Mongolia

Arrived in Mongolia over a week a go now, and have been have been really enjoying it here. It seems like a great country and is suprisingly different to Russia, evryone is a lot friendlier and the place has a much more relaxed atmosphere. The train from Russia to Ulaan Baator,the capital of Mongolia went Ok. The border crossing took about 10 hours, but I think thats about average. Had no problem with my visas but they keep the toilet locked the entire time so it was a relief when we finally started moving again.
Only spent a day in UB before setting off on a trekking trip in a remote part of Mongolia, which meant a long and painful bus journey to get there. Had been warned to arrive early for the bus but didn't really understand why, but soon found out. People with tickets got on, and all there luggage was packed around them, then nore luggage was packed on, followed by more people who climbed on on top of that. We also couldn't understand why the bus was suppossed to take 10 hours to travel about 450km. Soon after leaving the city we found out, they hadn't actually built the road yet, so the majority of the journey was across sand tracks and fields, and the main traffic was horses, goats, yaks and camels. The bus actually took about 12 hours then we had a further 2 hour jeep ride until we reached the first camp.
The trek was 7 days walking of between 20-30kms a day between gers - traditional Mongolian Nomad houses, staying with the families and then guided between the gers by herders. Was in a group of 6 with a Mexican woman and some French people, who were all very nice and so we had some interesting converastions in a mixture of English, French, Spanish and Mongolian. With that and trying to learn some Chinese on the train I think I am now just confussed.
Each day we packed up our stuff onto the yak cart then spent the day walking with the herder and normally one of his sons. The scenery was impressive and very varied, mountains, lakes, rivers and forests. Staying at the gers was very interesting, chance to see the normal daily life of the Nomads, which is all based around the animals, mainly yaks, goats and horses. they also provided most of our food, which although was very nice, they don't have the most varied diet. Basically it was anything you could make from yaks milk, tea (not actually tea but boiled yaks milk with salt), cheese, yoghurt, cream, butter, dried curd and in the evening mutton.
Had a couple of evenings when we given homemade Mongolian vodka and airag, which is fermented mares milk, and not to be recommended. We also had a couple of nights camping out which provided another interesting meal. They caught a marmot, took its head off, pulled out its insides and stuffed it with hot coals from the fire. The fur was then burnt off in the flames. Apparently this is a very traditional Mongolian dish. Sounds like all I've been doing is eating, but the actual trekking and just staying with the families was a great experiance, despite the language barrier we did manage to learn a lot about a completly different way of life. theres just too much to write about everything.

Back in Ulaan Baator now for a few days before the final part of the train journey to Beijing.