Mongolia is like .... WOW!

We arrived in Ulaan Baatar on Thursday afternoon and hit the hotel straight away. We were all tired and dirty after being on the train for a couple of days. It was nice to have some space around you rather than having to push up and down the corridors.

Ulaan Baatar is a strange looking city. It has a mix of Soviet buildings and traditional tents in backyards. It's very shabby and looks like it could do with some money spent on it. The streets are appalling and are covered in potholes and ditches. The pavements really aren't that much better. Our guide said that since the Soviets left in the early 90s no money has really been spent on the city.

After a warmish shower in the hotel and a brief time on the internet, we all went to a Mongolian Cultural Show. It is a family and some of their friends who want to keep Mongolian culture alive and do it as amateurs. It was fantastic. After the music in China which to most Westerners sounds like a cat being disembowelled, Mongolian music is wonderful. They use the same octave as us and are a very melodic people. I guess as nomads they had a lot of time to work on their traditional music and dancing. We heard normal singing and throat singing which is the same stuff as the monks from Tibet do but much better sounding. It didn't sound like the backing group for a death metal band anyway. The dancing was great and like a mix between Russian and Asian styles. It wasn't as frentic as Russian dancing but much more energetic than Asian. There were also three young contortionists who were fantastic. I have no idea how they even come up with the moves that these girls could do. They also played some traditional songs on an instrument that is like a harp but sounds more like a harpsicord. The woman playing it was fantastic and moved her fingers so fast.

After the show we went to a German Bier Garten for dinner. The Mongolians have opened restaurants everywhere that sell all sorts of foreign food. They are incredible and it is just like the real thing. I had steak which after two days of living on snack foods on the train was so good. We had a quiet night and all headed off to bed after dinner.

We had an easy start on Friday morning and headed out into the countryside mid morning. You leave Ulaan Baatar very rapidly and it was surprising to find out that it has a population of one million. We made a few stops on the way to the Ger Camp where we were to spend the night. We stopped and visited a typical nomadic family that is currently grazing their horses in the area. They live in a portable house that is made from a wooden frame, felt lining and canvas over the top. Inside they have a few beds, some tables and cupboards and a small fire. The daughter had recently had a baby who was very very ugly. Here you have to say that all babies are ugly until they are 3 years old because it is bad juju if you don't. They get very upset if you call their baby anything nice because the baby may get sick. So we've all been practising saying how ugly children are. We got to try fermented mares' milk with the family. It's a traditional drink here in Mongolia and tastes like very sour yogurt. It wasn't bad but I don't think that I'd rush to have it again.

Our next stop was at a place where you could hold a tame eagle and ride on a camel. The Mongolians use eagles for hunting small animals when they are moving to a new camp. They train them from when they are small birds. The bird that some of the group held was a few years old and full size. I got some good photos. Unfortunately we didn't get to see it hunting.

The camels were very put out at having to work for a living and didn't want to do what they were told. Poor Nicole thought that she might have to continue the rest of the trip on the back of a camel because hers wouldn't sit down and let her off at the end of her ride. We didn't all get a go because there were heaps of Korean tourists there and we needed to keep moving to get to our camp.

Our camp was in the hills in the National Park. It's a stunning park with stark rock hills and forest below them. At the bottom are grassy plains which are very green at the moment because of all the rain they have had recently. (I'd show you photos but the computer is having a moment so I can't put them up now). It is a truly superb environment and virtually untouched. The Russians didn't really come into the area so it's only been used by the local herders for years. The camp had a handful of yurts (the local portable houses) and two larger building with the restaurant and games area in them. It was really very comfortable and a great location. You could have just sat on the front steps and looked at the view for a couple of days.

But we had some horse riding to do so after a delicious lunch of traditional Mongolian food (beef and cabbage soup, lamb meatballs wrapped in pastry and salad) we headed down to get on the horses. I think that the horsemen were surprised to find that so many of us had never been on a horse or only once or twice. Given the way the kids here just leap upon them and ride around, I suspect it's something that they can do from shortly after they can walk. We slowly piled onto the horses, some of us more gracefully than others. I got a smallish pony that didn't seem to want to do what I was telling it to. Thankfully, it seemed content just to follow the group rather than doing its own thing. For a little while at least.

There were two of us who ended up on horses that really really didn't want to walk and would have been happy to spend the afternoon eating grass and doing their own thing. The man had to keep coming up behind us and hitting them. My horse responded quite well to this and he often just had to look at it or yell something in Mongolian and it would start trotting. Unfortunately, I wasn't very comfortable trotting on the horse and would have rather walked. I think that the man just enjoyed seeing how awkward I looked as soon as the horse sped up so kept hitting it.

We rode as far as turtle rock (again the picture would be self explanatory if I could get it to load - so stay tuned) and got off there and looked at the rock and the souvenir stores. It was nice to get to stretch my legs. I didn't realise that I'd been clinging on so tight. After looking around and having a quick drink, it was back onto the horses to take the forest trail back to the camp. The men seemed to be keen to get back and wanted the horses to trot most of the way. This must have confused my poor horse something terrible because the man would hit it and I'd pull back on the reins seconds later. It tended to obey him though, the whole talk softly and carry a big stick thing, I think. We then headed up the hill into the trees and this section I really didn't like. The horse seemed to ignore the fact that  I was much taller than it was and just walk straight into the trees off the side of the path. The man also insisted on continuing to hit the horse so it was trying to walk quicker and overtake other horses to get away from him. As we were coming down the hill on the other side, my horse decided to give up completely and took to the bushes and then stopped dead. I was tempted at this point to just get off and walk the rest of the way because it was less than one km. The man though, grabbed the bridle and led me on the most direct route down the hill which was a lot steeper than the path the horse would have liked to have taken. I did make it to the bottom and was still on the horse when we got back though so that was a good effort on my part.

After the ride we had a bit of time to rest before another delicious meal and then I crashed. The others stayed up to play games and have a few drinks and I just went straight to bed and woke up in the morning. The others complained bitterly this morning about the noise that the Korean tourists had made into the early hours of the morning. I hadn't even noticed that there were any Korean tourists in the camp until the morning when I got up to go to the loo. It was more than warm enough in the yurt once we got the fire going (using pringles as fire lighters, a very handy trick that Steve taught us) but I imagine that it would have been cold without it.

This morning we walked back along the path that we had come down on with the horses and went to visit a local temple. It is one of the few original ones left because the Russians destroyed lots of them. It's a reasonable hike up the hill but the view from the top is fantastic. The perfect place to put a meditation temple. The temple is very beautiful as the Mongolians are into colourful decoration. The outside is painted with pictures of everyday life and the things that will happen to you in Hell if you are a bad person (like being eaten alive by animals, burned on fires and chopped into many pieces by a blue dude), inside there are lots of paintings of important religious figures and a lot of colourful embroidered hangings. There were lots of Buddhist children running around inside saying their prayers which was lovely to see.

The Mongolians are a lovely people. Not many of them speak English as they used to learn Russian at school but they all smile and wave as you go past and look happy to see you. It's such a contrast with China where no-one seemed happy that you were there.

After our walk we got back into the bus and came back to Ulaan Baatar and here I am writing in this blog. We had one brief stop at a pile of stones by the side of the road. It is an old Mongolian Shaman tradition. You walk around the pile three times and then add a stone to it and make a wish. Your wish should come true sometime that year.

I'll try and put some photos up tomorrow, if not it'll be while I'm in Russia as tomorrow we get onto the train for two days to head towards Siberia. Hope all are well at home.