The train to Mongolia was a truly international affair! We board the train with lots of other backpackers from Australia & Europe - seems strange to hear this much English being spoken again! As we are introducing ourselves to our carriage pals and doing the what's your name and where do you come from bit, a girls pokes her head out of the next door cabin when we mention that we're from Devon. What do you know but we're next door to a fellow Totnesian, who went to our school and lives in Tuckenhay!!! Small World!! The next day we wake up to a completely different landscape and the siberian pine forests have changed into the beginnings of the mongolia steppe and you can see for miles into the distance. Reached the Russian Border town in the early afternoon where we were told that there could be a bit of a wait for the customs and officials to do the paper work... after 5-6 hours of waiting and a few beers with our fellow travellers still not much had happened, the border guards still sat looking grumpy and smoking cigarettes in the sunshine. We decided on quick trip to the supermarket to grab some more beers & food for the onward journey. After a delay in the shop chatting to local russian builders who were keen to practice their english (scarily the only word they seemed to know was George Bush!!) we headed back to the train and on arrival got shouted at by a severe looking guard telling us to wait by the station! amazingly in the short time that we were in the shop they had miraculously managed to complete all the customs paper work and the train was ready to leave and we weren't allowed back on! Fortunately we had a friend with us that could speak russian and pleaded with afore mentioned scary guard to let us back on the train. After a reprimand in russian that we didn't understand (translated afterwards as ' in soviet times, there was order and you wouldn't be allowed to get back on the train but i suppose in these capitalist times i will have to allow you back on') we got back on the train and celebrated our good fortune into the early hours with fellow travel pals!! Arrive in Ulan Bator in the early morning and the whisked off in a jeep for an 8 hour journey across Mongolia to our stay with a Nomad family. The Journey is a bit of a bone shaker - mostly off roading through stunning scenery and open steppe - it feels as if you can see so far across the landscape that you can see the curve of the earth!! Feel strangely at home here - maybe i'm one of the 90 million in the world that has a Gengis Khan gene!!! Get to nomad family' home, which consists of 4 Ger's and a huge satellite dish!. The family consists of 2 grandparents, their son and wife and their 2 kids, the rest of the family - 5 other siblings and their family's live in Ger's in the surrounding area. We Were welcomed with a nice cup of tea - green tea, warm cows milk (just from the udders!), and salt, and some dried curd, which tastes like dried goats cheese - mmmmmmm. Our stay with the family was amazing and got a real feel for mongolian life. Half the population (2 million) live this nomadic lifestyle, moving upto 4 times a years with their herds of horses, goats & cows. We went camel riding over the sand dunes of the gobi and tried the local alcoholic drink - fermented mares milk (better than it sounds!), visited the ancient city of Karkhourin and our first Buddhist Temple! After saying our goodbyes to the nomad family we moved on to a tourist ger camp which Garth and i had a fear of a Butlins type of affair, but were pleased to find something that resembled the tipi field at glasto (minus the tipi's and replaced with Gers!), nestled amongst mountains and more beautiful scenery! Whilst there we tried 2 out of the 3 Mongolian national sports - horse riding and archery and gave the 3rd one - wrestling - a miss!! Also had chance to try some more of the mongolian national dish - Buuz - which is dumplings flled with mutton. From the amount we ate we're guessing the mongolians really into these things, but eating 6 or 7 of them with nowt else for both lunch and dinner became a little overwhelming!! Move on to Ulan Bator for a bit of civilisation, but even though it has a fairly small population, its all a bit too hectic and i start to crave the open spaces again - can kinda see why the people have started moving out of the city back to a nomadic lifestyle. Fab city though and spent a day pootling around to temples and bit of retail therapy at the state department store. Early morning train to China and the final leg of our trans mongolian train journey. we're both v v excited about china, though i can't help feeling that there is much more of mongolia that i would like to explore.....