So I suspect Goody is using dial up still. From what I understand unless you spring for satellite and some people do, there isn't any cell phone service in Mongolia at all. They also have a dish set up available, with higher speed internet, but it comes with TV which isn't always desirable and you can't always opt out of it. People who live alone could treat it like my talk minutes, they just sit there unused pretty much, but if you have a sister who didn't like the ger her parents set up when she got preggers out of wedlock so she's been crashing at your place the past six years, maybe that can wait.
Anyway, a lot of people know what is under the surface and that the next UAE will be Mongolia soon enough, and there is a lot of communication back and forth about how to handle things, but like in UAE and Qatar and places like that, a lot of people live in the city very well, but there are still some who don't and they are all hooked up with people in the city who make sure they don't starve or die of cholera anymore and in return they are available for assistance when people in the city want to go camping and stuff. And for tourism and in Arabia places I think they still send problem girls out there though when Cthulhu decided to send his girlfriend back to the country he got a lot of lectures from other guys on that not being the right way and he should have called Kazakhstan. I think a lot of people in the city want the country cleared out sooner than later but I slowed that down by pointing out how much in royalties I will get and what kinds of projects I am involved in so that kinda balances the anticipation with some well deserved dread.
Still there are some major differences. Dubai is on the gulf which means that they can desalinate however much water they want to pay for while Ulaanbaatar is limited on how much water that they can acquire at any price. Still there can be some international cosmopolitanism that will suit the conditions there, like I've been saying, high tech research projects and special needs higher education among self contained people who don't need to be very social, and I don't mean Mongols aren't very personable, its just there is a high degree of acceptance, or not giving it a second thought when people just want to keep to themselves as many high level scientists tend to do.
