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BELOW : A variety of materials are used to construct the fences, no doubt, depending on what can be found at the cheapest prices, or maybe even for free !

BELOW : A street stall selling fruit and vegetables.

BELOW : The streets where the photos above were taken are only a few minutes walk from this more modern part of the town, in Ulaanbaatar.

BELOW : The Zaisan Memorial is a memorial south of Ulaanbaatar that honours Soviet soldiers killed in World War II. Located on a hill south of the city, the memorial features a circular structure that depicts scenes of friendship between the peoples of the USSR and Mongolia.

BELOW : The mural depicts scenes such as Soviet support for Mongolia's independence declaration in 1921, the defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army by the Soviets at Khalhkin Gol on the Mongolian border in 1939, victory over Nazi Germany and peacetime achievements such as Soviet space flights.

BELOW : It is only a about 500 steps from street level (or about 300 steps from the car park level) to climb from the bottom to the top of the stairway ! (We did the 500 step version.)

BELOW : After ascending the stairs you are able to view the circular concrete memorial, which has a colourful 360 degrees mural around the inside edge.

BELOW : A portion of the mural.

BELOW : Looking in a westerly direction from the memorial lookout. A thermoelectric coal-power facility is located in the western end of the city and supplies electricity, steam and hot water (for showering and heating) to Ulaanbaatar city residents and businesses. The following photos are panning from west to east views of Ulaanbaatar.

BELOW : Another view over the city. You can see that 25 metre statue (in an earlier shot) now looking much smaller when viewed from the lookout/memorial.

BELOW : Another new apartment building under construction can be seen in the foreground.

BELOW : In this shot you can see the big glass building that is just in front of Chinggis Khan Square. (Sukhbaatar Square)

BELOW : Now moving further east of Chinggis Khan Square. You can see that most of the fringe areas of the city don’t have the high rise buildings . . Yet.

BELOW :A zoom photo, taken from the same place as the one above, with an arrow pointing to the apartment building David and Wendy were living in, when I visited August 2010.

BELOW :Almost the eastern extremity of the city.

BELOW : Another view of another section of the mural at the memorial.

BELOW : An International School.

MONGOLIA  5

BELOW : Today we went to church. It is in one of the poorer areas of the city.

BELOW : More of the local houses, taken from the unsealed access road which runs through the area.

BELOW : The ingenuity of locals can be seen in this solution to providing foundations for the paling perimeter fence of this property.

BELOW : This property is directly opposite the church building. Many families have both wooden structure buildings and a traditional ‘ger’ on their land. This is because it is much easier to keep a ger warm in winter, when the average temperature can be around MINUS 25 degrees Celsius. During summer the average is around 22 degrees.

ON  TO   MONGOLIA  6

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BELOW : This statue is about 25 metres high, and has been positioned below the Zaisan Memorial, facing north, back toward the city.

BELOW :More of the mural.

BELOW : David and Wendy sitting on the wall, directly below the mural.

BELOW : Another mother and child, sitting about where David and Wendy were sitting in the earlier photo.

BELOW : A number of Mongolian families were among the other visitors to the memorial on the Sunday afternoon we chose to visit. The older lady is wearing the traditional ‘dell’.  

BELOW : The walk back down the stairs is a lot less daunting than when you are puffing your way up to the top !

BELOW : David said hello to these South Korean university students, and their English reply was so clear that he commented, that as English was a second language for them, their English was impressive. They quickly told us that English was their third language ! Korean first, Japanese second, English third.