Hello everyone! How are you? Good? Cool! Glad to hear you are all well and enjoying life wherever you are. It's a bit weird writing to yourself all the time, although I do like the sound of my own voice so it's not all bad!!

Currently we are on the train from Ulaabaatar to Beijing. Well, I am sat in my armchair and Sally is fast asleep on her sofabed! This is the best first class train carriage in the world, EVER! We even have a toilet which we only share with the next cabin (we both have doors from our cabins) and it even doubles up as a shower with a wet room too. seriously luxurious! The Chinese attendants are friendly enough and speak basic English and brought us a cool flask of hot water when we set off. And I am serious, I have an armchair!!!

The view as we head through the Mongolian countryside is pretty spectacular, with green plains and long mountain side horizons both sides of us in the misty distance.

Sally is going to blog later about the last few days in the Mongolian countryside and our time in the gers, and of eagles, camels and wild horses, so I will just tell you about the books I have read so far!! A book review of sorts!! (feel free to get bored and close this blog!)

Firstly I finally finished the 115 chapter autobiography of Nelson Mandela - Long Walk To Freedom, which I began reading back in June when we were lying in a hammock on the cliffs of our Turkish honeymoon paradise! It's one LONG book, but very captivating. When you consider the thought of reading a political autobiography you expect it to be full of rhetoric and propaganda, and this doesn't disappoint, but Nelson (we are now on first name terms) has a refreshingly honest style and gives a fairly fair and two sided account of the oppressive regime and his struggle against it. He talks candidly about the mistakes he and the ANC made as much as the terrible suffering the National party subjected the Black South Africans to. He paints a picture of his world in a way that it feels like he is talking to you by a bonfire in the wilds of Africa and doesn't allow you to get bored with political crap.

Obviously his time (29 years) in captivity is the bit we know best, and is my favourite part of the book (doesn't start until about 70 chapters in!!). He has a really fun way of explaining the relationship with the guards, and their constant battle to subvert their authority, and damage their morale, and in some cases convert them from racist oppressors to embarrassed and apologetic guards who began to see that what they had been told through decades of education from the government was completely false and unfair.

I imagine there is another book written or to be written about his time in power, because this is where the book ends, and I was sad to say goodbye to old Nelson. He might not have been perfect and definitely did not get everything right, but he literally changed his country for the better, and forever.

Read it if you have a long train ride, it is perfect!!

The next novel is Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything, which is a fantastic read. If, like me (and Bill) you have always held an interest in evolution, biology, space, nature, and human endeavour, but never wanted to read the boring and high brow books you need to read, this is the best book you will ever read, and will provide you with so many interesting facts that you will always be able to think of quiz questions, or amaze your friends with interesting facts!

Some examples: feel free to use them to make yourself look clever!

1. The earth is 4.5billion years old but they used to think it was 20,000 years old.... Until the late 20th century!
2. Pluto is not a planet
3. Space is constantly increasing in size and will never stop (unless we all shout STOP really loudly at the same time of course, that always works!!)
4. Einstein didn't learn to speak until he was three and failed to get into college at the first attempt.
5. He was working in the Swiss patent office when he thought up the theory of relativity.
6. Charles Darwin was only invited on board the research ship HMS Beagle because the captain needed a "gentleman companion" and liked the shape of his nose..... He just so happened to then discover evolution!
7. Two other naturalist had written identical theories on evolution before Darwin, but neither published their thoughts in a popular enough publication... That'll learn 'em!!
8. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid - I bet you didn't know that or can say it!
9. Inbreeding has almost certainly taken place in your ancestry and you are almost certainly related in some way to every person you know and any famous person in history. And so is everyone else!
10. Most important scientific discoveries were ignored for decades or treated with contempt... Until someone else discovers that they were in fact right and changed the way we perceive the world or even changed the world! Often the original pioneer had already died!!
11. 60% of human genes are fundamentally the same as those found in fruit flies and 90% are fundamentally the same as found in mice. We even have the genes to make a tail, it's just not switched on!
12. We have the same number of genes as grass.

All in all a very good, easy read with lots of interesting facts framed in a palatable and humorous way. Go read!

Dan xx