With the parting shot of vodka we shared with babushka our closing taste of Russia, we arrived at Ulan Bataar, the capital of Mongolia, bright and early ready for a rapid 24 hour dip into the vast spaces of this country which has always had a mysterious appeal to both of us.
Walking through the dusty, empty streets of UB at 7am seemed rather surreal as if the town was uninhabited as we navigated our way to the small and comfy (although pretty well hidden) Edelweiss Hostel. Our faces obviously looking gaunt following a week of pot noodles, the staff breakfasted us with camel's liver pate and got us out on the road to the Gorkhi Terelj National Park on the outskirts of the city.
Although close to the urban centre of Mongolia, and many days less travel than many of the country's most tempting parks, Terelj gave us a taste of the vast natural beauty of this sparsely populated wilderness of a nation. We got to ride Mongolian horses, visit a gear (traditional tents still used even in the cities) and one of the temples rebuilt following Stalin's rather brutal decimation (in the Roman sense) of the monk population and destruction of most of Mongolia's original 700+ Buddhist temples.
A good dinner and five hours sleep later time was up on Mongolia and we were back on a train (Chinese this time so no babushka) to Beijing.... more of this next time!
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