Mutton... it had to happen!

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We went on a little adventure into the countryside yesterday chauffered by our kamikaze director. Tagging along was our colleague-cum-interpreter and some dude who we still don't know anything about. Once we negotiated the city streets to plenty of bravado horn blowing we were into the spectacular surrounding mountainside and grassy fields. First stop was a stone cairn to pay respect to the mountain. In true Mongolian tradition we walked 3 laps and threw stones onto the pile.

On the way to the next stop we enjoyed the antics of a number of local fauna, including camels, eagles, horses, goats, cows, sheep, chipmonks, dinosaurs, and of course YAKS!!!

Lunch was via Turtle rock which is a massive conglomerate of stone which looks remarkably like (you guessed it) a turtle. Then a few more kilometres over gut-wrenching braking and gear changes to a ger (yurt) village. These tubby Mongo palaces are everywhere, including the city - we are very envious and wish we had one of our own. Then the afore mentioned lunch... Mutton and greasy noodles - apparently not even a traditional Mongo dish but stolen from the Chinese. In any case there were repercussions later! But we were culturally polite and ate as much as we could possibly stomach.

We are hoping to go rafting on the Tuul river before we start work on Wednesday. And in the meantime we are still madly exploring and making sense of UB.

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