Mongolia

We reached Mongolia on the 1st after a pretty manic train journey, with Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian sellers trying to smuggle their goods into every available space on the train. This included our cabin, so we were slightly worried when the customs officers came round, in case not everything had been taken out and moved along.
Ulan Bator was a very interesting place, definitely a cultural bridge between Russian and China, with real influences of both.



We organised a 3 day tour to go and stay with a nomadic family in a nearby national park, called Terelj National Park, meaning we had to be up and out at 9am. Myself and John, a new friend we had made in Ulan Ude, were in surprisingly good spirits after waking up at 3.45am to watch Spurs demolish Inter Milan. (A lovely result considering Tottenham's critics especially after the group stages draw had been made...)
Anyway back to the National Park! The scenery was amazing, rocks about 30/40m tall surrounding our camp. We spent the first day just wandering about, taking in the views and chatting to the family we were with.



The second day we went horse riding on some of the horses the family own. These were quite a bit smaller than horses in the uk, so we all looked pretty funny, withus all being reasonable tall lads! This was my horse, which I named Crouchy as he was rather unstable on his feet, and actually feel over onto his knees at one point, which I expertly managed to ride out.



So our group headed out for around 2 hours of horse riding. This was interesting as all of our horses seemed to really pick up speed at random points, which was slightly daunting the first time as none of us knew it was going to happen! Me, Mike and John set the pace the whole day!



At one point our guide, one of the sons in the family, decided to gallop off and leave us to our own devices, so he could come to the aid of a goat herder having a spot of trouble with some rebels in his herd. Made for a good picture with sunset in the background.