Going from east to west on a route which has drastically varying weather, terrain is not going to be easy on a short time frame. I was under less than a 5days plan to visit the west side of Mongolia (Bayan olgii). Then i need to cross to china to take the return flight. If am going to take public bus from Ulaanbaatar, it’s going to take few days to reach there. With the risk of stopping at few unknown place to transfer different buses doesn’t look like a good idea to me. I really wanted to go there, the Altai Mountain.
While I am in the hostel (Ulanbaatar), am listening to few travellers. A group of 3 guys who travelled from Europe via Russia (The Siberian express), showing the nice photos of the north Mongolia. My mind is tickling and dilemma on the route I need to take. If I go north, it’s going to be lot of greeneries, forest and lakes. The south is the gobi desert. I have already said no to that as I love the snow and mountain.
While I was walking across the city, I visited few tourist agencies where they share free information while selling their service. I got to know more informations on what’s the best way to reach there. There was a guy (who is in my facebook friend list now) working in the travel agency who can speak english and got to have some casual conversion. I came to know the air route to Bayan-olgii is affordable($60+) and faster(2hours) as well. And I booked it without the second thought by myself online.
The flight is on the early morning (5AM), and am not good at waking up early as planned or with a help of alarm. I don’t want to risk missing the flight as well. My plan is to go airport on the night itself and manage the rest of the hours there. So I kept spending much hours I can at the hostel talking with the guys, reading the books there, etc. Usually hostels in developing countries have liberal policies for checkin/out and so we spend extra few hours there. I think it was around 5–7PM where I was getting ready to get the bus. I said good bye to the hostel owner(women) and to the guys as well. They were asking me why I am leaving so early haha. I told them I do not to risk this! and also there is much reliable bus services to the airport in middle of the night. Especially on a backpacking budget trip, the mind will never push to take a taxi.
