Mongolia

We've been reading in the business pages of the newspapers that a number of mining companies are very interested in Mongolia - as well they might be, as the country is fairly big and is known to have significant deposits of copper, gold, coal and other minerals.    It's also relatively unexplored from a resources perspective, so there is potential for more finds.   So it was nice to be asked  at work a few questions about the laws there, which I'm pleased to say I could answer.   I did have to say that laws do change and it's been a little while since I've been there.   Realistically, I think it's unlikely that any of these nibbles will develop into interesting assignments, but in the meantime it gave me an incentive to review some of the materials I filed away over the years.   In this process, I came across some photos I took in May 2007 around Ulan Bataar.  Here are just a few.  The first one is a view from the hotel room looking out from the hotel in UB, the second is the Bayangal hotel (from which the photo was taken), the next is a freight train on the Trans-Mongolian railway (I never managed to photograph the passenger train that forms the Trans-Siberian), and note the kitsch palm tree in the 4th!