The Aussies were catching a taxi to the airport early so we all woke up to have one last breakfast together with the whole convoy. Even The Lion Boys, who had used the hotel room to sleep in for the first time last night, were there to say goodbye this morning. After breakfast we staged a photo to commemorate our last supper at a long table being prepared for a wedding reception. I don't think the waitress quite knew what to make of the situation while she took the photo. We all went downstairs to wait for their taxi, almost like we were making sure they were actually leaving, and said our final goodbyes. Unfortunately we said our goodbyes before the taxi actually came so there was the awkward wait for it to arrive. After 10minutes the taxi arrived, we forced them inside and were finally rid of them. We went back to the room to show Miles and James the joy of Russian Spongebob but it never came, instead we laughed at some old Facebook pictures of The Aussies without their adventure beards.
After a Khan-free lunch we ventured off to the black market and I was disappointed by how un-sketchy it was. I was hoping for rows of arms and narcotics dealers, the sort of market where you could by a human - not that I particularly wanted to buy a person, but if the price was particularly good maybe I would have been tempted. I suppose the real black market is more secretive and not directly advertised to tourists. This black market was just a market which sold pretty normal items; there were rugs, clothes, children's toys, and household items. I'm not particularly good with the whole souvenir-buying side of travelling, all I had got so far was my traditional Kyrgyz hat and a pint glass I had stolen. I don't particularly want cheesy tourist-tat, but at the same time how would I justify paying a large amount for traditional Mongolian boots that I would never use because they're too small and look ridiculous. In hindsight I should have gone with the boots, they would have gone nicely with my Kyrgyz hat, but maybe they will be the latest craze in the UK when I get home.
While in the dry desert we said that once we got to Ulaanbaatar we should all go rafting as a day trip. The Aussies had been particularly keen for this idea, so we waited until they left then booked a day trip to go kayaking in the national park. The long drive into the park would mean we would have to wake up early so we postponed our other plans to drink a huge volume of adult beverages and decided to go to the cinema again. The first taxi driver that showed up said the cinema was 10km away, because The Mongoliers needed to put on their makeup we were running late and had to reassess our plans. It turned out the cinema the taxi driver was going to take us to was the wrong cinema anyway, but since we had to change the time we were aiming it turned out to be the correct cinema. The second attempt at a taxi was marginally more successful. All 5 of us squeezed into the 4-seater taxi and we reached the cinema after a few short cuts. The taxi driver showed us the meter which read close to 30,000 tugrik for a trip that should have been less than 5,000. He could hardly contain his laughter when we told him we knew it should be a lot less, clearly this man was not the expert poker player. We called his bluff, and gave him just under 10,000 in assorted notes then walked into the cinema.
I can’t speak for the Mongolians in the room, but our collective opinion is Lucy was absolutely. I suspect the Mongolians would probably rate it highly as they seemed to love any scene with technology in it, of which there were a lot. There was one particular scene where Lucy was typing on two computers at once, every Mongolian let out an audible "ooopoooooooh" with precisely that many O's. The taxi driver hadn't stuck around to murder us and nor were the police there to arrest us, so we hailed another taxi to get back to the hotel. Unfortunately the taxi also only had room for four of us and we made the mistake of putting the smallest person in the front seat. Which means that I have been left permanently disfigured after spending the whole journey with my elbow touching my nose.
Day 42- The Convoy Departs
Start: Bye-Bye Khan Touch This
Finish: Crippled
