Zolo Hotel

I wasn't sure where the two of us should stay in Ulan Baatar, coming via Trans-Siberian. Zolo Star (or just Zolo Hotel, as the sign outside says) was slow to answer my email but eventually they responded to my booking request. In the meantime I had corresponded with a Guest House which was only US$15 per night. I canceled the Guest House because coming all the way to UB I didn't mind spending the $70 for Zolo. Zolo is really a great choice for UB. Location is good. You can just pop up to the main city streets with a 5 minute walk. The Zolo people met us at the train station too, with a sign that had our name, how nice. UB doesn't have any taxis and when you get off the train, there are all kinds of dodgy people asking you if you need a ride in his private car. I remember experiencing that in Portugal back in the 1980s. UB is really off the beaten path and the city is rough and tumble. So glad Zolo met me at the railroad station so I didn't need to bother. I didn't have any local money on arrival which would have been another problem. Zolo has a nice and clean lobby with great staff. I mean, really great staff. There is a spacious restaurant on the ground floor that posh locals hang out at for special occasions. The restaurant has a great bar and the food/drink is NOT expensive as you might expect for a hotel. I had big 100cc (I think 3 oz) Mongolian vodka and my partner a glass of wine for a grand total of about $8. The room we had was just right. Nothing too fancy for sure, but everything nice. Room was fairly spacious. We had the standard room, I think they have two options that cost more. The room had plenty of electrical outlets as well. We travel with all the gadgets now, and I get tired of hotels that give guests like one outlet. I was charging everything at Zolo with plenty of outlets to spare. Very cool. While in UB I went to the guest house which had initially setup my stay, because they were offering tours I was interested in, and boy what a dump. Sorry to say, I won't mention the guest house, but it was just an apartment in an old Soviet building with rundown stairs and a few depressed looking Euro/American backpackers inside reading on a sofa, and an overworked manager shuffling in more guests. In that guest house you are confined to sleep on a bed that doesn't look so good. Why travel all the way to UB and stay like that? I had a travel partner so at Zolo we had fantastic clean modern stay for US$35 each. That is the same as what you have to pay in Europe for a dingy backpacker setup anyway. In fact in London how about US$160 per night for a little closet hotel room. I'll take the $70 Zolo in UB any day. Stay at Zolo and never regret it.