What a contrast today was. The first part of the day we traveled south towards Ulaanbaatar through beautiful grass lands with remnants of winter snows to offset the bright blue sky. It was spectacular, and tranquil. Then we hit UB and it was total chaos.

On our OSM map the obvious route from the northern highway to our proposed accommodation was to enter UB on the west and follow Peace Avenue east through the heart of the city to the Oasis Hostel on the eastern side of the city. That we were in for an interesting experience became evident within a few minutes of turning onto UB's western entry road. This will at some point be a 4 lane divided highway but only one side of the road has been built, the other side is still being constructed. But the part that is built is already falling apart with huge pot holes and traffic going in every direction to get around them. Following this introduction to UB traffic things only went down hill. Once onto the main drag traffic moved at only a few mph/kmh. The road was nominally 3 lanes in each direction but the local drivers invariably jockeyed around sometimes making 4 or 5 lanes. Whenever there was a space between vehicles someone filled it. This chaos was spiced up by the occasional fender-bender or mechanical breakdown which the traffic took in its stride. As if the traffic was not enough the overhead wiring was an additional hazard for our vehicle. UB has electric trolly buses running along this main road and in places their overhead wires looked dangerously low for us so we had to weave around in the chaotic traffic to avoid the wires. Just to add even more spice at one point a work team was working on the over head wires and had strung a heavy electrical cable right across the road. They had one man in the median strip lifting the wire by hand to avoid high vehicles.

We did not know it at the time but this road was closed to trucks and so eventually we got pulled over by a police man who, after looking at our papers, told us in sign language that trucks were prohibited and some of the spectators pointed out to us how we could continue without being on Peace Avenue.


We eventually found our way to the GPS coordinates of the Oasis and even sighted the place. But thick traffic and road construction appeared to have closed the only access road we could see. So with no other obvious options available I simply turned off the paved road across the construction site and into the lane that appeared to give access to the hostel.

With the help of the manageress (Sibel) and the cooperation of other guests, vehicles were shuffled around so that our "monster" could be accommodated.