Lighting up

I watched this old woman struggling to walk across the main square in Ulan Bator. She got to the middle, sat down and lit a cigarette. She's wearing a traditional Mongolian coat.

This morning I finally closed the chapter of the saga of a Chinese visa and accepted that my overland journey is over. I can't get a train to China, or even go to China. 

The visa processing centre in London didn't have any available appointments before I started my trip so I decide I'd get the visa in Mongolia. When I arrived here I found out that the Chinese embassy had changed their rules one week earlier and no longer accepted visa applications from non-Mongolians unless they were resident in Mongolia. While I was in the Gobi I talked to someone who said they knew someone who got a Chinese visa last week. So I went back to check again today. The embassy is closed for a Chinese national holiday until the 10th October. My Mongolian visa expires on the 9th. 

So South Korea will be my next destination.