Mongolian Steppe Guest House Ulan Bator

... up by little wood/dung fired ovens in the centre of each structure. As soon as we arrived we were informed that lunch - the third of the day - would be ready in 10 minutes....

Fortunately this time we were offered an entrail-free vegetarian option which both Marketa and I went for and was very nice. The men stuck with meat to save face but poor Chris hardly dented his and later admitted he thought he was going to hurl as he couldn't get the image of the ...

... number of first hand stories about pickpockets and trouble with locals. Out of anywhere I've been it was the worst place in that regard.

Nothing happened to me but nearly everyone I talked to had been harrassed somehow.

One guy I met had felt someone opening his backpack as he walked down the street, so he turned around and the guy ran off; two guys caught a taxi but the driver locked them in the car until they paid ...

... at 9am, I felt a bit sluggish and didn't have a great recollection of the latter part of the night, but looking over at the bag of vodka I noticed there were only two bottles left! Could we? Surely not? Is it possible we drank three bottles? My head was a bit fuzzy, but it didn't feel bad enough to suggest a session of that magnitude had taken place. Looking around I realised the guide wasn't there. I motioned to the couple who had also just woken up but they also had no idea ...

... accepter 3 verres. Dans notre cas on est monté à 5 parce qu'à chaque fois qu'on refusait il s'énervait. Et pour finir le repas en beauté, de la vodka mongole! Celle-ci est faite à partir du même lait de jument fermenté et est très douce en comparaison avec la vraie. Nous avons répété ces expériences quelques fois durant notre voyage, notamment avec des kazakhes dans l'ouest du pays, mais il faut bien avouer que nous évitions souvent de passer trop près des yourtes de ...

My passport's only gone and filled itself up without my noticing. No problem an American girl tells me, just go to your embassy and they'll stitch more pages in for free. Great I think, what a wonderful, helpful and considerate service and off to the embassy I skip.

But no...good old blighty doesn't offer such a thing. Instead, Gordon and the Queen insist I have to order a new passport ...

... schedule everyday was written in English and the opening ceremony and everything else was translated into English, so the speeches that I have heard over and over again, for the first time I actually knew what was being said.

There were two girls from Germany who were originally put into my group, they were much older than the rest of my group being 18 and 17. It turns out they were in Mongolia doing Lions Club like I did when I ...

... requires a lot of training, but the end result sounds like a hoarse singing with a another 2 notes coming from their throat. I am probably describing this terribly but it is very hard to describe. Today was pretty cool though, this morning a leader played a traditional Mongolian instrument, a small 2-stringed cello looking thing and did the throat singing while a student beat-boxed. It was an odd combination, but I felt it was a beautful display of the ...

... grandmothers, did some laundry and went to sleep. The next morning we caught a taxi over the Nairamdal buses that were bringing the next session in. We are currently doing check-ups with the doctor and everyone is getting settled. I’m excited and nervous at the same time on what this session will bring. Oh and I just found out the new president of Mongolia, he was just sworn in yesterday, his son is staying on the floor above me.

... had gotten myself into. I came in the last 2 days of the first session of kids so none of them new me so I was pretty much just invisible to them. On the third day we got the second session of children. They are slightly younger than the first but it has been much better cause I have had time to bond with them. There are 3 girls who speak english almost perfectly, better than my roomate if you ask me, but i'm not telling her that. They can speak with almost no accent ...