Mongolia

We arrived into Mongolia early in the morning and had an interesting time finding the guesthouse. We wandered until someone saw us looking lost and pointed us in the direction to an unmarked door. We stayed there one night but decided to check out a different place for the second night. We found a gem called Golden Gobi and stayed there for the rest of the time. We spent the first few days sightseeing around Ulaan Baatar.

We done a tour with the hostel which was brilliant. We had a driver and a guide who were sound and there were two other guests on the tour - a lovely Austrian girl and an American lady. The first day we went to visit Terelj national park and stayed with a Mogolian family in their Ger. Ger means home and is a yurt that nomadic people live in. The American lady was a little senile and didn't seem to know what was going on. She thought the tour was to go ride a Yak. Seriously! When she realised that it wasn't she decided she wanted to go home. The hostel owners mother and the grandchild had come along specifically to look after her and ended up having to trek all the way back with her. I have no idea how she got out of her house, let alone end up in Mongolia!

The second day we went to a massive statue of Genghis Kahn on his horse. We got to go up and stand on the horses head and saw some great views. We then stayed with a Kazhak family who were lovely. They invited some friends around to play traditional music for us. They had a lot of livestock which roamed around the Ger. They made us delicious Mongolian food and we sat around chatting with our guide translating. That night we also saw a red moon.

 

The next day we went horse riding to another temple. Really really cool going on horse back through the Mongolian Steppes with eagles flying over, horses and cows alone side you. Great experience but by jaysus is our back and arse killing us today!

Yesterday we went see traditional Mongolian dance tonight with a few people. It was amazing!

We are off to China on Thursday. We wont have access to the blog there so there will not be any updates for a month. We will keep writing away though and post up everything in Vietnam. Bye for now!

Link to Pictures

Pictures from Siberia

 

 

There were some beautiful views of the lake. The first picture is from a hill top point. We got a ski lift up to it. When we got there we saw a man sweeping the mountain. We still can figure it out! Below are some of the people we met in the hostel. We had a few drinks and a chat. It was good craic.

Siberia

Well we are in Irkutsk in our hostel. We got to the hostel about eight in the morning local time. When we fell asleep on the third and final night of our 3 days and 3 nights train journey it looked pretty good out. When we woke, there was snow. Moscow was great, the Red Square and The Kremlin are fantastic. It was very surreal standing there looking at it when you see it on TV and  in films. The ice sculpture park we wanted to visit was closed though. It's a beautiful city and very impressive to look at for the most part. Very expensive though. There is lots of money in Moscow! The train journey was good, Russia is soooo big. Although the landscape doesn't really change considering we traveled over 5000 miles. The people were in our cabin were great. They gave us gifts. The fella Sergei gave me a badge from his soldier's hat the very first morning and we had only said hello basically. He walked us off the train this morning and carried my bag while I had Niamh's. He bought us ice cream yesterday too. Really nice guy, even if he had very little English. Very hard explaining card game rules! Top bloke, except that he could snore for Russia, something else! Tanya was the name of the lady with us. A stern looking Russian woman but with a nice smile, added to with her gold tooth. Bling Bling. Once again, very little English, but we had a few beers all the same. The men next door to us bought us a potato cake and a fish. Really nice of them. The fish was fully intact, so I had to gut it but it was smoked, so you could eat the meat as is. Tasted like smoked salmon. Yum! It wasn't great to look at but we better get used to strange food. We still have to go to China yet. That fish could look like a fine steak by then. Cat anyone? Russians are really nice generous people. But they are so stern. They do not smile and can seem cold and scary initially but once you chat to them they are lovely. It is a very different culture. Even the fellas next door that bought us the gifts wouldn't say hello when we would pass them in the aisles. But shook our hands and said big goodbyes when we were leaving. They seem to greet and acknowledge people in a different way to us.

Lake Baikal
We have just gotten back from Listvyanka on the side of lake Baikal. It is so beautiful here. We walked up a look out point which had amazing views over the lake. We walked half the way up and then got a ski lift the rest of the way. There was a man at the top sweeping the mountain, which was little baffling. We still can't figure out the point of it! Then on the way back to the hostel a car drove really fast through a puddle and drowned Emmet. It was very funny for me. I had spotted the car coming and ran out of the way. I tried to warn him but instead of words I just made a dinosaur noise. Strangely Emmet didn't understand and didn't move.  We spent a lot of time just chilling. It is so calm and serene here, a far cry from Moscow! We got a banya which is a Russian sauna which was really nice. We have spent the rest of the time walking and sitting around the kitchen table chatting to the other guests. But time to move on...we have one more night in Irkutsk where we plan to visit a house that one of the Decemberists (a group of wealthy people from St. Petersburg who were exiled to Siberia for trying to stage a coup) lived in. Then off to Mongolia.

Link to Pictures