This is a spoken-word transcript from a YouTube travel vlog by Kara and Nate Buchanan ("TRANS-SIBERIAN DAY 6 | Almost in Mongolia!") documenting arrival in the town of Uranude after a multi-hour train ride. They describe their comfortable budget hotel (includes breakfast; approx. $35/night mentioned), enjoying warm weather ("almost 80 degrees"), walking the popular Arbot/Walking Street, seeing the city’s claim-to-fame — the world’s largest statue of John Lennon’s head — and noting a shift toward Mongolian influence near the lake (they reference traveling "to the other side of Lake Bal" which "holds 20% of the world's water"). The vlog also covers local food (room-style picnic buns), friendly hotel staff, street life (fur hats for sale, pigeons), and sensitivity around filming inside active churches.
Questions this video answers
Six and a half hours ("Six and a half hours flew by, and now we're in Uranude.")
About $35 a night ("we're paying like $35 a night to stay at that place").
"It's almost 80 degrees."
The largest statue of John Lennon's head in the world.
Chapters
Six and a half hours flew by, and now we're in Uranude.
Our hotel is only 10 minutes away, so we are walking because it is so pretty outside.
It's funny how living in a hostel for a couple of nights can lower your standards, because I really like it in here. And we have our own bathroom. Call me a snob, I don't care. I don't like sharing a bathroom with people. That's hilarious.
That's really cute.
I'm very confused right now. Our lady just came back in the room to give us a ski and she told us.
So. I don't know what that means. I don't know if we need to sleep for a couple hours. We were looking tired or what. Also, I just found the in room menu. And we basically have no reason to leave this place because the. They say booze on here. The booze. The buns that we had yesterday on our food tour are only a dollar on, like, the room service menu.
Room service. We never get room service.
Woozy, woozy.
Oh.
I guess it's not room service. We gotta go eat the boozies outside. Yum.
So we thought we would just order a couple buns while we were figuring out what to do in this town. And they made it this whole little picnic in this kitchen with a salad and everything. They're so cute. And they even brought a little thing of bread out. They're a little smaller, but they look really good. I think they whipped them up, like just now when we ordered them.
I forgot to properly eat it.
I totally did.
That's the Steamer.
It's about 4pm we got a couple. We gotta.
We got a couple hours.
We have a couple hours of daylight left, so we're gonna walk into town. There's like the walking street, which is number four on TripAdvisor here.
Let's see what it's all about.
Go do some walking and probably find something else to eat.
On the way out of our hotel, we met another guy that works there, and they're all just the nicest people. He had even heard of Nashville before. Apparently, UFC is a big thing here. Like, I don't know if that's all of Russia or just these last couple towns.
I've seen a ton of people wearing UFC shirts and hats.
Yeah, he had watched a fight that happened in Nashville before, so it's just crazy being on the other side of the world and somebody knows about your hometown.
We picked a gym of a hotel. We're paying like $35 a night to stay at that place walking distance from.
The train station and downtown, and it includes breakfast. Big deal.
The people are super nice. It's super clean. Yeah. If you come here, I mean, I guess you could stay, like, a little more centrally located in town if you're going to be here for longer. But if you're only going to be here for a day or two, like we are, stay at this place. We'll link it down below because we like the people at the hotel so much.
And it's a beautiful, warm day still. I'm just so happy it's not cold.
It's almost 80 degrees. Yay. Which makes me a little sad because I really need an excuse to buy a fur hat.
There are fur hats everywhere. They're so tempting.
I don't really know where we are right now.
Okay, let's look at the map.
So you can't see it right now, but what is behind my head is the number two thing on Trip Advisor to see here in the city. And it's also the biggest in the world of its kind. I want you guess.
It is the largest statue of Lennon's head in the world. So I think it's kind of like the city's claim to fame. But I'm sure you have, like, no perspective from here. So let me give you.
It's actually way more impressive in person than it looks on the Internet.
So if you just look at this town on TripAdvisor, it's like, there's not that much to do, but it is the coolest town. Like, I think I like it better already than Earquist. Maybe it's just because it's so sunny and warm. That has a lot to do with my good mood a lot of the times. But it's beautiful. Like, the buildings are beautiful. There's this Mongolian influence everywhere. You see the mountains in the distance.
It's all on the ground.
It is pretty crazy. So we didn't travel that far. I. The train ride was 6 and 12 hours. And basically all we did was just go from one side of Lake Bal to the other side. But it feels way more Asian, way less Russian, way more Asian. Like, even if you just look at.
The people, just the people. We've seen more Asian people here than we have in our whole trip, I think.
Yeah, probably so.
And it's like, everyone.
We have a soft spot in our hearts for Asia because it's where we start at time, the same adventure, and we love it. And we haven't been in a long time, and we're excited to Be getting back. Is that proper English? Getting back.
Going back, going back.
And now we're at the famous walking street.
It's gone.
I can't remember.
Arbot. Arbot street.
Because there's no shortage of water around here. They live near the biggest lake or the deepest lake that holds 20% of the world's water. So they just blow it out of the ground.
So since we've been traveling, Cara has developed, I would say, a slight hatred for a certain animal here on this earth.
But she needs to, like, get over her. Her fear. Yeah, you do. Where are you going? I'll buy you an ice cream cone if you let one land on your arm. Yeah, I will. I'm gonna buy. I'll buy you an ice cream. I just want the shot.
They're just pigeons.
They're disgusting, and they poop on you.
Bl is gorgeous.
So we haven't been going in a lot of the churches here because they're all, like, being used all of the time. Like, when you go to Europe and there's a beautiful church, most of them are open. You go inside, and it almost feels more like a tourist attraction. But here, it's like a church church that people are actually using. It's a good thing that they're in use. Yeah. We just don't get to see the inside of as many. And I'm sure we could go in. Just feels weird bringing a camera into a place that people are worshiping. Yeah.
Even though we think it's really cool, they might take it as disrespectful.
Yeah.
We don't want to interact.
Yeah. I'm not making a spectacle of them. I just want to capture the beauty.
So we decided that it was dinner time, and I looked at TripAdvisor, and there was, like, a billion restaurants all within a half mile of where we were standing on this tourist street. And there were tons of people sitting outside this restaurant. So we thought we'd look at the menu, but it'd probably be overpriced because we're on the main area. We're in the main area of this town, and it was so cheap. And so we sat down, and I was like, I'll go in and order, because I know all these Russian words now, and I can probably just look at the Russian menu and order. And I went in there, and I was so overwhelmed, and they didn't know what I was saying, and I didn't know what they were saying. And all these people were lining up behind me, but it really stressed me out. So I came back out here where Nate was saving our table, and I was like, you can go try. And I was just done. And he went in there and ordered no problem, and got extra things. So I'm really excited that Nate was successful.
