Pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way

Coming out of California, where Pedestrians are always right, it is interesting to be in a country where just the opposite is true. Here in Mongolia Pedestrians have no rights. There are very few traffic lights and the ones that do exist are not given much attention. The good thing about this is that there are also no rules against Jaywalking. If you walk up to Peace Avenue, a major street with three heavily traveled lanes of traffic going both ways and you want to cross the street...Fine....Go For It. There will be other people Jaywalking and maybe you can trudge and dodge across with two or three other brave (or stupid) souls. If you get hit by a car, just remember that you might have to pay for the dent you cause in their fender.
This picture was taken on a side street on a Sunday afternoon, when there was not much traffic. One might ask if I was standing there waiting for a large dog to come along so I could pet it or maybe trying to explain to someone how high the snow gets in the Sierras for using snowshoes and making snow angels. Actually, I was signaling for a cab. You just put your hand out a little ways from your waist and cabs come a running. It is not like New York, where you have to wildly wave your hand above your head and whistle as loud as you can to get a taxi. Now there is a difference between Mongolia and New York in that here, anyone can be a taxi. There are a few cabs with meters but the vast majority are just guys or gals driving a car and they charge you about a 400 Tugrigs a Kilometer, roughly a dollar a mile.
Another difference between Mongolian and New York cabs is that the Mongolia cab drivers are usually in a good mood. It is not unusual for a cab driver here to be singing a simple song to himself as he drives through intense and demanding traffic snarls.
Since there are basically no street signs or house numbers (and there is no mail service)then you normally cannot give the driver an address so you just have to know where you are going and know three words....Cigeeree is straight, Zuun is left, and Baruun is right and there you go. It works every time....so far.