Mark
Google
Been traveling all over Mongolia for the past 10 days, and was super happy to find a hotel with a decent shower and a bed with a mattress topper (I sprung for the nicer king size bed).
I've lived here before, and traveled all over Asia, so some issues are expected. Sometimes in Mongolia there is hot water, sometime's there isn't. That's the government's fault, not the hotel. Hot water is a utility here. Super cool until it's not. This time there was hot water.
When I climbed into the shower I suddenly felt like there was something terribly wrong with me. My balance was off, and I felt like I was falling. Then I remembered the time I thought I had food poisoning in China because I felt like the room was swaying.Then it turned out that the problem wasn't me, it was the world, and the room really was swaying. It was an earthquake. This time it wasn't the world, it was just the shower. The whole shower unit swayed back and forth because it wasn't on level ground or bolted down. That was fine, just lean left and revel in endless hot water.
One electric socket didn't seem to work, until I found the switch on the other side of the room, behind the wardrobe, that controlled it. Of similar note was the bedside lamp that didn't work because it wasn't plugged in. The cable was wrapped around the base, and the plug was on the other side of the bed. A little rearranging of the room sorts that. There's no AC, but there are screens on the windows, and nights are cool here.
All in all, we are lined up for a 5 star experience here in Mongolia. The dining area looks great. The place is well decorated, and the sheets are clean. I even had a little couch and refrigerator in the room.
The problem was that I made a rookie mistake and went to a hotel that has karaoke open until 2AM. If your room is on the same side of the hotel as the karaoke, you get to be sarenaded through the night. No one who sings karaoke at midnight while drinking a lot sounds as good as they think they do.
Breakfast is ok. There was spaghetti for some reason, probably because I just mentioned yesterday too my kids that I would make spaghetti when we got back to the US and the universe revolves around me. Side note to every hotel in Asia, if you want to cater to westerners, please have like boiled eggs or something not dinner for breakfast. Mongolia usually does well by having bread and jam, and what is essentially a thin rice pudding.