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Have left Mongolia and arrived in Beijing

Just short of 4 weeks travel around Mongolia was tough at times but worth
it. A vast, empty country with stunning scenery and a nomadic culture
unlike anything we have experienced. The way everyone pulled together was
remarkable, but understandable in a country with such an extreme climate
(-40C in winter). Indeed, camping got a tad fresh when the night time temp
fell to -10C, and the lack of basic sanitation meant that one's morning
ablutions took on a masochistic turn.

It was one of the most amazing countries we have ever visited, with only a few drawbacks: zero sanitation, appalling roads and an "interesting" cuisine. The food at times was pretty rank - largely consisting of unbelievably huge piles of fried mutton dumplings and some dried soup. However, we were lucky to have Byembaa cooking for us and she rustled up some delicious dishes from next to nothing over a campfire and kept our stomachs sane

Hoping to post a photo of our driver "Vikesh" (aka Tashka) and our Russian
Wazz jeep "Barry" soon along with a few others

Hmm, this isn't so easy doing this blog lark

Such a good plan, to write a blog. Tested fully in England and all worked fine. To write this blog I am contending with a screen which is all in Korean (don't ask me why) and a keyboard which is in Cyrillic. So this won't be a long entry... We successfully navigated our way out of the notorious Russian border into Mongolia, having spent 7 days on the train from Moscow, with a break to take a look at Irkutsk, Lake Baikal and some of Siberia. Smiling Russians were a surprising novelty, compared with my previous visit, and Russia actually had the feel of a country going places which I certainly didn't expect. That said, Irkutsk had a disproportionate number of limousines with blacked-out windows for a provincial Siberian town (albeit one that is the regional capital sitting on possibly the world's largest undeveloped oil reserves).

We are off into the Mongolian countryside tomorrow and I'll have my first stab at uploading some pictures when we return from that.

So until then, au revoir.