Most of our guests give Ulaanbaatar one night at the start and one at the end. That is enough, if the hours are spent well. Here is how we spend them with guests, and where our two hotels sit in the plan.
Gandan in the morning
Gandan Monastery is the working heart of Mongolian Buddhism, and morning is when it is alive. Monks gather for chanting from around nine, and the courtyard fills with people circling the prayer wheels and feeding the pigeons. Inside the tallest temple stands Migjid Janraisig, a gilded statue more than 26 metres high, rebuilt in the 1990s after the original was taken down in the purges of the 1930s. We walk guests in quietly, explain what is happening, and leave before the coaches arrive. Allow an hour. Shoulders and knees covered, hats off inside.
Sukhbaatar Square
The square is the civic centre of the country. The Government Palace closes the north side, with a seated bronze Chinggis Khaan under its colonnade and Ögedei and Kublai flanking him. The statue of Damdin Sükhbaatar on his horse stands in the middle. On weekends you will see wedding parties in deel posing for photographs, and on 11 July it is the ceremonial start of Naadam. It takes ten minutes to cross and is worth a slow lap. The Chinggis Khaan Museum is a short walk from the north-east corner.
Museums worth the time
Three, and we would pick two for a single day. The National Museum of Mongolia covers the whole arc from Bronze Age deer stones to the 1990 democratic revolution, and its costume hall is the best introduction to the deel you will find. The Chinggis Khaan Museum, opened in 2022, is large, modern and focused on the empire. The Choijin Lama Temple Museum is a small pre-revolutionary temple complex hidden among office towers south of the square, with tsam masks and Zanabazar bronzes, and it is the one our guides most often recommend to people who think they are not museum people. The Bogd Khan Winter Palace, south towards the river, is the fourth if you have a second day.
Zaisan and the view
Late afternoon, we drive to the Zaisan memorial on the hill south of the city. The mural at the top commemorates Soviet and Mongolian soldiers, and the steps up are a small workout. The reward is the whole city laid out along the Tuul river, with Bogd Khan mountain at your back. From here Ulaanbaatar makes sense: the ger districts on the northern slopes, the apartment blocks in the valley, the towers in the centre. Twenty minutes and you understand the place better than any map.
Dinner
Ulaanbaatar eats well now, and dinner is the part of the city day our guests talk about most. Modern Mongolian kitchens are reworking the countryside staples: slow-cooked lamb, dried curd, wild herbs, sea buckthorn, and dairy in forms you have not met before. There are also good Korean, Japanese and Italian tables, because the city has long ties with all three. For a first night we book somewhere calm and close to the hotel, because you are tired. For the last night we book somewhere with a little theatre, and we often add a short morin khuur and throat singing performance before the meal. Tell us what you like to eat and we handle the rest.
Where our hotels sit
We own two hotels in the city, V28 and Otugi, and most of our guests stay at one of them on the first and last night. Both are in the city and both are a short drive in one of our Alphards from Gandan, the square and the restaurants above. We chose to run our own hotels so that the standard on the first night matches the standard in the field: a proper bed, quiet, good water pressure, and staff who already know your name and your flight time. Your guide meets you in the lobby in the morning and the Land Cruiser is outside. Luggage you do not need in the countryside stays with us and is waiting when you return.
Getting around
The centre is walkable and safe by day. Traffic is the city’s one real frustration, so we schedule the square and museums in the morning and the drive to Zaisan in the late afternoon rather than crossing town at rush hour. If you have only an afternoon between landing and leaving for the field, we do Gandan, one museum and dinner, and leave the square for the last day.
Talk to us
A city day works best when it is shaped around the journey either side of it. We design private journeys only, we live here, and we reply within four hours in office time. There is no price list until we have talked, because we would rather hear about you first.
