Saturday, December 03, 2005

Dodgy nighclubs in UB

Just to give a warning… “Strings” nightclub in UB is one of the more popular places to head on a Friday night and you may hear about it and visit it if you are passing through UB.

In the last few months 3 of my friends have run into trouble when leaving the nightclub in the morning hours. In one incident a doorman and policeman did absolutely nothing to stop a robbery while in another incident the doorman actually joined in an attack.There is a definite pattern of local guys targeting foreigners leaving this place late at night. If you are out with a local girl then be particularly careful as all attacks I know of were against long-term ex-pats leaving the club with their wives/girlfriends. If you go to Strings then try to leave in a group of several people.

This is what my friend wrote about last night…

“Just a heads up about strings – last night I was pushed into a taxi with my girlfriend and there was some bloke on the back seat. I climbed out and he grabbed my girlfriend so I had to pull her out, by which point 2 other guys were trying to push me back in. To cut a long story short there was a struggle and once I was free had to hand over my cash, phone and credit card. Meanwhile a policeman and a strings security guard stood no less than 2 metres away watching doing f**k all.

The taxi was just on the street not in the car park. Basically not a good idea to leave the joint with less than 4 people … last night I was jut trying to get into a taxi and go home. There had been no trouble in the club prior to leaving.”

Let’s be careful out there…

BTW, new images from the October Kazakh eagle festival in west Mongolia are up on my website.

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