ULANBATAAR, Mongolia - Ulanbataar has a strange appeal.
It's dirty, loud and falling apart. Crossing a street is dangerous, as drivers care not for crosswalks or traffic lights. Children accost you on the street, shouting, "Money! Money!" It's hard to find a decent vegetable.
And yet I find myself lingering here. I planned to stop for a couple days, and now have been in the country nearly five times as long.
Part of the appeal is the price. Ulanbataar is a city where you can eat at fancy restaurants for $6, where nice clubs charge $2 admission and a bottle of Coke goes for 10 cents. Internet is under a dollar an hour, and CDs sell for a quarter of the American price. Here sticking to a backpacker budget requires few sacrifices.
There's more to it than being cheap. If I wanted to not spend money, I could have just stayed at home in Albany, slurping down Ramen noodles and watching "I Love New York" marathons. The city center is pleasantly cosmopolitian, with upstairs cafes and little Korean boutiques. Every kind of food is available, and while no one would confuse UB with melting pots like New York or Kuala Lumpur, a diverse crowd runs around the city. The person at the next bar table is just as likely to be German, South African, Chinese or American. And all have interesting stories to tell about how they wound up in Mongolia.
I'm in love. Soon I will have to head south and start the Chinese leg of the journey, but for now I think that can wait just a little while longer.
