Sunny Beijing!-first time without a winter coat!

Hot pot meal-cook your own food in the hot water. Me and King Prawn.
Leather and Young's eat your heart out! Contracting abroad. Guess which one's Dave?
Forbidden city-Palace of Heavenly Purity.
For Chris-thinking of you, look at the shape of this bell!
Forbidden city arty shot!

Horse riding with the crazy Mongolian plus Czech friend.
Ulaan Bataar-temple hiding 26 metre Buddha.
Mongolian landscape, outskirts of Ulaan Bataar.
1st class deluxe-Leather's thinking chair.
Outside Forbidden city with encircling moat.

Square in Ulaan Bataar-Chengis Khan statue.
Our Ger for the night after heavy snow fall.
Camels in the snow-Mongolia. 10 hours from anywhere!
What a lovely loo! Complete with missing door.
Private concert by the throat singing Mongolian legend.

Lake Baikal-Russian family who shared our accomodation, who were quite open about asking how much money you earn and how much things cost in England.
Dog sleighing for Rachel's birthday with the Russian champion leading the other dogs.
Retro park-Junk yard challenge.Mad siberian artist making models out of scrap-thought of Dave.
Frozen river in Siberia next to our log cabin.
Craig walking on Lake Baikal-at least one metre deep in ice.

Lake Baikal-ice broken off lake.
Trans Siberian diesels for Ken.
On the platform.
Log cabin in Siberia complete with bear skin.
Frozen pier at Lake Baikal.

Typical view for about 1000 miles-Siberia.

Free hot water from the Samovar (hot water tank)-tea source on the train.

Arrive by train (didn't mess ablut this time-deluxe 1st class with armchair and shower room!)yesterday morning through the mountain passes and tunnels of rivers, dams and lakes. Also travelled through the Gobi desert in Mongolia which stretched for miles. Stepped off the train in Beijing in our winter wollies to find it scorching- well....about 18 degrees, which for us was scorching after being in the minus'for 5 weeks!
Beijing we have found to be very very nice. With a high profile army and police patrols of up to about a 40 marching regiment through the subway that you have to jump out of the way of! Only a little smoggy and everything in English ready for the Olympics so it isn't easy to get lost.
Everyone does their exercises here- keep bumping into little recreational grounds for adults were they are using outdoor gym equipment, table tennis (just up Pashley's street!) and playing games (chess etc). Even bumped into a ballroom dance in the street last night, Craig was in his element! Couldn't resist a spin or two.
Visited the forbideen city today which was massive and involved a lot of walking. Was very good and also went to Tianamenn square where the on guard soldiers order and shout people into orderly queues with handheld tanoys. Don't mess with these guys! Unless you went directions and they are very helpful. Also noticed we are beginning to get stared at a bit-people keep saying "'hello, how are you?'' to us in the middle of the street or keep pointing at us. Even when Craig was a bit smelly and bedraggled after 2 days on the train.
Just been for a meal where you had to cook your own meal by placing noodles, chicken and spinach in a boiling pot at your table! Been practising with the chop sticks and amazingly we are doing very well!

Mongolian Ger camp

Just arrived back from our 3 day trip to a Mongolian Ger camp. Very pleased to have a shower and be able to sit on the toilet! What we thought was going to be a 7 hour journey crammed in a car actually turned out to take 10 hours! This was because there was very deep snow drifts and we also did not realise that there is infact no road leaving Ulaan Bataar to the West of Mongolia so we off roaded in a mitsubishi yellow taxi most of the way! With, as the taxi driver referred to as '3 good tyres.' We had to balance our weight by having the 2 czech guys sit on the right side of the car. We arrived in the dark and investigated the toliets! - a hole in the ground, with a very deep drop and wooden panels around it! (pictures to follow). We ate vegetable dumpings prepared by the local family who lived in a house next door and watched TV! Spent the night with a roaring fire that went out after a few hours, leaving us to wake up at 4am freezing cold (about minus 13 outside!). There were no washing facilities or showers on the trip so we were unable to have a wash for 3 days. I suppose not bad for 4000 togrots (about 2 pounds).
The next day we visited a monastery in Karkouhoum (the ancient capital of Mongolia), Chingis Khans era (1200 ish). Also had a private concert in our Ger tent by a throat warbling musician complete with traditional musical instruments and outfit, who was very good.
The next day we had the pleasure of digging the car out of the snow and pushing it back to the main road. Our next night after 3 hours driving was next to the sand dunes where we travelled off road, getting chased by dogs and seeing dead horses (whole skeletons), being eaten by dogs. The ger was in the middle of nowhere and the family this time lived in the ger next door, providing us with some rather unusual food - dried noodles with meat (our taxi driver said it was horse meat!) and the sauce tasted of sherry. Breakfast was battered dough balls - yum yum! We went horse riding here (about 1 pound an hour) lead by a man from the family who did not speak a word of English but laughed a lot and made us all sing. Craig was a natural with the throat warbling singing. He also kept falling down sand dunes and trying to get us to copy him. He then got out his telescope and bent down on one knee on top of the sand dunes and hunted for his horses across the horizon. The toilet at this ger was a good 5 mins walk away with very scenic views.
We returned back to UB (Ulaan Bataar) with a 7 hour journey stopping for dinner at a local cafe where we paid 50p for a plate of eggs, sausage and veg. We also tried Mongolian tea-made from green tea, milk, water and salt and we tried fermented mares milk (rather like pongy liquid stilton cheese).
Jacka our driver for the trip was hilarious. He had no radio and every tape he put in the cassette player got chewed up, with Craig spending hours winding them up. He kept calling us 'crazy tourists' and could not understand what we were doing travelling in such bad weather as the tourist season does not start for another 4 weeks. It would have helped if he had told us about the bad weather before we set off!
Well, back in UB, showered, toileted and clean. Been to the local monastery with 26 metre high Buddha statue inside and history museum today. One more day left here before we board the train for Beijing on Thursday (express, 1st class! At last!).
Very impressed with Mongolia and traditional ways of life here-half the population still wear traditional clothes and live in Gers in the countryside. UB- a lot of poverty.