Beijing, Beijing, Beijing....

The train was the perfect way to arrive in Beijing and take in its massive scale. Richard was astounded at the amount of change from his last trip to the city 4 years ago. The Olympics played a big part in changing the city and everything seemed brand new and sparkling clean.

Within a few hours we decided that we loved the place. It is one of the coolest cities we have ever visited. Tenae thinks she could live here for years getting fat on the amazing Chinese food. To make our stay even more amazing our hostel was one of the best we have ever stayed in. It was located in the heart of a tradition hutong. Here is a pic of Tenae in the hostel courtyard coming up with a plan of action.

On our first full day we took advantage of the free bikes at our hostel and explored the local area. Here is a pic of Rich cruising on his made to measure bike outside the Forbidden City.


Many of the old ramshackle hutongs have been rebuilt. Here is a pic of Rich cruising the streets of a brand new area...... not even tarmacked yet. We enjoyed getting lost and exploring areas like this during our time in Beijing.


Food, food, food......... we love the Chinese food. Here are a few of us enjoying one of the night markets.

Mmm, time for some desert.


Not that we loved all the food. These little fellas were still moving. Scorpions and seahorses - nice!


We spent hours wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere.


It seems that China is suffering some kind of Mao mania. You can find his image on all kinds of tourist tack. Rich brought a Mao watch at the market, he bartered the lady down from 350Y (35 quid) to 30Y. What a bargain - the watch lasted a whole day before his mechanical waving hand fell off.

On our third day in the city we visited the Summer Palace and the Olympic stadium on the outskirts of the city. This was the worst day for our camera battery to run out. We both had goose pimples on entering the Olympic Stadium and we remembered back to last summer when we both sat glued to the TV watching Ussain Bolt destroy his competition in the 100 metres sprint.

Yesterday we visited the Great Wall of China with our Mongolia travel buddies; Eric and Ingrid. We went with a local tour company who took us to a less touristy section of the wall. We arrived at the wall after a 2 hour drive. We only saw two other groups of Chinese ramblers who greeted us cheerfully on the walk in. Here is a pic of the four of us - blown away by this beauty and scale of the wall.


It really takes your breath away. It was also a great hangover cure as the night before the four of us were out till 1:30am at the Karaoke bars of Beijing.


Yep - we all got a bit snap happy with the camera's.


This section of the wall has not been rebuilt or touched up in 600 years. This meant there was lots of scrambling up and down tricky sections of wall. Right up Tenae's street!



After the wall Rich got his wish and we went out for Peking duck ...... in Peking! This restaurant was so pretty.


Unfortunately our time in China is short so we have decided to leave Beijing and head south. There is so much to see in this vast nation. We are heading to Guilin in the South in order to sample a little bit of rural China. Our train leaves at 7pm tonight and it should take about 1 day and a half to get there. We are both sold on rail travel now. It's the best way to travel. Fingers crossed for a nice resturant cart!

Bowled over by Beijing

After a 30 hour train journey we have finally arrived in China, and the best bit is its 27 degrees, nice! We're looking forward to a cold beer and catching up our friends from Mongolia tonight. There talk of Peking Duck and Chinese Karoke discotech action.....

Farewell Mongolia

We have spent the last few nights in our own little Ulaanbaatar apartment - bliss! Leaving for China tomorrow morning. Sad to leave Mongolia as we had a fab time but excited about a new country, new city and new adventures. We arrive in Beijing Monday afternoon ( just a short 33 hour train journey this time). More updates soon.....

Would you like mutton with that?

This blog entry is dedicated to all the quirky things that we have laughed alot at while being in Mongolia;

1. For some reason most of the food products expired in 2008; tinned goods, kit kats, Minute Maid, peanuts, biscuits, coke the lot!

2. There are no tarmac roads outside of Ulaanbaatar however the dirt tracks are far smoother to travel on than the tarmac ones.

3. There are only 0.5 people per square kilometer in the South Gobi region and we probably photographed all of them during our 7 day tour.

4. Ulaanbaatar is in permanent rush hour, you would be suicidal to ride a bike here. In order to cross the road all you need to do is close your eyes wave your hands in the air and run.

5. In Ulaanbataar (like Russia) you see more Hummer cars than anywhere else in the world. Yesterday Rich even spotted a Lada Monster Truck conversion.

6. Every bar has a VIP room and every corner a Karaoke lounge.

7. Prior to this trip Richard thought he had a pretty open attitude towards food. But after eating boiled, fried and dried mutton for the last 9 days washed down with mares milk a line has been crossed and has made him nostalgic for simple western food. Later on tonight we plan to make stovies.

7 Day South Gobi Trip

We were really interested in doing a long trip while in Mongolia to get a better insight into the nomadic way of life. On returning from our 2 day trip in the nearby National Park we found enough people interested to join us on a 7 day tour through the Southern Gobi region. We were so lucky as we couldn't have chosen a better 4 travel companions for the trip.

Day one and after a long bumpy ride we reached some amazing mountains and interesting rock formations. En route we spotted countless buzzards and griffons. The Griffon is way bigger than a golden eagle and we were all pretty chuffed to see one close up. The pic below shows Tenae holding a Griffon feather. At night we got our first real taste of Mongolian hospitality. Our hosts were incredibly generous and friendly. I was happy to share a wee dram with them after dinner.

Day two was a really long drive across the Steppe. Miles and miles of not much. It was amazing to see how much wildlife was able to survive in such arid conditions. We saw massive herds of camels, sheep, horses, and goats in what seemed to us like the middle of nowhere. Our long drive was made all the more interesting by our drivers choice of pop classics such as: mc hammer, 2 unlimited and madonna. We spent the night in the outskirts of the metropolis of the south, Dalazadgad, which as a population of 13,000.

Day three we stopped off at Yol Valley which takes its name from the large numbers of Griffons which inhabit the mountainous area. We spent 2 hours slipping our way down the ice valley and scrambling our way up it. At night we stayed in a tourist ger resort to the north of the massive Gobi sand dunes. Unfortunately we arrived in the middle of a sand storm and in complete darkness. The local folks didn't know what we were fussing about even when one of the doors blew off our ger and there was a massive hole in the roof. Both of these problems were fixed quickly with Scotch tape (magical insulating properties) and a what looked kind of like Christmas tinsel (bommer and most definitely gale proof). If you look closely below you can see the door hanging off:


On day four we kicked off the day with a game of rounders followed by a mammoth climb to the top of one of the highest nearby sand dunes. It was so hard work but well worth it. The views from the top were incredible and running down was one of the coolest things we'd ever done. After another 5 hours drive we reached the Flaming Cliff which are famous for some of the worlds most significant dinosaur findings.

On arriving at our new home for the evening we found the guest ger was already taken by another group of tourists. We were offered the family ger and our hosts headed off to sleep at their neighbours place about 2km away. We thought this family were by far the most generous and gracious hosts we had yet encountered and were so glad we were spending 2 nights with them. After sharing dinner with the family it was again time to crack open a hip flask of Scotland's finest. With a palate more attuned to Vodka our hosts put a brave face and polished off the lot. In return Tenae and I sampled some of the local snuff which almost blew our heads off.

We woke the next morning (day five) excited at the prospect of helping the family move home to their summer grazing site. After a short and painful (especially for Rich and Eric) camel ride we arrived at their new site. As you can see below Tenae was a natural:


When we arrived the ger building had already begun and we were champing at the bit to help out. Here is a good pic of Tenae getting stuck in.

Our hosts shown below. The old lady was definitely the boss throughout.

As you can see from below a 6ft + European is vital for any Ger building operation. Eric and Rich were quickly enlisted to help out with any high rope work.


Rich loving every moment!

We were told the night before that it would take an hour to erect the ger but it turned out to be a very social affair and it took the entire afternoon. We couldn't figure out whether we were a help or a hindrance. Regardless everyone involved seem to have fun and we really appreciated being given the chance to witness the whole process. We all felt that over the last two days we started to experience real Mongolia.

On day six we were sad to leave our hosts. We helped them out again in the morning by separating the lambs from the sheep before saying our goodbyes. Days six and seven were fairly non eventful. By this stage we had all started dreaming of hamburgers, pizza, and salad and most importantly ....... a shower!

It was a real privilege to be able to travel in Mongolia. We couldn't believe how the animals and the people could survive in such extreme conditions. The temperatures range from - 40C in winter to +35C in Summer. Mongolians are some of the toughest yet most hospitable people we have ever met.

One of the greatest things about travelling is the cool people you meet along the way. Mongolians are great but the people that made the trip so fantastic were the folks we travelled with and our driver Bira. Our last pic is of team Gobi and our host on night six. The seven day trip was one I don't think either of us will ever forget.

Our first two days in Mongolia

We're finally back online after being constantly away on trips since arriving in Mongolia. We spent our first two days in Terelj National Park, 60km North East of Ulaanbaatar. We were really impressed with the scenery despite it being so close to the city. We arrived in the National Park at lunch time and had the first of many interesting mutton dining experiences, more on this later...

After lunch we went horse riding and found that Richard legs are far too long for riding the tiny Mongolia horses and we both were pretty glad when the horse riding was over with! Our ger for the evening was located in a beautiful valley surrounded by forest and snow, allowing us to go on many long walks. The internet connection is pretty slow we can only upload a few small photos;

Terelj National Park; Tenae rock climbing; Richard outside our ger; We arrived back to Ulaanbaatar the next afternoon and after a quick shower we went in search of the nearest place for some food. We ended up in the 'Happy Pub'. As the menu was all in Mongolia we pointed at a few things, figuring safety in numbers and if we ordered enough food there should be something that we would like. The waitress then brought out 1 coke, 1 fanta, 1 orange juice, 1 apple juice and 1 mango juice.... after abit of international sign language we manged to order two big plates of food for our lunch.

We love Mongolia

We cut short our time in Russia in favour of spending more time in Mongolia. We arrived on Monday 21st March and are into day three of our stay. So far we have spent 2 days in the nearby National Park, stunning! We leave on a 7 day trip to the South West region tomorrow morning.

Safe, well, happy and really loving Mongolia, the people are lovely and friendly! When we have more time will do a full update with pictures.