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This might be a long one...

Shanghai turned out to be a lot of fun. The moderness of it all was totally at odds with Yunnan before it and Beijing afterwards. The skylines were the main attraction, particularly at night. Although watching the boats on the bund was also a compelling.

From Shanghai we took a very comfortable train overnight to Beijing. Carrie immediately felt at home and transported us swifly to the youth hostel where we based ourselves for a week while we waited for our Mongolian visas. Beijing was very interesting and provided lots of good touristy and non tourist activities. We visited the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Hutongs (Old style family compound housing). However, I think the slightly obscure highlight for both of us was parading past throught the mausoleum containing the body of Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong). His body has been preserved since death and is brought out of the fridge for 4 hours, 5 days out of 7 for people to come to pay their respects. And come they do, in their thousands. The whole experience was very surreal not least because they have decided to illuminate him by shining an orange light directly onto his face making him look a little like an oompa-lumpa!

We met up with some of Carrie's friends from her time here and revisited some of her old haunts. She did a much better job of remembering where they were than I did in Buenos Aires. Beijing seems very wrapped up in 2008 Olympic fever however we could find very little evidence of any actual improvements or developments. Fingers crossed that the world cup will spur them on.

From Beijing we took a 'coffin bus' (imagine 60 coffins lying end to end in 3 rows down the length of a coach and you will be somewhere close to this odd form of overnight road transport only used in China) to the Mongolian border where we waited for 12 hours for a connecting train to Ulaanbaatar. (Capital) We had met some lovely Mongolians on the bus who helps start to get our heads around Mongolian life and in particular the food (it's all in cyrillics).

From the moment you arrive in Mongolia you can feel the Russian influence. The train was attended by austere carriage attendants in strict grey uniforms and plenty of eighties style make-up. We shared our carriage with 2 young Mongolian dancers which helped pass the endless miles of Gobi desert nothingness pleasantly. After leaving the desert the landscape greened up and saw our first Gers (aka Yurts). These white circular tents dot the lanscape with infrequent regularity often in the most unikely spots.

Ulaanbataar (commonly known as UB) is on the surface a fairly drab place but wonderfully simple to navigate and feel at home in. Our hostel was full of like-minded travellers. Apparently Mongolia only attracts a certain type of traveller - we were soon to find out why. We got together with 8 others and organised a russian van to take us to the north of the country to Lake Khovsgol. We crammed ourselves into the van and drove. We drove and drove and drove. The van coped amazingly well and the passengers tolerably so. The distances here are immense and the roads are more of a concept than a reality. Our drivers were like machines in that all they did was drive. They rarely ate, went to the bathroom or needed to stretch their legs. We stopped of at a Monastery in the middle of nowhere which seemed both out of place due to its size and grandeur and also totally at home due to it's calmness and spirit. We had to beg the drivers to stop at 11pm to let us put up tents and sleep. At 8am the next morning we were off and heading ever north. The landscape was thankfully absorbing and the one cassette of Mongolian music that the drivers had will forever be imprinted in our memories. The highlight of the second day was a river crossing that involved loading the van and us onto a raft that was then pulled accross the river - real ingenuity.

We arrived at Hatgal, a small village on the southern end of Lake Khovsgol at 3am and quickly put up our tents to avoid exposure and frostbite. The temperature had plumitted and our isolation had become nearly complete. We shivered our way through the first night totally unaware of our surroundings due to arriving in the pitch dark.

In the morning we woke to find what we had all been suffering for in the bus - the beauty of Lake Khovsgol. We warmed ourselves with Mongolian tea (a salty, milkey affair - not much tea but a definite element of chicken stock) and got our bearings. The lake is enormous and the only feasible way to explore it in any meaningful way is on horseback. This is also the only form of transport for many of the 1000 or so imhabitants of the place. After much discussion (often relying on the international language of Charards) we organised ourselves a 3 day horse expedition/mission with a total of 17 horses!! This formidable group in no way ressembled the impressive armies of Chinggis (Ghengis) Khan but we were not deterred. The three days passed off without accident, or at least not for the paying guests. One of our guides did get himself thouroughly beaten up by a drunken local, however apparently this is totally normal amongst Mongolian men. Alcohol, in particular very cheap vodka, is a real problem here.

We got quite good on the horses even if we say it ourselves. By half way through day 2 we were cantering/galloping along on our own with some control. The countryside was wooded lined shores with white pebbley beaches. Our campsites were idyllic and our evenings improved further by the presence of warming campfire to cook on. We saw herds of goats, yaks, cattle, sheep moving with their owners and their houses (Gers) to summer pastures. We were received by locals into their homes and provided with food and tea and banter.

We relinquished our horses and adapted to life on two legs with very sore backsides. We stayed in the house of our guide for a night and were provided with the dubious pleasures of bread, jam and Yak cream! This was very far away from the pleasures of a Devonshire (or Cornish) cream tea.

After a week or so in the North we really needed to be getting back to UB to return to China for our flight. However, neither of us could bring ourselves to leave the endearing simple life of Mongolia. It had quietly become a real passion for both of us and has snuck to the top of our ever increasing 'favourites list.' We therefore crammed ourselves with 16 others into a russian van and drove through the night back to UB to postpone our flight. With this extension in place we decided to pick another compass point within this enormous country and headed East.

Within 3 hours of leaving UB, the capitol which is home to just under half of the Mongolian Population (approx. 2.3 million - the country has the lowest population density in the world) you are back in the wilderness. Terelj Nation Park has no great lake or mountains, no interesting ethnic minority, no record breaking dessert just a gentle, beautiful calm. We put up our adored little tent on the edge of the forest looking over a wide green valley. The local family brought us a log burning stove, cooking pot, bucket for water and firewood and we were sorted!! It is so nice to have so little requirements and to be so self-sufficient. We were just settling in to doing very little when 4 of the local boys took us under their wings and escorted us to the river for swimming!! Understandably the water was freezing but the boys seemed so intent on going in ( they had stripped down to their pants) that I (David) felt I better not be shown up. I lept in, in excitement the boys followed, only to find that one of them couldn't swim and had to be rescued!!

For the rest of the time in Terelj we read, walked cooked and ate. The landscape was lovely and the people fantastically friendly and generous. We decided that we would try and walk out of the park instead of taking the bus. We walked in the heat for about 3 hours before being overcome by the perfection of a campsite so stayed there.

Mongolia has been terrific. We are back in UB, hoping to catch the England match before heading to Hohhot in Inner Mongolia (China) and then to finally catch our flight.

Thanks to all of you who have sent birthday wishes... I had a great day - Dave dug deep and bought me a set of hinges and I can only assume there must be more to come...
We hope all of you are well

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Photos

Lake Khovsgol
Ice on the lake