I was invited last month to attend a gala dinner hosted by the CEO of a Mongolian company who used to be an old client of mine. Trust me, I really didn’t want to go, but the gentleman in me couldn’t possibly turn him down and say goodbye to the prospect of free booze and entertainment.
Expecting a limousine to pick me up in the airport, I was instead startled to see an armoured Land Rover that wouldn’t look out of place in American Sniper, which I had watched during the flight from Hong Kong.
If an old man in a suit in an armoured vehicle wasn’t awkward enough, my friend also decided to give me the “VIP” treatment by assigning two bodyguards to me 24-seven.
And when I say 24-seven, I really mean it. Those two guys stuck to me like barnacles for the entire trip.
I’m all for security, but it becomes a little unnerving when you have to stay in the same suite (although thankfully in a different room) with two muscular chaps who don’t speak a single word of English and look like they are about to break your neck.
Tired of all the surveillance, I thought I had outsmarted them when I jogged into a field during one of my visits to the grasslands. But those guys really took professionalism to another level when they followed me straight in while still driving the Land Rover.
You’re lucky I’m here to tell the tale!