The journey from Ulaan Bataar to Bayonhongor takes about 12 hours, the first part is smooth on tarmac roads and as our minibus sped along I had my first views of the Mongolian countryside; rolling steppe, brown in the dry autumn season, with scattered gers and herds of horses. Caroline, Nyamaa, co-researcher and translator, Enkhbayer, our driver, and our other passenger Batbold, a Buddhist high lama from Bayonhongor, talked and laughed a lot as we journeyed. Towards evening the tarred road abruptly ended and for the final three hours we bumped and twisted our way on narrow tracks the rest of the way, arriving with relief at a hotel in Bayonhongor with hot showers and flush toilets, our last for several weeks. Bayonhongor is an aimag, province, in south central Mongolia. In the town of Bayonhongor
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