Smoking in Mongolia. More Difficult Than You’d Think.

After over a quarter of a century as a smoker, and a spectacularly misspent youth, I like to think that I have a nose for nicotine.

And other things, for that matter.

Alcohol during Ramadan? Look for the posh hotel with the Westerners drinking out of teapots long past tea-drinking hours.

After-hours bars during the days of licensing laws? Look for mysteriously busy night-time businesses with doors leading down to the basement.

You’re welcome!

Illegal substances? Well, in my youth, which predates not only the internet – seriously?! Kids buy these things online nowadays? Where IS their sense of adventure? – but, pretty much, mobile telephony as well, I had what you could call a “nose” for those too.

So much so that I was rarely reduced to anything so déclassé as asking a minicab driver.

All of which is to say that, when we arrive in Ulaanbaatar – a Central Asian city, goddammit!!! – on Mothers’ and Children’s Day, nicotine is the last thing on my oh-so-maternal mind.

The first thing on both of our minds? Salad.

The general attitude, perhaps, is best summed up by the Elizabethan doctor who warned his patient solemnly away from “sallet” as injurious to the health on grounds of a) rawness and b) sourness.

Now, I love Chinese food as much as the next person and quite possibly rather more, unless that person happens to blog as Life on Nanchang Lu, but, once out of the international fervour of Beijing, it’s fair to say that in northern China salad is thin on the ground.

In Mongolia, outside Ulaanbaatar, the idea of salad is also something of a rarity. The general attitude, perhaps, is best summed up by the Elizabethan doctor who warned his patient solemnly away from “sallet” as injurious to the health on grounds of a) rawness and b) sourness.

And, Ulaanbaatar, while it might not live up to its own tourist board’s billing of “more like sophisticated European city than Asian city”, has salad aplenty.

There are French restaurants! Italian restaurants! Korean restaurants! An Indian restaurant! And a whole host of gastro-pub styled affairs offering the full range of international cuisine.

Zac, whose homing instincts for food surpass mine for fags and booze, zeroes in on one, instantly.

They haz salad!

And, further, they haz not only an international wine list, at reasonable prices, but gin. They are a bottle of Campari short of a Negroni. But they DO have tonic.

For, outside the most cosmopolitan Chinese cities, even the best places consider soda water an acceptable substitute for tonic in a gin and tonic, which, needless to say, it isn’t.

The boy duly orders tonic. I order a gin and tonic.

The tonic arrives. The gin, however, is not forthcoming.

WHA’?!

“No alcohol today,” says the chap, apologetically. “Not here?” I say, with a note of rising panic. “Or not in all Ulaanbaatar?”

“No alcohol today,” says the chap, apologetically.

“Not here?” I say, with a note of rising panic. “Or not in all Ulaanbaatar?”

“All Ulaanbaatar,” he says.

Bugger.

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

As we wandered around Sukhbaatar Square, replete with little girls in first communion frocks, toddlers of both genders in spectacular battery-powered cars and pregnant mamas, every one of them celebrating Mothers’ and Children’s Day, I had noted with approval the general absence of vodka-soaked gentlemen, who I’d understood were the de rigeur accompaniment to any public occasion in these parts.

It would, however, be sod’s law that the first time I’m within sniffing distance of a Negroni, or at the VERY least a gin and tonic, is the one day a month that the good folk of Ulaanbaatar have to take off the booze by government decree.

Not that it’s a bad public health measure, mind. Even though the variation in some rural areas, whereby booze can’t be sold on a specific day of the week, simply results in blatant flouting of said law.

I think it’s a good law, in practice. Ya know. We could all do with a day off once a month.

But….

Hmph.

“Don’t worry, Mum!” says Zac, wellying into his chicken “caesar” salad. “There’ll be a Negroni somewhere. Tomorrow.”

I’ve tried a couple of cigarette-looking shops so far and been met with a “Smoking! NO!” so forceful that I’m wondering whether the scary ladies took scary-lady lessons from the stewardesses on the train.

More pressing, however, EVEN than my desire for a Negroni, is my desire for a cigarette. I’m not, precisely, out of cigarettes. But I’ve tried a couple of cigarette-looking shops so far and been met with a “Smoking! NO!” so forceful that I’m wondering whether the scary ladies took scary-lady lessons from the stewardesses on the train.

What is particularly odd about these cigarette-looking shops, I note, is that they continue to sell lighters. From the racks above the places where the cigarettes used to sit.

And, unless the folk of UB make a habit of, say, flambéing their vodka, they’re clearly being used for something.

I’ve seen plenty of people smoking in Mongolia, so it’s clearly not illegal.

Or not entirely illegal.

I ask the chap for the word for cigarettes, which is something like “Temych”, and where I can buy them.

He doesn’t know.

Curiouser, and curiouser.

We catch the rest of the Children’s Day celebrations, and head back to base, stopping at shop after shop, each with the same counter display of lighters, chewing gum/condoms and gaps where the cigarettes should be.

I can’t help noticing one of the street kiosks has a queue 15 people deep which, given it appears externally identical to all the other street kiosks, suggests to my long-dormant drug radar that there’s SOMETHING under the counter.

And, given the queue is sober, well-dressed and mixed in gender, I’m figuring that something is cigarettes, not vodka.

I bookmark it to return to in the morning.

“Cigarettes, please,” I say, in rubbish Mongolian. “No,” says the chap. DAFUQ?!

Morning comes. I smoke my last-but-one cigarette, and head out to the promising-looking kiosk.

I wait my turn in the queue.

“Cigarettes, please,” I say, in rubbish Mongolian.

“No,” says the chap.

DAFUQ?!

Is it because there are people in the queue with me? Is it because cigarettes are actually illegal?

No.

Cigarettes are clearly not illegal in Mongolia because I’ve smoked in public in Mongolia and seen people smoking in Mongolia.

But they are clearly extremely hard to buy.

I stop at store after store, all of which sell a hell of a lot of lighters for a city in which cigarettes, it appears, occupy some legislative grey area like the one between manslaughter and murder.

I progress on a stately and increasingly desperate tour of Ulaanbaatar’s inner ring road – UB is a splendid city in navigation terms, despite the near-total absence of signage or road names, as it has one large avenue, a central square, an inner ring road, an outer ring road and little else that need concern the casual visitor.

I stop at store after store, all of which sell a hell of a lot of lighters for a city in which cigarettes, it appears, occupy some legislative grey area like the one between manslaughter and murder.

In store number ten, the lady takes pity on the foreigner.

A hasty look around the store, a quick fumble in a drawer under the counter, and I am the proud owner of two packets of those weird cigarettes with names like “Churchill”, “Chelsea”, “Queen Elizabeth” or, perhaps, “New York Slims” that have never, ever been sold in their alleged country of origin.

Whew!

I contemplate buying a carton, but neither my Mongolian nor the guidebook phrasebook is up to it.

“Cigarettes, please,” I say in rubbish Mongolian. “Smoking! NO!” she replies, in English, sounding EXACTLY like the stewardesses on the train.

The next time I return to the shop, sadly, there’s a new lady in-store.

“Cigarettes, please,” I say in rubbish Mongolian.

“Smoking! NO!” she replies, in English, sounding EXACTLY like the stewardesses on the train.

Did they give them language classes when they brought the law in, or something? Or is this quit today messaging just part of the scary-lady training that passes for customer services in this neck of the woods?

I am most perplexed. This is Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Not, ya know, California, or Australia.

It CANNOT be this hard to buy cigarettes.

There are butts on the street! There are chaps smoking the bloody things!

This is now becoming a mission, with a capital “M”.

I doggedly work my way towards the State Department Store and, round the back, in an area with probably the greatest concentration of sex-shops per capita population I’ve seen outside, ya know, Soho, I find a lady who takes pity on me, escorts me into her storeroom at the back, and unveils carton upon carton of contraband.

Better yet, there’s a lady who speaks English. “I’m not a smoker,” she says. “But I think the law is that you’re allowed to smoke cigarettes but you’re not allowed to buy them.”

Ooookkayyyyy….

“So it’s legal to smoke but illegal to buy cigarettes?” I ask. “Not quite,” explains the smoker.

It is only as I smoke on the pavement outside the terrace of the restaurant where Zac and I are enjoying so-close-till-you-cooked-the-carpaccio “Italian” food that I reach the solution to the mystery.

Two hip young Mongolian things, with the sort of flawless American accent that speaks of an expensive US education, approach, and ponce a light.

“We changed the law in March,” one explains. “I don’t think we ever thought it would actually happen, but it did.”

“So it’s legal to smoke but illegal to buy cigarettes?” I ask.

“Not quite,” explains the smoker. “You’re allowed to buy cigarettes, and to smoke cigarettes, but not within 500 metres of a government building, or a school or university.”

“But…” I gesture, feebly, at our environs. Downtown Ulaanbaatar is compact. Which is to say there are government buildings every couple of hundred metres.

“Exactly,” she says. “Basically, you can’t really buy or smoke cigarettes anywhere in central UB. So if you see a policeman, you need to put it out. It’s 500,000 togrog if you don’t.”

“I do notice the air is fresher,” says the non-smoker. “Me too!” I say, taking an enthusiastic drag, exhaling with verve and blowing a few smoke rings just because I can.

We discuss the law a bit more, over the pleasantly communal interaction that is enjoying a cigarette in the smoking area, and conclude that, all in all, it’s quite a good thing.

I’ve tried to give up smoking more times than I can remember (with two relatively serious attempts since starting this blog), and if I’d had to hunt all over town to buy the sodding things I’d likely have stayed stopped.

“I do notice the air is fresher,” says the non-smoker.

“Me too!” I say, taking an enthusiastic drag, exhaling with verve and blowing a few smoke rings just because I can. “It’s a good thing! Really!”

My fellow smoker nods.

“In fact,” I add, doing a few more smoke rings because, you know, I read about them in Tolkien and they sounded kinda cool, “It’s really, really a GOOD THING.”

I can rely on my fellow smokers to gesture at my cigarette and an approaching policeman and thereby save my day.

Later, I am heartened to notice that, rather in the manner of drivers flashing lights to indicate a speed trap round the corner, I can rely on my fellow smokers to gesture at my cigarette and an approaching policeman and thereby save my day.

At least until the cops tighten up.

Yet, in a way, I hope everywhere goes the way Mongolia has gone.

Because, while I don’t believe in prohibition of drugs, alcohol or for that matter cigarettes, I’ve never met a cigarette smoker who doesn’t honestly, honestly intend to give up at some point, one who could honestly claim they’re glad they started or a single smoking parent who would like their children to smoke too.

And if it were, say, as difficult to buy cigarettes as it is to buy hard drugs, we smokers really would be a dying breed.

Wonderful country, Mongolia, btw. Absolutely bloody full of surprises.

Image courtesy of Michael Ocampo.