Central Mongolia

Losing track of where I am. The days merge into one another and the endless empty countryside and heat are having an interesting effect on my brain!!! We are now in Central Mongolia about to head off for the local nadaam festival - men wrestling in big pants, archery, horse racing and other manly pursuits..... Spent a night with a Mongolian family by a river in a beautiful valley in the middle of nowhere. Exchanged gifts - we gave them marbles, sweets, cosmetics and whiskey - they gave us Mongolian homemade vodka distilled from milk ???, the ubiquitous airag, yak cream and biscuits topped off with snuff - mmmmm and yes, my stomach is ok so far.

Nadaam
Nadaam was fab, hardly any other tourists there as it was held in the small village where our guide lives, so we did lots of mingling with the locals and lots more airag. Sadly the weather was not kind but it didn't seem to make much difference. Lots of horse racing (with us in the pursuit car chasing small children riding bareback over 20kms...scary) Last night we sat shivering in a wet ger with the door open, stove burning, watching the rain driving across the hills and valley in front of our camp. Drank far too much vodka - there really isn't anything else!

This morning D accidentally took his tablets with neat vodka which somehow found its way into a water bottle - he was very chirpy all day but it probably isn't to be recommended by the BMA...

Muron
Now writing these from a small dusty town somewhere in the Khovsgul Province (probably spelt wrong sorry). Have spent the last 7 hours in the truck on rocky roads (and I use that term very lightly as they are really just goat tracks ) and driving along riverbeds to reach this place. The scenery every day is just endless, we never see people other than the odd nomadic family and often stop for a chat. Was amused to see the driver, after being flagged down by a man on a horse, get into the back of the truck to find an odd bolt that the man needed for something or other. They are nothing if not accommodating to each other - nice.

Not much else to say as time is running out as ever. The food has been interesting, this morning for breakfast we had swiss roll, bread, jam, nutella and dumplings of some sort. I am surviving quite well actually, lots of noodles and rice

Next stop is the Khovsgul Lakes for 3 days for some R & R, been quite a hard trip with long days - now almost on the Mongolian/Siberian border. Next blog will be from UB probably. We are both well, love to you all and thanks for your messages.

Annie x