Inner Mongolia

After a very early arrival into Ulaan Baatar, it didn't take long for me to conclude that 'UB' is essentially just a health and safety nightmare! Pavements are either icey or dirk tracks, always with unexpected craters or obsticles and several manhole covers missing without warning. And as for the roads, they are fast and ruless, making crossing very difficult (they do have zebra stripes painted on them in places, but they don't make much difference, I think they're only there to localise the points of pedestrian accidents). Sticking close to the Honcho to make the most of her road-wise experience, we found her leading us out into the middle calmly and then shouting 'RUN!' as cars approached rapidly form multiple directions. One positive to the roads here is that every car is potentially a cab. Just standing by the road and raising your arm will cause up to three cars to pull over on they're way to wherever, even if there's only two of you!

Life hazards aside, UB is an interesting city that grew on me in time. I think I was probably frustrated on arrival by the confusing shop signs that led me into many a laundrette, market or pharmacy when I was in search of internet or cash machines. Although I wouldn't rush back here I feel the rest of Mongolia needs a lot more exploring. Heading 90mins East of UB, I spent a couple days doing just that when we were taking into the Mongolian Steppes to spend some time in a traditional Ger camp. Again, not wanting to bore you with the details, this place is stunning and could surpass Lake Baikal already (I feel so fickle).

Expecting to all be huddled together in one of these circular tents in sleeping bags, we were surprised and pleased to find we were split across two Gers, clomplete with beds and coal fire. Even though the temperature out in the country is getting down to beyond -30, The Ger is toasty inside and every three hours, even through the night, a lady literally sneaks in to keep the fire going. The fire is in the center of this relatively small space so see her everytime! Regulating the fire is difficult, freshly lit the room temperature soars to an unbarable level luring us into a false sense of security, and then, particulary during the night, within a couple of hours things drop to near freezing leaving us laying in the dark hoping the fire lady will be on her sneaky rounds soon!


Apart from walking and hiking to the top of the rocky back drop of our camp, we spent some time horse riding, and although ours weren't the most obedient or speedy of creatures, a nice morning out was had all the same. Skaramoosh (the honary 2-hour name for my horse) seemed to like to lead the group and kick any that tried to overtake. An afternoon was also spent visiting a local family in their Ger where, at the end of the visit, it's custom to sing a traditional song from our culture. Being put on the spot and haveing a couple of other nationalities with us, the best we could think of that we all knew and was somewhat British was Yellow Submarine. That's very shameful but the wife seemed to like it regardless. She then sang us a song and the dog howled. The husband prefered to watch the Sumo wrestling on TV which was odd to see considering we were in a tent in the middle nowhere.