in the world in the winter.  Part of that is due to coal-fired power plants.  On the way in from the airport we passed a massive building with the name, in English, “Power Plant # 3” on the side.  There was a giant belt conveyor running from an enormous coal pile into the plant. 

 

I assume numbers 1 and 2 exist, and who knows how many more?  We passed a number of large cooling towers resembling those seen at nuclear plants, but a search reveals that Mongolia has no nuclear powerplants.

The Mongolian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet, and adds a couple of unique letters.  It is, thus, completely unintelligible to an English-speaker.  The name of the capital city (Улаанбаатар) used to be Anglicized as Ulan Bator but a shift now has it as Ulaanbaatar; the double a’s correspond to the double letters in Mongolian.  It is pronounced “oo·lan·buh·taw.”

 A surprise:  Driving is on the right side, but the majority of the cars are right-hand drive Toyotas, with many Priuses.  

 

My guess is that they’re imported used from Japan, (confirmed by an internet search).  They are loaded into shipping containers and sent by sea to Chinese ports and then on to Mongolia.

We slept on and off all day yesterday, finally rousing for dinner at the Korean restaurant in our hotel.  We both had mediocre bulgogi.  Leah awoke at 4:30 AM today, I at 5:30 and we texted room to room and finally met for breakfast at 7:00, after which Leah went back to her room and went to sleep.  I took a walk.  Our hotel is on a major street with a mixture of apartment houses and small businesses.  This view is typical—block after block of apartment houses, and very small convenience stores tucked into any convenient space. 

Another surprise:  there is a profusion of karaoke places.  One after the other after the other.  Large, small, flashy, subdued, but one or two on every block on the main street: 


Another surprise:  we had expected modesty and women to be wearing long sleeves and pants or long skirts.  Loads of young women are walking around in shorts and t-shirts: 


Leah is very pleased and has put on her shorts!  We walked together after her nap and had lunch at a Turkish restaurant—very good.  At 6:00 we will meet up with our group and our leader.  There are 12 people in the group, and we’re excited to get the program started.  More when I can.

Comments

  1. Ralph P. LockeJuly 10, 2024 at 5:21 AM

    Astonishing! They are trying to figure out how to manage in the world economy, and keep the young people happy, etc. A lot of imitation of the West, incl. Japan, clearly (the clothing, the karaoke)! And of course the overuse of coal, following the pattern in China and India, I suppose, both of which have foul air and resist being blamed for doing so because they're still developing their economies, whereas the West---they argue--has already arrived at a high level of development and thus can more easily afford to switch to more sustainable sources of energy production (sun and wind). Thanks for the clues about the language and alphabet. I bet they'll shift to the Latin alphabet eventually, as has happened in some Eastern European countries. Glad you found a good Turkish restaurant. (Is there such a thing as a bad Turkish restaurant, anywhere?)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rwa442July 10, 2024 at 7:24 AM

    Very interesting to see the evolution of cultural influences. I'll bet it will be much different in the countryside.

    ReplyDelete

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