Mongolian Barbecue

After an interesting night of sleeping with 7 strangers, I was looking forward to start my tour of Mongolia. The guy who was on my flight to UB, was looking to do a 14-day trip to Central and Northern Mongolia and I was about to sign up with him when I met Erica (English) and Tai (American). They had met at their guesthouse (Golden Gobi) and were looking for 3 - 4 more people to do a 30-day trip around Mongolia. I was intrigued since I had my heart set on traveling down to the Gobi Desert, Khovsgol Lake area and possibly out west to the Altai Mountains region. Could I really spend a month in Mongolia...in a Russian jeep (or van), driving on rough dirt roads (remember what I said about dirt roads in Tibet), with complete strangers? Shit, why not...traveling with strangers throughout Mongolia for a month should be an adventure by itself!

I met another traveler, Mat (American), this morning when I met Erica and Tai, who just arrived in UB and was looking for a short tour down to the Gobi. All of us quickly clicked (maybe because we all spoke English?) and explored UB together. Erica joined Mat and me to check out the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History, then Mat and I went to the National Museum where we saw the special exhibition on Chinngis Khan (which was fantastic).

Given we're in Mongolia and it's famous for 'Mongolian barbecue', Erica and I convinced Tai and Mat we should try BD Mongolian Restaurant (first american chain restaurant in UB) for some Mongolian barbecue...which turned out to be an all-you-can-eat buffet-style restaurant (yippee!). The place was a complete tourist trap and the food was average, but we all had fun dining there and everyone watching me gorge.



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Location:Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia