Hi All

At long last another blog update.
It's been 3 weeks since we left England and I am still on UK time and always tired, Christina seems to be fine. It's been more difficult updating the blogs and getting email access then we thought, so apologies and just be patient there will always be updates.(So you can stop sending moaning emails and texts - you know who you are! )
So this is the blog for Mongolia. (Becky please take note this is just for you!!!)

We arrived in Mongolia after a 2 day train ride from Irkutsk in Russia. This is our last part of our Trans-Mongolian train trip. We are staying 4 days in Mongolia at Ulaanbaatar. The schedule is as follows: 1 night in a homestay in the city, 2 nights at a Ger camp in The Terelj national park and then again 1 night in the city for a early departure the next day to China.
On arrival at Ulanbaatar station we were supposed to be met, but our itinery was not correct - ours said we would arrive at 7am but we arrived at 6am, We were not happy, it was cold, about -12C and we were very tired. There was taxi drivers that keeps hassling us to get a hotel and taxi, but we did not need any as we had it booked already. After about an hour and a half I managed to get through to the drivers mobile. He had overslept and said that he will be at the station in 15 minutes. When he arrived at the station he was very apologetic. He was really sorry and his company organized for the guide to meet us at 11am to show us the city at there cost (The currency is togrog). They paid for the taxi's,museums and gave us a general tour of the city. We when to the natural history museum of mongolia, Tasgany Ovoo temple,Sukhbaatar Square, the state department store and a Irish pub for a drink. Our guide also recommended a nice local restaurant called the Modern Nomads. For dinner we had mongolian fried dumplings and steamed dumplings with mongolian beer. It was very nice. After dinner we walked back to our homestay for another early morning taxi to the Ger camp.
We arrived at the Ger camp at about 11am. The national park looked very dry and very cold. The general temp was about -10C. Our guide showed us to our ger hut and it as very nice and warm from the fire in the stove. The ger itself is a nice small white tent with 2 beds and a stove in the middle for heat. The first day we walked around the camp, climbed the hills and just relaxed. The scenery is stunning. At dinner our guide came to get us and we walked to a small wooden hut for our 3 course meal. Again we had mongolian dumplings, soup and desert and it was delicious. We sat around the table talking to our guide for about another hour and then back to our ger where we put more wood on the fire. At 1am in the morning one of the mongolians working at the ger camp came to put more charcoal in our stove and again at 4am. (What a service)
I think I also need to say that there is no showers and only a wooden toilet outside in the valley that does not flush as there is no running water for it.
The second and last day of our stay at the camp we had breakfast then walked to a nomadic family to meet the family and see how they lived. They gave us some yak milk tea, dried yogurt and some biscuits. Funny though how they live in these gers with a satellite dish next to them a fridge or freezer and a tv. The hole family lives in 1 or 2 gers and are always on the move for better gracing for there live stock. There was also a small goat under there wooden stove waiting to be cooked. After that we went horse riding and again a bit of walking in the afternoon and another big dinner at about 7pm.
The next morning I woke up at about 4am and not feeling very well. I went to the toilet "long drop" in the freezing cold but with a very nice view. Christina did not seem to be suffering from a poor belly. "Damn that nice food from last night" On the way back to UB we stopped at turtle rock for a picture that looks like a turtle he he he. Back at UB we relaxed and walked around town. That night we met our guide for a drink. We manage to get some local fermented mares milk vodka mix. Tasted a bit like weak vodka with a hint of yogurt in it. Very nice.
The next morning we got the train to China. We had to stop at the Mongolian border at 11pm to do our exit cards and then the carriages had to be lifted in the air one by one to change the wheel base of the trains. The metric of the tracks are of different sizes between Russia/Mongolian and China. This whole operation of crossing the border took about 5 hours and in that time you are not allowed to go to the toilet as they lock the doors of the toilets. The reason for this is that the toilets empty on the tracks.

I would serously reccomend Mongolia for a holiday it is lovely, the people are so friendly and helpful, the food is incredible and the activites that are available are endless.

So now Christina will update you on China.