Winter in Ulaanbaatar: The privilege of clean air

I don't know what it is, but the winter months in Mongolia seem to be the longest I've ever experienced. Not sure if it is the lack of daylight, the merciless cold or the fact that I've been living in winter since mid-October. Sometimes I wonder if there has ever been a life before winter?

Winter time is freezing and air mask time in Ulaanbaatar. Temperatures drop below -30 degrees Celsius and dust concentration climbs on hazardous levels on a lot of days. Like always...you get used to it, but still it is no nice way to live. It feels like you were taken away your freedom to walk outside without this tight, inconvenient thing on your mouth and nose or the freedom to open the window whenever you want to or the freedom to do some sport activities outside or inside.

Yes, air pollution is terrible here in winter. And everyone should be aware of this when coming here at that time. On the other hand, it makes me appreciate the privilege of having access to clean air even more. Every day I see people going to work, children going to school, traffic police officers standing on the street WITHOUT air masks. Not to mention what it's like in the ger districts in the suburbs of UB.

I hope this city will find a way to deal with the harsh winters without polluting the air so massively. I hope that one day people here have the privilege of having access to less polluted air as well.

Ulaanbaatar: Capital of frozen vomit

Sorry, if you don’t want to know or see this, but I decided that this topic is worth an own blog entry. The number of vomit stains on my daily way to work varies between 5 and 10, also the size and colour. It’s a funny (and disgusting) game of guessing what people were having before they drank too much.

What I find funny though is that of course due to the freezingly cold temperatures, the vomit starts freezing right away and will remain there till somebody scrapes it off the pathway (which barely ever happens) or it gets washed away by the snow or rain sometime in March or later. 

I have never seen so much of it in one place. Really quite amazing…

Because I don't wanna scare away my beloved followers, I will limit the pictures for this entry to three only, even though I could have taken a lot more...