Weekend getaway: Darkhan

Published Monday June 18th in the UB Post

You’re an expat living in Mongolia or a Mongolian needing a little break from the everyday grind.  Maybe you are very familiar with UB, maybe you have rarely left the comfort of your office or the delicacies of your favorite restaurants, maybe you thrive in the city and are less than thrilled about visiting the countryside. You love familiarity, the creature comforts, the nightlife, the supposed security of UB. Besides, you have a two week vacation every year and you can just visit someplace else in Asia during that time. You’ve heard of Darkhan, the third largest city in Mongolian nestled along the Trans-Siberian Railway, but have thought nothing of it. After all, what does Darkhan have to offer that UB can’t provide?

An industrial base created in 1960 by the Soviets, Darkhan lies just three hours away from UB, two and a half if your taxi driver drinks a Red Bull before departure, four if the road is especially congested, three and a half if you cram yourself onto a bus, and most surprisingly, six if you go by train. It’s close by, it’s quiet and the local economy has picked up in recent years due to coal mining and grain production. It’s a city that you can circle by foot within an hour and a half, a city near enough to the Russian border to make it unique to other cities you might have visited in Mongolia. It’s a place that you can do most of the things you can do in UB, from going to clubs to visiting monasteries and museums.

Braving a journey to the mysterious Darkhan, former UB Post editor Timothy McLaughlin, a local teacher named Sara Wilson, and yours truly, decided to take it upon ourselves to discover what Darkhan truly had to offer. The following is an account of our less than arduous journey.

 Picking the worst day possible to leave UB, we braved the rain as we negotiated with taxi drivers at the Dragon Center. Agreeing on a price, we sat in his stuffy taxi twenty minutes or so while he tried to find another person to take to Darkhan. After all, a taxi (technically) has four seats available and we were only filling three.

 Like good expats, we quickly grew impatient and asked the driver if he would leave immediately, offering to pay him extra. The driver, a stocky Mongolian man with an almost fetish-like affection for leather jackets, readily agreed to our price and hopped in the taxi, speeding away from the Dragon Center and doing his best to avoid pedestrians, puddles and any chance of fresh air coming into the vehicle by child-locking the windows. Total cost of the ride: 60,000 MNT split three ways.

We arrived in Darkhan three hours later. The trip was relatively painless, and the candy hills of Selenge province, pink from the sun, random herders with peppered flocks on nearby hillsides, vast miles of blue sky with occasional clouds casting heavy shadows below and the general smoothness of the road, greatly lifted our spirits. We were dropped off outside a random delguur, and picked up within minutes by one of my students, Batchimeg, who had offered to be our tour guide.

Our first stop was the Kharaa hotel, where we shared a room for 30,000 MNT also split three ways. It was a nice hotel, a bit confusing at first as our guide Batchimeg lead us through a labyrinth-like secret entrance (while far from secret, it sounds better this way), but the rooms had hot water and were old but comfortable.

After settling in, we were escorted via Batchimeg’s mother’s minivan to the popular Texas Pub, and sat down at a table not far from the extremely loud, but fairly decent live band. Decorated with pictures of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Texas regalia, ropes tied from the heating pipes on the ceiling, pictures of New Mexico, painted barbed wire and mounted horns: the phrase ‘out of place’ does not accurately define the restaurant dedicated to Texas in the middle of nowhere Mongolia, over 7,000 miles away from the Lone Star State. I can say this with authority having been born in Texas. (Interesting note: Darkhan is a partner city with Irving, Texas, home of ExxonMobil).

We shared two pizzas, sipped a few cocktails and beer, and had a great time at the Texas Pub. We quickly settled our tab, as Darkhan nightlife was calling and due to local bar curfews (they actually follow the rules in Darkhan), we were in a hurry to get dancing. Before heading to DD Club, we toured the giant Morinkhuur statue on the northeastern side of the new town and did a quick circumambulation of the chipped golden Buddha statue on the hill. After getting our religion and tradition out of the way, we hurried to DD Club to see what all the local buzz was about.

            For a tax of 1,000 MNT, DD Club is not only the best deal in Mongolia, it also rivals if not beats the hottest clubs in UB. With a weird space-age glass floor covering what looks like a Martian landscape cast in green, cool spheres on the walls, nice lighting, ample seating, great bottle prices, friendly enough locals, and an interesting steel beam structure surrounding the dance floor, DD Club did not disappoint. We danced, we watched a small girl fight break out, we drank and were merry.

DD Club closed before twelve, and we were left to wander the streets of Darkhan for the next hour or so, something which we soon realized was a common Saturday night for the youth in the city. Retiring to our hotel, we vowed to tackle the city of Darkhan in the morning, hopefully seeing all the sights before our planned departure at two.

While we didn’t succeed in seeing everything the following morning, for example, we missed the Kharaagiin Khiid Buddhist monastery, which is housed in an old log cabin in the ‘old town’ section of the city. Also due to the fact it was Sunday, we missed the Museum of Darkhan-Uul, which hosts a collection of archeological findings and taxidermies. We did succeed in meeting our guide Batchimeg at a local bakery and filling ourselves with some sort of Russian pastry item, followed by Korean food at Bulgogi Family, gorging ourselves on Bibimbab.

We finished lunch, which was good enough, and headed towards the hotel to grab our luggage. Arriving at the bus station, we again took the expat route of hiring a driver upon discovering that the long wait to buy our bus tickets was set to make us miss the bus we hoped to take. This time we each paid 15,000 MNT, as the driver had a buddy who also needed to go to UB. We hit the road, ready to return to UB and its traffic congestion and hurried atmosphere. We were dropped off at the Dragon bus station and left to fend for ourselves, easy enough if one knows how to hail a taxi in Mongolia.

Darkhan is a small city worth the trip from UB. The quiet streets, clean air, decent restaurants and attractions make that is once removed from the daily stress associated with the capital city nearby. With a population of over 75,000, it doesn’t seem as small as some of the aimaig centers one might visit in Mongolia, yet it is small enough to feel local and homey. It’s a weekend getaway that’s affordable, easy to undertake, and highly rewarding.