Mongolia – Arriving

Most probably you arrive on an airplane in Mongolia. Yes, you could take a train, maybe rather from Beijing than Moskow, and slow travel would be a good idea, but most certainly you've opted for a flight – nothing wrong with this decision as the season is short and most people have to rely on guided tours.

The United Kingdom has an area of about a sixth of Mongolia; the density of population in the UK is about 246,1 per sqk, whereas for Mongolia this number drops to 1,7 per sqk. There are about 3.3 million inhabitants in Mongolia and 1.5 million live in the capital Ulaanbaatar [1] – or rather in the cars because of the traffic jams, O.K: that's another story to come.

You fly in over this vast, nearly unpopulated country, you see streams, grasslands, maybe some ger camps or gers (the Mongolian aequivalent to what we call yurt – most probably another story as the differences to other ethnicities is interesting), and then you land in the open country, at the new airport – Chinggis Khaan International Airport ( IATA: UBN) (Mongolian: Чингис хаан олон улсын нисэх буудал) [2]. You might have stumbled across the aa in Khaan or Ulaanbaatar and the gg in Chinggis. The double a is written to mark a as a long vowel and this is done with other vowels, too. I've seen Chinggis several times and it still baffels me as the Cyrillic script only has one g – Чингис – г. You might be more accostumed to the old transliteration Genghis Khan. The airport is located in the Khöshig Valley, 52 km south of the capital, and is connected by a toll highway. No traffic jam there.

And after a swift drive you reach Ulaanbaatar and there, depending on your time of arrival, you might encounter a traffic jam. As promised another story to come.

If your accommodation lies in the center of Ulaanbaatar, you might reach most of the places of interest on foot, which is anyway the best way to get to know a new place.

Links and annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolia
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinggis_Khaan_International_Airport and https://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A7%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%81_%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BD_%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%81%D1%8B%D0%BD_%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8D%D1%85_%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BB, respectively (you just have to like Wikipedia for this!).

.