Mongolia

We arrived and were met by a guide who drove us to the hotel pointing out anything interesting we passed along the way. It wasn't a full tour but it did give us a good bearing. For some reason we were pretty exhausted from the train journey, neither of us slept very well. So we too a nap when we got there. We woke up about 7 and decided to go get food. We went to the ATM closest to the hotel. It had all the cirrus and mastercard stickers on it so we felt we were pretty safe. We tried our ATM cards but the transaction just canceled. Then we went on to the next bank with an ATM and the same thing. We went to about seven banks in the end and none of them accepted our ATM cards. We had been told to bring US dollars with us anyway but it was too late at night to get them exchanged anywhere. A lot of the later ATMs we found just had Visa symbols. At this point we were tired of everything so we headed back to the hotel and just ate some of the noodles we had bought for the train ride. Next day we got up and headed out to a bank to exchange some money. We went to a tourist office to ask about a day tour for the next day but they weren't open. Then we went souvenir shopping for a few hours. We also went looking for a supermarket to buy supplies, that took hours as the one we went looking for on the map didn't actually seem to exist. We saw a circus tent but no circus which was a little weird. That night we headed out to a Mongolian BBQ. The BBQ in Dublin is actually the exact same except they don't have horse meat or mutton in the selection and you could also get soup and salads. We had a really nice and filling meal. The place was crowded at eight and the guys on the BBQ stopped cooking to put on a bit of a show in the middle. That did mean we were waiting ages for food but it was good. Afterwards we headed to one of the Irish bars (there are quite a few in Mongolia though they seem to be run by Mongolians).