Much has happened since my last post - we have experienced the life of a nomad in Mongolia, and have now travelled on to Beijing. Have been loving being in a big city again, but I might save Beijing for my next post!
So, our Mongolian nomad adventure... I'd say it was more of an 'experience' than a 'tour'. We stayed with three nomadic families over five nights. The nomadic families live quite simply without toilets or running water, but at the same time have entered the modern world with satellite dishes, televisions and mobile phones.
The scenery was beautiful - wide expanses of dry grassland punctuated by rocky mountains. We ate variations on mutton and rice and noodles for every single meal. We rode on camels - a truly painful experience, but my camel Rudi was truly the punkest camel going round.
But more than anything, two experiences stand out to me:
1. The scariest moment of my life so far. We stayed with the first family for two nights - a very welcoming young couple with a 6 month baby. BUT, both nights we stayed, the dad came home very drunk in the early hours of the morning. On the second night he was brought home by two friends about 5am. They created a lot of noise - yelling and stomping about - and at one point I looked up to see him pushing his wife around. Not a good start to the day. The next morning he was meant to take us onto our next family by camel. When he was pulled out of bed by his wife at about 10am he announced we would travel by motorbike. So he hopped on the bike, Tom sat behind him, and I sat behind Tom. He still reaked of alcohol, and must still have been drunk. I was pretty worried about the whole situation but he handled the bike fairly well - we were probably only going at about 20 kms/hr while on the sandy pasture. But then he turned onto the highway! And that, was the scariest moment of my life so far. Being on the back of a motorbike without a helmet, carrying a big bag our knees, being driven by a drunk man at 80 kms/hr. We came to no harm though, so I guess it was all ok really.
2. The second memorable moment involves a horse. We were taken by horse from our second family to our third family (thank goodness it wasn't a motorbike). About half way there, my horse freaked out about something and bolted, breaking free from the grip of the guide. It went flat out across the field, and after a few seconds, I was thrown off. Fortunately Mongolian horses are pretty small and I landed on sandy ground. The remainder of the trip seemed to take about five hours, but I think it was only about one - I was a bit nervous about the horse trying the same thing again (and it did, but I hung on!). That afternoon, our new family took us by horseback to see a local monument and lake. About 1km into the trip I had a major nervous breakdown. Our guide was leading my horse, but then he started herding is sheep with me attached, zig-zagging across the fields. I basically burst into tears, hopped down from the horse and walked back to the camp. I have not been on a single horse since.
It was a great adventure and I am glad we went, but golly I was glad to arrive in Beijing. Tonight we go to Suzhou and then to Shanghai. I will hopefully have worked out a clever trick to getting round the blogspot ban by then and will be able to post on our China activities!
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