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Published: October 4th 2008
Wow - Mongolia was amazing!
We arrived in the capital Ulaanbaatar which was a city that had no resemblence to the rest of the country. It was just built like any other Soviet city that we had already seen - all with the help of the Russians unsurprisingly.
The previous night on the train had been both eventful for us all and terrible for me. Great excitement unfolded in our carriage as it turned out we had some dodgy Russain guy trying to hide bags of bullets in the cabins occupied by us and some Australians. We quickly nick-named him 'Bullet' and watched his every move. His bags were given back to him by the carraige attendant who seemed to know what he was doing and invited him into her cabin. She unlocked the carriage toilet for him and let him hide his bags in there instead! In addition to this seven members of our tour group had been ill at lake Baikal. Gem and I had both been ok so we thought that we'd got away with it. However, it turned out I'd just been saving my illness until we got back on the train. Stuck on the
Russian - Mongolian border I was being sick, in a dirty, stenching train toilet with no running water waiting for 'Bullet' to come in, shoot me in the head and get his stash back! Nice. I had a terrible night's sleep but arriving into Mongolia I felt a bit better and was looking forward to seeing the country. It appeared that Bullet man made it across the border with his bags of weapons: Good for him!
Anyhow, from the station we caught a bus to a Mongolian Ger camp. We stayed for two nights in a Ger (like a big round tent but with a wood burning stove in the middle to keep you warm at night). I loved looking after the fire, but when it went out at 3am it dropped below zero so was quite cold.
Over the next couple of days we visited a local Ger camp and sampled some delicious fermented mare's milk - Yum!?!. We did some archery and got our arses kicked by the local Mongolian girl, and then some horse riding. Poor Gem got the slowest horse ever, and as a consequence the Mongolian horsemen kept riding up behind her horse
Shopping in the local supermarket
...and look, yum, fancy a sheep head for lunch?and hitting it to speed up. Fortunately I chose a great horse (it had gti on the side of it) and was trotting off quite happily! Gem declared that horse riding 'was not for her'!
We loved Mongolia and would go back anytime. The land and the sky were awesome and all the people so friendly. A nice change after Russia!
We stayed for an extra might in UB (as the locals call Ulaanbaatar). It was a shame as UB really isn't very nice and in direct comparision to the rest of the beautiful county and the Ger camps, UB it is awful. The following day we boarded the train: Next stop China!
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