Mongolia (cont.)

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Day 31 - 1st October!!! We've been going a month. Woken up by the woman who comes to re-light our fires at 6.30am. Didn't realise until then but i was freezing. The temperature really dips at night. Had a huge hangover and found Nick (our new friend) asleep on our floor. Would be used to feeling ill but had already agreed to go horse riding at 10am, which i was now dreading. The nomads saddled them up and we just picked one. I picked one that decided to wander off in the opposite direction as soon as i got on. I was asked if the stirrups were the correct length and said yes, as i don't know the correct length of stirrups. An hour and a half later and my knees were in agony. We basically just walked most of the time, as there were a lot of amateurs riding (including me!!), but did have a little trot from time to time. One nomad had learnt how to say 'c'mon baby!' in english, so just kept shouting that the whole way round.

In the afternoon, we had to visit a 'traditional nomad family'. This involved walking for 20minutes to meet them. All of us then squeezed in this one small Ger and we met the old lady who lived there. I was surprised to see she had a huge satelite dish - but then the tv inside was smaller than my ipod. We all had to try their traditional milk (can't remember its name but it had alcohol in it and tasted disgusting) as well as traditional cream, which wasn't so bad. We also had to take part in a demonstration of a 'traditional Mongolian wedding'. I was asked to approach Nancys 'parents' and ask them if i could marry their daughter. They said yes, and we all drank from the horrible milk again. I'm not sure if this means i'm now married or not. After this we sat and learned all about the nomad way of life and before leaving all had to give a gift that we had bought in the supermaket the day before. I think it was just a cheeky way of her getting her shopping done. I gave her some apricots in a jar.

In the evening we learnt archery, but there was only one arrow and it was freezing by now so i didn't last long. Then after supper (Food was good and usually involved something with mutton) we played some traditional mongolian games involving sheeps bones. Similar to marbles really. The night ended as usual with cards and drinking. Because of this i overslept and missed breakfast. So once we got back to the city myself, Nance and Adelle went and bought 2 main meals each and now i feel sick. Am staying in a four star hotel tonight and tomorrow we head to Beijing!

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