Mongolia

>>1265202
I hitchhiked through the country two years ago. it's very easy there and I recommend it instead. Expect to haveto repair the bikes from time to time, since steppe ground is pretty rough. Especially going through the rivers may be a bit problematic (and unavoidable)
I'd be really surprised if you could actually buy the tickets you want at home. I mean, Mongolia isn't a very organised place, unless in the western terms.

I did three weeks there in my trusty bovver boots and I was fine. Mongolian national boots look pretty similar to it. Being you I'd just buy a pair of their product. Otherwise - any boots with non-bullshit soles should do.
it's rare, but in the higher regions you should expect snow during the hottest parts of the summer.

>>1265204
>unless in the western terms.
I meant 'at least'

Stealing the thread to ask, how safe and / or possible is it to buy a horse and go around for a month or two?

>>1265204
I appreciate it. So after returning to UB, I should just find a bus going to Zamiin-Üüd and onto China.
How is the visa entry different with train vs plane?

These are the boots I'm planning to get
https://www.army-star.eu/da/fort-worth-boots-nubuck-brown

>>1265217
I was entering while the country was still visa-free for me, so I can't help you with that. But I'd be surprised if there was any difference.

the boots look ok. some people might consider them too warm for Mongolian wheather, but you'll live. I never care much about the temperature of my feet, so there's that. But you shouldn't get more than a slight discomfort at times, if any.

>>1265202
>So I could do it the boring way and buy a ticket from Ulan Baataar. However, do any of you know how I would go about taking the train?

You go to the central station and somehow blunder through the language issues to communicate that you wish to go to Erlian, Hohhot or Beijing. Buy the complete trip in advance, Erlian really, really isn't worth staying a night in unless you just want to see a shitty Chinese border town. It has nothing going for it beyond a couple of dinosaur statues and a market of Mongolian goods that you already saw in UB.

>I hear there's a passage in Erlian (China) from which foreigners pass through if they take the trans-mongolian train.
>So I somehow need to go from Ulan Baataar to Zamiin-Üüd (the Mongolian equavialent to Erlian) and then cross the border to finally get en route to Beijing.

Yeah, that's about right. I live in Inner Mongolia (China) and I've done this trip before and I visit Zamiin-Üüd from time to time too. If you buy a train ticket into China, the visa stuff will be handled at Erlian train station and if necessary, you get shuffled back onto the train afterward.

>>1265217
>So after returning to UB, I should just find a bus going to Zamiin-Üüd and onto China.
Don't take a bus, take the train. It's pretty comfortable and it's fun to chat and drink with Mongolians. They're a party people, it's completely normal to crack open some vodka with strangers and drink and eat horsemeat or whatever.

First thing, Zamiin-Üüd is a dusty shithole of a border town, the only reason to go there is because you live in China and are on a visa run or really, really want to buy something from one of the little Mongolian supermarkets there.
Erlian is not too dusty but is still a shithole with a large slum full of back alley hookers and a bunch of overpriced hotels (also with hookers). The only real difference is that Erlian is a Chinese shithole. It's quite weird how different the two places are but they're shitholes.

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>>1265323
cont.

The hard part is buying the ticket in the first place but only because they won't speak Chinese or English in the UB train station. Maybe try Russian on your phone or something. Google translate should be able to handle "I want to buy a ticket to Beijing" or something.

DO:
Bring a bottle of the best vodka (Chingis Platinum), it's dirt cheap (for you) and many Mongolians won't have had it. It will be better than the cheap shit they were going to offer you. Instant friends.
Bring snacks but only stuff for sharing. There is food on the train that is ok.

DON'T:
Ignore the other cabin occupants. Mongolians make friends easily, or at least just chill together in shared adversity.

The two times I've taken this train, I had some duty free coffee liquour and made black russians with some middle-aged (married) Mongolian women and we drank for a few hours and one took me to dinner in UB for horse steak. She offered to take me out to a strip club later too but I declined because I had already pulled a younger, hotter girl and wanted to go meet her (also she was married and my other date wasn't).
The second time, I had a couple of guys and one was a herder with a container full of roast horse meat because he was going to Erlian to buy Chinese medicine and didn't like Chinese food. He had some shitty vodka and I had Chingis Platinum so we drank Chingis and ate his horse meat and it was a good time. The other guy was an embassy worker in Beijing and translated between us.

You'll want wechat in China, you use it all the time. There are also a few people on wechat in UB too, I picked up my date with the 'people near you' feature. She was a serious qt3.14159, half Russian, half Mongolian, hot as hell. Wish I could remember her name but she deleted me when I left Mongolia and I deleted her after that.

>>1265330
>Chingis Platinum
btw: Despite being cheap, this is really good vodka. Maybe the best I've ever tasted. Bring more than one bottle.

>>1265323
>>1265330
great read. So what nationality are you? how long do you live there?

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>>1265333
>great read. So what nationality are you? how long do you live there?
Thanks anon.
I'm a westerner but I live in China. I've been here a few years.

Oh yeah, I had rose colored glasses about the food on the train. Pic related is on the Zamyn Uud -> UB train, the food is actually shit. You only have one meal there though so instant noodles is ok for that, you could buy a smoked sausage or something from the station if you wanted, salamis etc are really good in Mongolia.

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>>1265332
Both of these are really good actually and they're great together.

>>1265330
So interesting to read... Thanks for that. Are Mongolians in general pretty promiscuous?

And is it much of a special place? I'm really curious about Mongolia but have no idea if it's just a lot of nothing

>>1265323
>>1265330
>>1265330
Thanks man I appreciate this.
So final verdict - should I go for the train ride or take the plane? I need to be in Beijing the 3rd at the very latest. Train sounds like a lot of fun, and since I can't do the whole express from Russia, doing that last little bit might be a good tease. Also a great way to see the southern Mongolian landscape.
Do you know how long the trip would take from UB to BJ?

I am learning Chinese by the way, so I'd be able to do very basic conversations. Furthermore I have become somewhat adept with body language, that really gets you far in these kind of places.

Can't bloody wait for this trip!

>>1265213
You and the horse will die
Unless you plan everything very carefully and take enough supplies, but in that case you should take a guides tour

Also you should know that mongolian horses are very wild, you need to be an expert rider to ride them

>>1265439
So are you eating the food from China, or from Mongolia only?
If from China, how did you adapt? Do you only eat organic?
I'm asking, because I spent two weeks there and my experience with food was pretty intense. Every fruit I tried nearly made me puke from the chemicals inside and by the end of the period the food was just falling through me. Also, the Kyrgyzstani drivers warned me, that the water in China fucks up your sexual potence

So how is it going for you?

>>1265517
I'm the hitchhiker from the thread. I was kind of worried about the same thing, but it turned out to be Mongolia is really fantastic. A lot of culture, beautiful landscapes, thatnever really get boring, hospitable, fun people and a high level of exoticity of everything you encounter.
it's kind of similar to the wildlife in the desert - at the first glance you can see nothing. But if you're patient, you'll be surprised by the diversity of forms hiding everywhere

>>1265517
>Are Mongolians in general pretty promiscuous?

Not exactly, more just they don't have hangups and do what they feel like doing. Like Russian girls that way.

>And is it much of a special place? I'm really curious about Mongolia but have no idea if it's just a lot of nothing
In winter it's pretty much a lot of nothing and a shitty city. In summer, it's supposed to be beautiful but I haven't been there then.

>>1265539
>should I go for the train ride or take the plane? I need to be in Beijing the 3rd at the very latest. Train sounds like a lot of fun, and since I can't do the whole express from Russia, doing that last little bit might be a good tease. Also a great way to see the southern Mongolian landscape.

If time is a factor then fly but if you want the experience then sure, overnight trains are kind of fun anyway and it will be a trip (no pun intended). I prefer trains in general, planes just make you be somewhere else but trains are a journey.

You won't see that much of the landscape, you sleep through a fair bit of the Mongolian leg of the journey unless you time it right. You do get to see some mountains and desert though.

>Do you know how long the trip would take from UB to BJ?
About two days I think.

>>1265548
>So are you eating the food from China, or from Mongolia only?
I eat food everywhere I go, I don't run on batteries and you can only eat so much McDonalds.

>If from China, how did you adapt? Do you only eat organic?
I just eat it. I avoid the super-oily stuff but that's about it. I buy some organic stuff occasionally but mostly I just buy from markets and butchers and avoid supermarkets, that's partly about cost and partly about quality.

You wash fruit and vegetables and wherever possibly peel and/or cook stuff. And you don't drink the tap water (either country) unless it's filtered.

I'm doing fine health-wise. The air is a bigger worry than the water.

>>1265546
>You and the horse will die
Assuming he is the average 4chan neet, yea probably.

>Also you should know that mongolian horses are very wild, you need to be an expert rider to ride them
Couldn't be more untrue. Horses in Mongolia have been domesticated and selectively bred for literally thousands of years. They are some of the most beginner friendly and manageable horses in the world. If you go to Mongolia it's not uncommon to see little kids (5-7 year olds) riding them around, try that with an Andalusian or a Belgian Warmblood and you will end up on your ass in the dirt.

That said, the hardest thing about buying a horse in Mongolia will be 1. finding someone willing to sell to a foreigner, and 2. being able to communicate with that person well enough to complete the exchange. Realistically, you would have to hire a local to arrange and negotiate everything for you and at that point you'd be spending as much as if you had just done a 2 week guided tour of the steppe.

>>1265546
Not necessarily, but of course you do need a decent knowledge of caring for horses. This can be achieved by volunteering on a horse ranch for a while (or getting a job if possible). Most of the care is long term and really caring for a horse for even a few weeks is usually not hard unless something happens to it out of the ordinary. They are also not particularly wild, like the other guy says.

>>1265571
>and 2. being able to communicate with that person well enough to complete the exchange
that's not a problem at all, not with Mongolians.
they can communicate perfectly, even using their hands. Somehow inform them about your intention of buying, then show the cash. he'll show you how much you should give, you can haggle trying to give him less. You'll fnally agree on some price.
Furthermore the younger people learn english. It's not a high-grade, but well enough for your purpose.
Some older people still remember russian too.

I don't know how hard is it to find a seller in the first place, but they don't seem to have any racist attitudes toward westerners. And basically any yurta has horses.

>>1265330
Is that you in the pic? You're pretty.

>>1265580
Most people around yurts are going to be actually using those horses. I'm sure you can find an actual ranch though, and I'd bet a lot of them would sell to foreigners. Horses aren't some sacred thing like years ago and if you can prove you have basic riding knowledge then most of them would probably be happy to make a few bucks. The issue in my opinion would be getting rid of it after. Sure you can probably drop it off at any yurt or even where you got it, but you're wasting a lot of money since I doubt they'll give you a discount on the honour system that you'll return it. Perhaps you could work out a deal with money as a deposit, but that would require more English to get across.

>>1265599
Did you read the post?
That was my date that I picked up off wechat

>>1265603
>I'm sure you can find an actual ranch though
The nomads still have herds of horses, most are probably not trained for riding though and are just being raised for meat.

>>1265689

How did you communicate with her? And more importantly, did you bonk?

>>1266428
>How did you communicate with her? And more importantly, did you bonk?
Mostly in English and the pic is in a hotel room so what do you think?

>>1266479
Hawt

>>1267942
Yeah, she was so tiny that I felt like I was eating out a 12yo. desu, I could barely get inside her.

She really liked foreign guys, loathed Mongolian guys because she thought they were all lazy drunks (not necessarily wrong, Mongolian women do seem to do most of the work and seem to be more professional at the work they do). I think she was probably hoping to find a Russian bf to marry and escape the country with.