First Impressions of ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA (Meeting the Mongolian People!) Travel Vlog

alrighty hello everybody this is doug i hope you're all doing very well today i am here currently in a new place oolan batar mongolia i'm so so excited to be here and i'm really enjoying it so far in this series of videos in mongolia we're going to be exploring ulambatar which is the capital we're going to also be leaving the capital going into the countryside and seeing the beautiful landscape that mongolia is so famous for then hopefully we're also going to be attending the nadam festival which is an annual holiday celebration here in mongolia it's their most important biggest holiday i don't want to give away too much just yet but stay tuned for that because uh yeah i think it's going to be a lot of fun so if you don't know too much about mongolia it is literally sandwiched right between russia and china two very big powerful neighbors and then you've got mongolia right in the middle of the two mongolia is also a huge country but a very small population so almost half the population of mongolia apparently lives in the capital city here in ulaanbaatar and a lot of the country is either grasslands and steppe or a desert the gobi desert world famous but for now i'm here in sukhbatar square it's named after the man who led mongolia to its independence from china in 1921 and you can see here there's a massive statue of him riding a horse in the center of the square this square is like kind of the center of the city it's one of the most notable landmarks in ulambatar and i think kind of a gathering point so you've got sukhpatar statue right there and then opposite him right behind me there is a statue of chingus khan very very famous in the history of mongolia and the world because he led the mongolian empire across much of asia and europe by the way the name is pronounced chingus khan not genghis as we say often in the west so there are a ton of people here in sukhothar square right now i told you guys it's kind of like a gathering point in the city and i think it's like a political protest of some kind i think the ones by the sukhbatar statue are definitely a political protest because i translated the sign that they're holding on google and it says something about like keeping mongolia independent let's see this is an english independence movement we mongolians oppose the chinese debt trap thank you wow but the ones here at the base of the genghis khan statue i think that might be a separate group so i'm not sure okay something's happening right now i have no idea what it is but all these guys dressed in red are coming out of the building here by the way the building with the genghis khan statue is apparently like mongolia's parliament or like main legislative office i have no idea what's going on say no hello how are you okay someone important is coming out thank you for helping me even though i don't really know what you're saying but that's okay here come these soldiers wow i love their outfits sword ah yeah oh my goodness what the heck is going on [Music] do you speak english a little bit do you know who is this who is this man no who are these foreign i think these must be like war heroes or something this man has a lot of medals on i'm just like part of the local media now oh my gosh i'm literally right in the middle of this i gotta find someone who speaks english to ask what's going on here so it's like they're giving out a medal the president has given out a medal for uh all the artists and yeah also they're artists artists in every art field okay okay is the president out here no inside inside okay got it got it so who are you here for my grandpa uh is he getting a medal oh yeah oh that's so cool is he a artist yeah very cool wow okay i just walked into this i had no idea what was going on here yeah i'm youtuber you sound like you have american accent i used to study in singapore i lived in new york for about three years oh really where in new york uh where brooklyn brooklyn nice okay thanks for the help i'm so confused what's going on here doug barnard [Music] i got yelled at for standing there because i was too tall so apparently this is to celebrate people of culture like artists writers producers things like that and the people cheering here are all their family so i think your grandpa he's my sister your sister uh pink up there up top your sister oh very good you should go up there no okay so basically the families are here celebrating their family members who have accomplished things like in the arts and culture and they come out one by one so that's when you hear the the families cheering this is very cool man the things you stumble across like i can't believe my timing that's your mom huh oh she's a poet that's amazing congratulations yeah thank you very much hi to youtube say hi to youtube little baby what's her name hello little baby you said nine seven months old nine months old oh my gosh so sweet his proud cousin yes sir where do you grow up uh i grew up in washington dc oh yeah sweet okay how long were you there for uh i went there when i was like two years old like around the time where like you know kids like start speaking and stuff yeah i picked up english pretty well over there right three years three years okay she's like what is this guy doing what's your name my name is for sure richie yeah cool and what's your name that's that's a tricky name to say yeah you need like a really deep like mongolia okay okay all right how old are you 11. very nice do more people here like your guys generation do they speak more english or russian uh for a second language for a second language uh definitely english but the older generation is the older generation okay so your mom is famous in mongolia yeah it's very strong that's like the only thing foreign people know about mongolia yeah that's like why i'm here to learn some more you know man chaos everyone's very happy and celebrating it's nice these are all the famous people okay okay yeah i love the i love your shirt very nice that's a wrestler oh wow nice one dude his dad's a wrestler yeah cool everyone's popping champagne look at this amazing okay i'm handing the camera off to my friend you're the cameraman now okay all right let's spin it back around and now you go go show whatever you want he's getting called by his dad for a picture okay so many nice people here everyone's quite friendly and and then you know the people over there in a very festive mood as you saw because their family members are being honored for their artistic achievements and it was really cool i like that they recognized that here and that the families were there so supportive popping champagne bringing flowers some even had fans playing music so it's very cool so i think a lot of this stuff is getting set up for nadam i think i'm not positive and you've also got this nice grass field here i think it's it's turf but it's so nice people can come hang out here you got some people playing soccer volleyball volleyball so this is like the traditional house that the nomads live in in out in the steppe or in the gobi desert see here is the name we'll see more of that hopefully out in the countryside and hopefully i'll even be staying in one overnight it's gonna be really cool so the mongolian language is pretty unique it's kind of unlike anything i've ever heard before the only thing i could kind of compare it to is like kazakh or some of those central asian languages it's a lot of like throat sounds and like sounds i i don't know how to describe it and it's written in cyrillic alphabet so the same letters used for russian and ukrainian and and other languages in eastern europe but it's a completely different language from russian you can definitely see the you know kind of soviet russian influence here in the architecture these buildings like this green okay wait a second okay so as i was saying these buildings like this green one and you've got this yellow one over there and even this this pink uh building across those look like very russian influence to me but then you've also got buildings like this the main parliament building that are just kind of like the only way i can describe it is like otherworldly i don't know it looks very like almost outer space vibes to me like you can see the the columns are wrapped in gold at the top and you've got all this glass and the statues and the steps it's just very very very cool very unique ulambatar is definitely unlike any place i've been before all right so i've left sukbatar square now i walked about 10 minutes and i'm here in a different part of the capital behind me here is the state department store which is apparently somewhat of a tourist attraction in and of itself and they sell souvenirs and things but it's a really cool old building and apparently it's been open since 1921 but i came here to get some local mongolian food so we're going to do that and then maybe we'll check out the department store after i eat because i am starving so here we go okay guys so i just came out of the restaurant that was so tasty i had two kinds of meat dumplings one thing you should know about mongolia is that there is a ton of meat in the cuisine here they were super filling and super tasty they were called bose which are like the round dumplings and then there's something called and that is the deep fried dumpling and they both contain like mutton lamb or sheep meat the plates were huge couldn't even finish it all so that was very very tasty now let's continue exploring you know what let's go check out the state department store it looks very cool all right guys so i am inside the state department store now and i believe it's basically exactly what it sounds like a giant department store opened in 1921 like i said before it used to be state owned during communist times now it is privately owned by a company called nominee which is apparently like the mongolian equivalent to walmart so there's a giant grocery store downstairs there's a bunch of cafes and stuff there's this center part it's like a giant atrium near where all the escalators go up and then you've also got like brand name shops within this building so i see like mango and some other brands that you would see around the world okay a bunch more international brands up here so we've got columbia here we've got north face merrell montbell and apparently they also sell very good cashmere here so i see some over there and there's also a bunch down here on the on the first level okay on this level we've got a bunch of home goods so you got like furniture kitchen equipment okay and one level up above the kitchenware and home good stuff we've got the electronics so they've got all the big electronics brands they've got tvs phones laptops electric scooters i see some toys over there they've also got sim cards here so you can come here it's a good place to keep in mind if you're looking for a sim card because this is an easy to find landmark i got one at a standalone shop kinda near here but if you come to ulambatar and you're looking for a sim card state department store good place to come for that okay and now i am on the sixth floor which contains apparently a pretty big bookstore looks like most of the books are in mongolian so you've even got becoming michelle obama and then yeah bunch of books apparently there are some in english here but i only see mongolian right now also on this floor there's a nice cafe and then this is also the souvenirs floor so you'll see a lot of really nice paintings here little statues and just artwork and things that you can take home from mongolia for a souvenir so this is definitely a good place to come if you're looking for something like that okay and at the very top of the store let's see what we got okay it looks like mostly sports and camping gear a lot of stuff in this store this is cool and of course this is also a good place to come if you're doing any trekking or camping out in the countryside in mongolia which a lot of tourists will come here for that purpose you know you can get a tent here you can get a camping stove so yeah it looks like they've got everything you need here let's see what's in here okay so i just came to this restaurant and it actually has this outdoor area up here with an amazing view of ulambatar and the surrounding hills which are so beautiful and green and it looks like everywhere i can see surrounding lombitar has these green hills and i think pretty much that's the edge of the city and after that it's just open landscape wow alrighty guys i just left the state department store that was very cool would definitely recommend that you check it out when you come here to ub it's what the people here call ulambatar i think i'm going to cut the video here because i have so much more to show you guys and i don't want to make this video drag on forever but stay tuned because really this video is nothing compared to what we're going to see over the course of this mongolia series it's going to be incredible i'm so so excited if you want to stay up to date on my travels don't forget to follow along on instagram and subscribe right here on youtube so you don't miss what is coming up but other than that thank you guys so much for watching i'll see you in the next one bye [Music]

Channel: Doug Barnard

Views: 429,346

Keywords: mongolia, ulaanbaatar, mongolia vlog, ulaanbaatar vlog, travel vlog, mongolia travel vlog, ulaanbaatar travel vlog, mongolian, mongolian people, mongolian food, naadam, naadam festival, genghis khan, solo travel, solo traveler, naadam 2022, state department store, is mongolia safe, visiting mongolia, Монгол, улаанбаатар, наадам, american in mongolia, tourist in mongolia, хуушуур, how to visit mongolia, mongolia travel, visiting ulaanbaatar, ulanbatar, dog bernard, doug bernard

Id: cml5FyD29DM

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022