Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Taxi cabs are ubiquitous in this city--but even more than that, everyone stops to give rides for a small fee. One day we got a ride home from a doctor who had just completed 12 years of medical training in Japan. (I found myself hoping he was not in the taxi business full time). Without a car, it quickly became obvious to us that we'd be spending a lot of time in cabs--though we have since hired a part-time driver to help us get around UB.
Getting into a taxi in our first days here was particularly unnerving because 1) most of the taxi drivers don't speak English 2) we don't speak Mongolian and 3) our apartment is located in such a new part of the city that many taxi drivers don't even know where it is.
Fortunately, however, one of our first taxi drivers here in UB offered us an impromptu Mongolian lesson--the kind which did not need any translation. So, here it is--all you need to know to get you started in Ulaanbaatar:
Ba-ruun--go right
Zuun--go left
Chigerai--straight ahead
Zogs!--stop!
But, of course, none of this is helpful if you yourself do not know where you are going...
