Temuujin's Guest House Ulan Bator

... is really surreal around that area, evryone compares Mongoia to a lunar landscape and they’re not wrong. As you can imagine, Sarah stands out a lot in this landscape with all her colourful clothes in Mongolia – the only emo in the country!

We then headed off to Karkorum, the ancient capital of the Chinggis Kahn’s old Mongoolian empire. Chinggis is an absolute god in Mongolia and pretty much everything is named after him – beer, shops ...

... overnight accomodation.



Great, we thought, we will be back in Ulaan Baator tomorrow and diving into piles of tasty food at the veggie restaurant! And then we discovered that the storm was expected to increase and move further south the next day, and, as a result the authorities had stopped all public transport... and then we heard it would probably be two days before the buses were allowed to head out! Oh God! Mandalgovi is not a ...

... of home and with Emy translating we told each about our families and lifestyles.
Every now and again, someone would start singing. This was helped along with one or two or more drinks of milk beer in a bowl and neat vodka in a small dish that were passed around the group, us included.

All the time the tv was on.This was in black and white with only 3 channels supplied by an ancient satelite dish powered by a solar panel.


After our ...

... though we had to
flatter the driver into attempting the crossings and explain to him
the best route to take. Eventually we came to a river we thought
uncrossable, but for some reason the driver was attempt this one
without being cajoled. Inevitably we got halfway across and ground
to a halt. The water was well above the top of the tyres and rushing
through the doors, washing clothes and rubbish out of the downstream
side of the van. The spot was ...

... waiting while they got my money back from the robbers. They immediately knew who they were because of how often they catch them. It turns out it was three women. I got all my money back and maybe a little more, I wasn't 100% sure of the exact amount so I rounded up. I even got the makeup back that was in my wallet. So the worst that happened was my purse now has a hole in it and Uya and I had to sit in the police station waiting for two hours ...

... procedure would be replaced by the physical manifestation of that Russian paranoia. To prevent invasion by train (who invades by train???) the Russians changed the gauge on all their railways, making them 8.5cm wider than most of the rest of the world, so that when entering/leaving the former USSR and Mongolia one either needs to change trains, or one's train needs to change its wheels (bogies).

Ulan Bator, Mongolia jiewu

... unlike American homes where we like every room to flow together. She had beautiful chandeliers in almost every room and her wallpaper had a slight touch of glitter, which sounds really strange to describe but it was nice. They also had three plasma screen televisions, and not really small ones, but about what I would guess to be around a 32".

We ate some snack immediately cause by the time we got there it ...

... 1488;תה מושיט ידך בניסי 93;ן לאחוז בחלום, ספק ממשש, ספק מרגיש קרבתו. בעת ההיא, הוא עו ...

... a few other occassions my fecker wanted to run so had to keep a good grip on him... It was kinda surprising as he was the oldest and slowest horse of the lot. Karl had a rite lazy horse too which would just sit down anywhere on his own accord with karl on the saddle not knowing what the hell to make of it. Will and our guide Khuu also got thrown off although both had kind landings. Horses are half wild....lol... I just didn't trust my horse by this stage and was glad to get off it on the ...

I'm on the final train journey of my first Asian trip, the last leg from Ulaan Baatar to Beijing. The train is fairly comfy,and I’m sitting on my top bunk with my computer, munching on a not-quite-ripe Asian pear.

It’s interesting to start to feel like I’m in Asia. Officially I’ve been on the continent for about two weeks now, ever since I passed the Ural mountains on the train. But being in the Eastern part of Russia and being in a place that feels ...