Porridge & beef yuck, beef curry ymmy

31st July 2017
This entry should be short, after all a large chunk of the day was spent on airplanes and I also lost 7 hours in time difference.
The flight to Beijing was uneventful. I like Chinese food, well what is served in Chinese restaurants in the UK. But Air China managed to do what all airlines around the world do, turned chicken and rice into mush.
The in-flight entertainment was mostly Chinese films or TV, fair enough 99% of the passengers were not western. So I settled on watching the aircraft map on my screen in front of me. Somewhere around the Baltic states I fell into a broken sleep for the rest of the night. When I awoke the map showed that we were over Mongolia to the south of Ulaanbaatar. I was offered omlet or porridge for breakfast and selected porridge, that will be nice I thought. When it was put in front of me it said w/beef, that can't be right. But yes, it had diced beef and carrots in it. Luckily it came with fruit and yoghurt. Looking out of my window I get my first view of the Mongolian Steele below, it's quickly hidden by a bank of cloud but that's ok we will be returning this way soon.
We landed at Beijing and had a little wait for the connecting flight to Ulaanbaatar, unfortunately a couple boarded the flight and then decided to get off, it seemed like they were waiting for a third person who never turned up. This meant we were 3/4 hours late as the crew had to search the seats they had been sitting in and their checked luggage had to be located and removed from the aircraft. They also checked the overhead lockers, but since they were full of other people's bags how would they have know if they had left something behind?
The airport at Ulaanbaatar is called Chinggis Khaan International Airport. Now we spell it Genghis Khan, but I'm going to go with the local spelling since he was from around these parts. More about him later I'm sure.
Once we landed at Ulaanbaatar, clearing immigration and retrieving luggage was easy. See all my flight and visa worries were for nothing. We then met our tour leader Kenzo Ganbold.
The population of Ulaanbaatar is 1.4 million and since many people in Mongolia are still semi nomadic, we could see the Ger districts around the city as we landed. Ger's are Mongolian Yurt's. Everyone seems to post fix the word Ger with "Mongolian Yurt" but we are in Mongolia so that's the last time I'm going to do that.
It was quite a drive through the city to the hotel and once checked in Kenzo said he had booked a table at the restaurant next door for those wishing to eat. This time I had a lovely beef curry. When we came out of the restaurant there was a down pour and a big thunderstorm going on.
Anyway, it's 10 in the evening here, let's see if I can get to sleep and reset my body clock. We head out on to the Steppe tomorrow.