Mongolia

After our late, late night out watching the World Cup, we had all thought that the early morning hour long bus ride would be a chance to have a nap. Oh, how wrong we were - one of the bumpiest rides of all time had us leaving Ulaanbataar for the countryside, and our destination for the next couple of nights. Passing several large tourist camps almost an hour in, we were hoping that we were not in one of the over commercial.

Vodka Train proved to us, with our small, tucked away camp with just 6 ger tents, that this tour group really was made for the independent traveler with some travel experience criteria. Over the hill, but out of sight was a bigger camp, in which we could access for meals and somewhere to hang out, but our little camp was pretty genuine in that there was no electricity, no running water, and each had a little potbelly stove in the centre, used to heat the tent at night.

Out here in the Mongolian countryside, there was nothing around but vast mountain ranges, and green lush land. This was quite the experience!


One of the highlights was a visit to one of the nearby nomadic family's ger tent, and having the woman of the house serve us foods she had prepared that day, including yogurt. We got to meet her two children during the visit. We had stopped off to buy gifts when we were still in town, and Harris' water spray, which seemed ridiculous to the rest of us, was such a hit with the young boy. Of course, jumping around and playing games with Harris would also be a delight for any 4 year old! He had meet his match!

The morning of the second day, our group went horse riding, out there on the Mongolian plane. Scary, as I don't remember when I had ridden a horse last, these horses kinda know the drill with taking groups, but would still take off at the slightest encouragement. On the race back to the starting point, when each horse just seems to take off independent of anything the rider may do, Jess took a tumble off, and whilst ok, scored some ripper bruising!

Here at the camp, our group got to hang out with the group going the other way, and here we each tried the famed mare's milk. Like fizzy yogurt...ew. This night proved to be quite a big night inside one of the gers, with beers and vodka shots all round. Such fun.

These couple of days out at the ger camp was one of the most amazing, and real experiences I have ever had.