Met up with the rest of the group ok - three kiwi's (can you believe it?!), one Aussia (a Crocodile Dundee type character) and one guy from Belguim. We all get on pretty well. I'm sharing with Jolene, a 25 year old girl from Auckland, on her way to London to do her two-year stint - we are having a great laugh. Christina is our Intrepid leader - she is very very cool. A mixture of French, Dominican Rupublic and Russian, so she translates everything for us. In addition, we have a driver, Mia and a local tour guide, Tuya, who is a wealth of information on everything Mongolian. We are ask her tons of questions all the time. So far, the pace is very relaxing, only doing two or three activities each day, so it's a big shock to my system needing to slow down this much after that crazy Tokyo life-style, but I'm sure I will get used to it.
Last night the group stayed in Mongolian Gers - a type of tent that is found all over Mongolia. The majority of the population still live in Gers, which are very basic, round tents that are moved every six months and re-erected for Summer and Winter. It was pretty cool, except I didn't sleep because it was actually freezing and the fire kept going out. Oridinarly I'm not the fire-lighting type of girl, and at 4.00am, even less so. However the scenery and the mountains were stunning. During the day, we all took off for a horse-ride. Horses are one of the main forms of transport in Mongolia. The horses are smaller and stockier than our regular horses but still it was my first time so I was a bit apprehencious. Then I started getting into it when we climbed a wee hill. Coming back down I had transformed into the Man From Snowy River. Except in slow motion and without hanging on to my hat. Then I got the giggles - it was just too funny.
Today, we visited some real gers, (as opposed to the touristy ones like last night). The people have next to nothing and yet are so friendly. The way they live seems so primitive to us, with no indications of our versions of toilets, kitchens, , but they are seem very happy, and are all very highly educated - this is the way they choose to live. We were given mare's milk and warm fresh vodka, with bread and home-made butter. Not too bad. The cheese tasted like erasers though.
Tulu was explaining there is a 93% literary rate in Mongolia and 86% of students go on to University. However the infrastructure is very poor - very bad roads, there is a lot of building and maintenance going on, but it is run-down. Even our brand new hotel's toilet's do not flush and the bathroom floods.
Been getting some great pictures on my new camera and hopefully they will turn out ok - I'll get them on CD Rom when I get to London and then get you all the links in this blog later on down the track.
Tonight we are back at the hotel in Ulaan Bator and back to hot showers - BLISS! We are going to see a traditional dance and 'throat singing' performance tonight before dinner. Not sure what that is all about. Tomorrow we have one last day here sightseeing before our two night train journey accross the Russian border to Urkustz.
