Puma Imperial Ulan Bator

... be aprivate because there weren’t enough people on the train!) and the other half with the 'party carriage’ which was full of loads of crazy swedish people who drank vodka from the moment they woke up to the moment they went to bed! We both learnt a *********** about getting drunk on trains and having to spend the entire next day with a hangover still on the train with it bumping around. Not fun. What was fun were the train stops that happened every four ...

The next morning we woke at 6.30am. The view from our carriage had changed to mis-shrouded hills and Gers surrounded by their animals.

This was the type of accommodation we were going to have from the next 3 nights. We looked at each other and were both thing\king the same thing - "We should have booked an hotel".

Emy, our guide met us at the station and took us to a Japenese hotel for a shower Japenese style.
From there the condemed eat a ...

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 ...

... how we once were!).

Elstei is a camp established by Shuren - a leading Mongolian travel company here - 20 years ago - and is near a nomad camp where the nomads herd horses, goats and sheep and attend to the various needs of the tourists.

It was exactly what the doctor ordered for me - a week's solitude - loads of sleep - 3 meals a day - and horseriding; not to mention the company of the most amazing Mongolian staffers and visiting ...

... there was one 18 year-old who currently lives in Singapore but lived in both Denver, Colorado and Oahu, Hawaii for a very long time. Others in his group also were currently living in other countries but all were still Mongolian, including him.

Things went very differently this session than all the other have. Not so much in what we did, but in the order we did them. On the second day we traditionally have a teachers concert, in which I ...

After about 9 hours of being held at customs control we finally crossed the boarder and arrived in Mongolia. Instead of the suspicious 'glare stare' we routinely had from Russian officials we were greeted with a beaming smile and a 'Welcome to Mongolia'. This was a shock to the system! All we could do was smile uncontrollably back at the officer and at each other. It was a relief to no longer feel like an ...

... the guy travelling with us out of bed. I knock on the ger owner's door, and when I hear a voice, I yell in Russian, "There's a man in our ger, and he won't go away!". She comes in, takes a look and leaves, but returns a moment later with our driver. He eventually persuades the dude to leave, and we say goodnight.

Not two hours later, I wake to a most inhumane sound coming from outside the ger. It first begins as a man shouting in the most ...

Hi Everyone, Sorry we've not been posting - the "world wide" data modem on the laptop obviously isn't! The only place it has worked outside western Europe was around Moscow and a phone call to the Phone company has confirmed it probably won't work until Turkey! Anyway, we are all well and enjoying a brief rest for a couple of days here in Ulaan Baator in Mongolia. We plan to head south tomorrow towards the Gobi desert and have also been joined by a great guy called Dennis ...

... in front of us. Quite an interesting process and they waste nothing from the animal, Everything is used for something. The next morning it was off up another valley each carrying sleeping bags and tents and enough food clothes and water to last us 2 days on the mountain. The climb was a hell of a lot harder than what had been explained and the peak we were to climb sits pretty at 3957m. As we sat for a break already behind time, Pete dropped his bag and off it rolled and bounced the whole ...