It seems at a certain age one gets used to a certain level of comfort. For me it would appear that age is 31. In the face of no such comforts my body protested with a cold. After a little over a week on the road my body/mind is slowly coming to terms with challenges of the amazing countries we are going through.........

Our trip finally began in Beijing nearly 24 (sleepless) hour later than expected. It seems bad weather meant our plane couldn't get to us, which is interesting as the locals in Beijing said there had not been any bad weather. Sneaky Chinese?

I did survive Air China, though after many delays, no service and a distinct lack of food, we are both agreed, next time we stick to my airline snob guidelines. The highlight was the one meal I was offered; pork and rice or beef and noodles. I took the beef, it was actually spaghetti.

Memories from my last trip to china were of great food, beautiful scenery, horrid pollution and dodging spit on the pavement; seems some things never change. On arrival we were driven in to our hotel and immediately noticed the thick layer of smog hovering over the massive city. Our lovely guide, jack, informed us it was just fog. Needless to say that fog didn't lift for the 3 days we were there.

We packed in as much as we could in our short time there. Took a walk to the forbidden city/ Tienamin square in drizzling acid rain, visited the Summer palace and took in an acrobatics show (no one should be able to bend the way they do). A highlight was the Great, or as Carl says, Good Wall of China. I did remember it being steep, just not that steep. At one particular end it's almost like climbing an unstable ladder that goes on forever. Being I'd climbed it before, and considering my current level of fitness I had no business going up there, but I did. Emmett had to hear about my broken calves for days following.

On the whole the Chinese were friendly, and love to practice their english on the obvious foreigners. Once again I star in some Chinese photo albums.

One thing that we were both shocked by was the amount of luxury cars plying the crazy roads. Porsche, Lexus, Bentley, BMW, Audi; they were all very present and accounted for, in large numbers at that. Beijing is definitely where the money is at. Head out to the country side and any signs of wealth are clearly lacking.

Our first near miss almost meant we didn't make it to Ulan baatar. Emmett was sure the train he had booked was leaving at 11/12 in the morning so we would pick our tickets up in the morning. The night before he double checked, train left at 8am and ticket office didn't open to 9am. s***. Banking on the rumor travel agents work long hours we headed straight to the office and thankfully, at 8pm, someone was still there. Crisis 1 averted, onwards to Mongolia!!

The train from Beijing to Ulan Baatar took around 36 hours. We were in a 4 berth compartment sharing with Mongolian father and son. The scenery was brilliant. Rolling out of Beijing the city ran into giant limestone looking (im not a rock expert) cliffs, it was green and lush with many rivers cross crossing the land. Soon enough this turned into fairly flat farm land, nap time. Then we reached the border.

I'm not sure if it's in the hand book, or perhaps some unwritten law, that border officials have to be rude and obnoxious. Either way, the Chinese officials have it down pat. After being barked at for our passports, and then quizzed on my name our passports went one way and we went the other.

Train travel is not for the impatient, four hours later, after passport had been processed and the bogies on the train changed (fun fact -China is on different tracks from Mongolia and Russia) we were off again. Until we hit the Mongolian border and then the process started again, only 2 hours this time. We later met a couple who had spent 16 hours between both border crossings, we got off lightly!

The countryside of Mongolia is stunning. First we headed through the Gobi Desert, with it's terrific 2 humped camels ( much cooler than the 1 hump variety). From the train you don't really see rolling sand dunes, just desert with some grass here and there. Soon enough this turned to the vast Mongolian Steppe; green, flat, treeless land that seemed to go on forever. Cows, horses, sheep and goats roam seemingly free here with a nomadic family ger here and there. Hours later hills came into view with more and more Ger's and even some trees and then the eye sore that is Ulan Baatar was upon us.

Without doubt this is one of the ugliest cities I have ever laid eyes on. The Soviet's have left their mark with fine examples of concrete block architecture, this intermingles with some ramshackle housing and many Ger's. Add to this more than half of the countries population now lives in UB and you also have major pollution issues. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover....we shall see.