Mongolia!!!!!!!!

So I didn't get much internet access in Mongolia (where I was from 2nd July- 31st July) but I did make some journal notes while I was away, which I now have time to write up a bit.. :)

Mongolia was, overall, amazing- we spent 26 days traversing the country in a Russian supervan, with a Mongolian driver who spoke no English, but did an excellent job taking us around. We, thankfully, weren't driving every day, and some days didn't have much driving to do, but we ended up covering over 2000km, on mostly dirt tracks (I'd say less than 80km was on bitumen!), from Ulaanbator, south through the Gobi, then north west up to the top of Mongolia, then south again to Olgii and over to the Altai region.

Highlights: Part One, the Southern section!

• 5/7/2008 Day One (after leaving Ulaan Bator): basically everything was exciting this day! The Sheep looked funny and had fat tails :), we saw lots of beautiful demoiselle crane (something I wasn't expexcting to see in Mongolia...but I don't know why as we saw cranes all over!), Gers were still somewhat of a novelty to see on the steppes but we quickly got used to them!, In the evening after we set up camp we experienced a brief but heavy rain storn, and a brief but heavy dust storm, both of which my virgin tent survived, though the wind did rather flatten it!

• Camels! (first spotted on the 6th) and then many times over, in many places on the trip.

• Visiting our driver, Amara,'s home and staying with his family. They made us feel very welcome, and we had our first of many drinking experiences- bowls (not shots!) of vodka were passed around! Later drinking experiences we weren'[t so lucky to get vodka, the alcohol of choice is Airag, which we saw them distilling in one of the Gers we stopped at. Airag is made from fermented horse milk, some of it was alright, and even a bit fruity, some of it was downright awful! Anwway I was very happy that night at Amara's house!

• Gobi desert, we went to the Upper part of the desert which still had a lot of life in it! Heaps of birds, and livestock, we stayed one night in a friend of Amara's Ger which was our first Ger experience and very fun. The colours of the desert were amazing- in one part there was an eroded ancient sea that made cool white cliffs and coloured sands in the desert!

• Gazelles (7/7)!!!!!!! Running fast! In the Gobi desert.

• Being served yoghurt in the Gers. When we arrived at a Ger we'd be given milky tea, cheese (very sharp and crumbly, and a bit sour, generally goats cheese but it all depended on what animals that family kept), this fried dough stuff that you dip in the tea, and either yoghurt or the butter/cream off the top of the milk. I liked the yogurt the best of the dairy products, the cheese was a bit of an aquired taste! ... we got to try Koormog- camel yoghurt one time and it was deliciou, the nicest yoghurt of them all!

• Nadaam festival, which we saw in a tiny town we passed through- we didn't see the whole thing, but watched the wrestling competition. ha ha, very cool! First the young boys wrestled, and then came the big shot.... dressed up in fancy red and blue knickers and waist coats (taht expose their chests to verify they are not women!)... they danced their way into the field waving their arms like birds. They don't have weight categories, so the wrestles were rather like david and goliath, as the challengers had to wrestle last years' champions.... The champions were huge and won all the matches we watched, some of the challengers looked positively scrawny in comparison but were actually quite beefy men.... Sumo wrestling is very popular in Mongolia and I now can see why they are good at it!