Terelj National Park - Ger Camp

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After the ugliness of UB, all my prayers were answered, and the trip to the ger camp provided the perfect tonic. I shared a ger with 4 others (german, dutch and kiwis). We were in a small camp so only four gers in total, and it was so peaceful. I went horseriding and had must be my most awkward experience on a horse. Ever. The stirrups were way too short (ludicrously so), the horse was way too small, so my knees seized up and I flailed about completely out of control like a total beginner. Not a good look for someone who once represented Ivel Valley Pony Club in cross-country and showjumping teams...!!! Ahem... But the pain was worth it just to see more of the national park the our immediate surroundings - herds of cows and horses roamed freely, we bumped into loads of lairy sheep and goats, and stopped at a stream so the horses could drink up.

Dinner back at the camp was a delicious huge serving of some kind of hot pot of rice and unidentified meat. Only small bits of meat were involved so it was easy to digest, whatever its origin.

The gers got roasting hot at night due to the wood burning stoves inside. I sat stargazing outside my ger after dinner with one of the dogs to cool down.

Every so often a herd of horses galloped wandered pat, and one morning as I lay in bed looking out of the open door a camel ambled past in the distance.

I finished reading Shantaram too, six days after receiving it, which shows how much downtime I've had on the train and at the ger camp (it has 933 pages). It is perfect timing too as the owner, who gave it to me on day 2 from Moscow, is arriving in UB from Irkutsk today so I can give it back to him. I am definitely not lugging it around as it weighs a frigging tonne...

I'e definitely got fatter in the last week. On the train, you lose the need for limbs as each day goes past, settling into an alternative reality where you sit up to eat or look out of the window, then lie back down to sleep, read, drink vodka, play cards or talk nonsense with fellow travellers. Everyone I met on the train became like thi, and by day 4 you forget that you are actually on a journey with a beginning and an end. You become brainwashed into the idea that the train ride is never ending, and will just continue going round the world forever, stopping only for 10 or 23 minutes several times a day so you can buy unidentifiable dumplings and potato doughnuts from stern russian ladies with metal teeth, on the platform.

When Roddy, the first of our motley crew to break the spell and get off at Irkutsk late on day 4, we all exchanged a look of fearful unknowing and terror. Even he seemed to be in shock at the idea of actually getting off the train, our steel cage of self-imposed security, that had become our universe. Facing the outside world seemed more scary than meeting the devil himself.

But saying that, 24 hrs on and cabin fever had set in for me so Ulan Bator couldn't come soon enough. I left my companions continuing onto Beijing on the train, unable to hide my relief at standing on still ground, and watched the glossy-eyed stare of the soon-to-be-mad eyeball me with more than a hint of darkness. They still had 30 hours to go before getting off. Ouch.

I've got that to look forward to tomorrow morning when I catch the No24 to Beijing. But with my Mongolian break I am looking forward to it. And also the prospect of arriving in China on a train, being dropped off in central Beijing, is just incomprehensible at this point.