A land of contrasts??? (hmmm)

Trip Start Jan 09, 2012
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Mongolia  ,
Wednesday, May 30, 2012

We arrived in Ulaan Bataar just after 6am in the morning and we were lucky as the company we had booked this part of the trip through had organised for us to be able to have a shower and breakfast when we arrived.  Strangely enough we were able to experience the thrills of a Japanese bath house without having to go to Japan (sweet!).  After breakfast we went on a little walk around Ulaan Bataar which was pretty short and sweet.  UB is a strange mix of Soviet architecture, traditional Mongilan Gers and Budhist monasteries it would seem.  Our guide, Nasa, was quite interesting as she really didn't talk about the soviet period, it was as if Ghengis Khann came along and here we are.  After a wander through the city we were driven out to the Ger camp that we were staying in for the  next few nights, that is via the giant stainless steel statue of Ghengis Khann that is in the middle of nowhere (a pretty amazing structure).
Our little Ger was awesome (see photo) and we were able to spend a few days in the Mongolian contryside
Ghengis looking important
Ghengis looking important
.  Our camp was in the middle of a valley, surronded by rocky mountains on one side and rolling hills on the others.  The valley contained our camp and also many nomadic families that took advantage of the protection that the hills offer.
We were lucky enough to be able to visit a nomadic family living on the other side of the valley.  We were welcomed to their home and then force fed an extremely large meal!  It started with the puffy cake type things that were told to eat with the jam provided and then some type of dried fruit (still not sure what that was), then the milk tea which was served in a soup bowl and just kept being refilled no matter what we did.  We thought that was it but then a giant dish of spiral noodles, potatoe and dried mutton was placed before us.. oh dear.. there goes that diet.  The biggest problem was you could just have a small plate and that was it they kept refilling and refilling our plates.  Eventually it got beyond politeness and we had to insist on 'NO MORE!'
Check out the photo of their cat... watch out Max and Mavis... you may end up on a leash!
We also were taken for a horse ride on the 'semi wild' horses in the valley however my horse was so tame that it wouldn't even move and had to be dragged along but the benefit of this was that I had a great chance to check out the amazing view.
Our stay in the Valley was wonderful but after the amount of food and the amount of protein and carbs that we ate  I am now seriously considering vegetarianism!
We headed back to UB and are preparing for the last leg of out trip to China!

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