Well, we had an interesting run-in with some funny guys last night, that turned out to be a whole hell of a lot of fun. We went out to a brew pub for dinner (yes, we found the brew-pub in Ulanbaatar!) and when that closed, we walked down the street to the next open bar/restaurant for some more beers.
We were sitting outisde having another round and some espressos (those are both our staples, a shot of espresso every few rounds of beer) when I had to go inside to use the restroom. I passed through the main dining area through a group of drunk guys hanging out at the piano and singing, while one reeeealy drunk guy attempted to bang away at said piano. On my way back from the restroom, this little old guy who was completely pissed, stepped in front of me with a mug of money and said I had to pay the piano player before I could pass! They all kept singing and laughing, so I reached into my pocket and puleed out a wad of bills, and stuffed them in the mug (The bills here are hilarious, and since they don’t actually have coins in Mongolia, many of the bills are worth less then $0.01!!) and was allowed to pass.
I got back to the table and it was Sorens turn to use the restroom. They stopped him to pay as well, and then apparently got in some conversation about what we were doing here. When he told them that we had driven here from London to raise money for two children’s charities, the guy with the mug said “well, YOUshould have this then!” and another guy said, well, that’s not enough and they all began putting more bills from their pockets into the mug for Soren and I to pass on to the charity!
We wound up drinking a few beers with them, singing and having a great time before we headed off to the next bar. They happened to run a Cashmere factory here in Mongolia, and were from allll over Europe and the world. There were a few scotsScots, a Brit, a Belgian, a pair of Indians, a German, an Italian, a few other things we can’t remember and then Soren and I added a Dane and an American! We had quite the worldly drinking session. ( and they were all druuunk before we even got there!)
Here is a pic of us singing and drinking with the guys!
All in all, we wound up getting $75 in pocket change from them all, which we turned over to the charity this morning along with the car. The people from the charity thought it was really cool and funny that we had gotten money for them here in Ulanbaatar from a bunch of guys at a bar!