On Wednesday 3 July we met with the rest of the group we would be travelling with for the next 23 days.

We did feel young. It was also a bit of a change in mind-set doing group travel.

The first day was a tour of UB, and we had deliberately held off going to see things like the National Museum and the Gandan Monastery as we knew we would be seeing them on this tour. We would also be going to see a show of local singing, dancing, music and contortion.

We started to meet various members of our group (and as I am writing this on day 3 of the tour, I am better with names and first impressions):
- Bubba and Margie – American – Bubba is 78 and the oldest member of the group, while Margie seems to be about 10 years younger.
- Cathy and Sanford – American – he has a video camera and narrates to it.
- Sue and Carol – American (although Sue has lived in Australia for 30 years) – sisters.
- Robert and Tempe – UK (Surrey/Hampshire borders) – so very well-travelled and accents like cut glass (banter that belongs in the 19th Century).
- Sylvia who has a Phd in social work – American, has a very serious camera and a dry sense of humour.
- Sue – UK (West Sussex) – one of our car companions, we have already bonded over the tipping situation.
- Jorge who has a Phd in Biology – originally from Peru, but is now an academic in California – he studies the spread of diseases using bugs. Another car companion – great travel stories and has been trying to convince us to try sky diving.

The Gandan Monastery was not destroyed during the Soviet era, but continued as a “show” monastery for tourists. Lonely Planet mentions that after some particularly large “purges” of monks in the mid-1930’s, during the Second World War, the visiting American Vice-President at the time asked the Communist leader of Mongolia whether he could see one of Mongolia’s famous Buddhist monasteries. Apparently, the leader had to hastily pull together some monks (that had not been purged as yet) and got the monastery working again for the visit – he then had to keep it going for tourists! Therefore, it was saved from destruction (unlike many others). However we were told by our guide that during the Soviet era, the monks had to read communist propaganda during the day.

We have heard many stories from Hashi (our guide) about the oppression of the Mongolian people under the Chinese and the Russians, and have even found out that a lot of Mongolian swear words apparently relate to calling someone Chinese… so you get to be both racist and rude!

Anyway, the Monastery itself was reasonably large, and was very busy with worshippers.

Next stop was the National Museum, it was interesting, and had a great costume collection which showed the traditional dress from various areas in Mongolia, but I would have preferred to go around by ourselves rather than have the speed dictated to by the group, but hey – that’s group travel for you.

The local show was… long… and had uncomfortable seating, but the musicians were very good. The singers less good than the lady we saw at Gun-Galuut, and the dancing was not overly exciting (just my view).

As a farewell to UB, we went to a cocktail bar on the 17th floor of the high-rise next to us, and decided that we were only let in (given the way we looked) as it was not busy.

The cocktails were surprisingly reasonable for the location.

Next morning I rushed off to the bank and successfully withdrew USD for the tips we were told were both discretionary, yet compulsory (a theme which I think we will have to get used to).

We are in UAZ vans again, 4-5 to a van. There are 3 vans and we will swap drivers and vans during the course of the trip.

The weather was pretty nasty (again) as we heading out (again) to the Chinggis statue and also Terelj National Park. We had a coffee whilst the rest of the group went out on the head of Chinggis’ horse (it was raining sideways by that time).

Then, Luke scrambled up Turtle Rock (it kind of looks like a Turtle, but we didn’t get the opportunity to take a photo from a direction which shows this). He didn’t hurt himself which was good.

Next it was off to the Aryabal Temple and Meditation Centre, the walk up to the temple was beautiful as there were meadows of wildflowers (which the photos don’t do justice). On the way up, there were lots of boards with Buddhist teachings on them, and at one point you spun a wheel, got a number, and then you had to read the teaching that assigned to that number. Perhaps they got lost in translation, but neither Luke or I really appreciated ours.

The view from the 108 steps to the temple was stunning and revealed a really lush green valley with trees(!) we hadn’t really seen trees in a while. There were also cuckoo’s taunting us the whole way.

Our Ger Camp for the night was the most luxurious to date and had underfloor heating.

After dinner everyone went to their separate Gers – nobody seems particularly interested in staying up and chatting and sharing our vodka. Perhaps it will get better? But that is something I really enjoyed from the overland trip we did – sitting around a fire chatting after dinner, possibly with some of the local fire water (and tonic or lemonade).

Next morning we were off again, this time to Ikh Nart Nature Reserve – 300kms south from UB. We followed the Trans-Mongolian train line for a while, and then went off-road for a few hours. Interestingly we met another UAZ also heading in the same direction, however the driver seemed to stop and ask directions and then follow our drivers. We later found out that the other UAZ was carrying the food supplies for the camp we were going to – we made sure our drivers shepherded in that vehicle, we didn’t want the camp to run out of food!

One thing that really struck us as we travelled south, was that the lush grass steppe gave way to an increasingly arid landscape, until we reached Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, where we were seeing camels (a camel cart even delivered our bags).

We didn’t get in to camp until about 7pm and after dinner everyone promptly retired. Thankfully the following night we finally got to open one of our bottles of vodka and share it with Anne, Jorge, Cathy and Sanford. It was nice.

Our activities during our time at Ikh Nart Nature Reserve was spotting Ibex (which we saw running away or perched on high rocks), Gazelle (which we saw running away) and Argali Sheep (which we saw running away, however that is not surprising given as though our driver chased them!). We weren’t half as lucky with our animal spotting in the Nature Reserve as we were at Gun-Galuut and Khustai, but I guess we were very lucky there.

We once again had a ranger helping us, and once again it seemed to be our drivers who are the best at spotting the wildlife (and then chasing them).

The UAZ vans are very sturdy work-beasts. They cop a lot of beating during the off-road travelling (most of the time we are off-road – although sometimes this is better than the roads). At one stage we did get some air when we went over a hill, but no harm no foul, the trusty UAZ just kept going.

On the way to our next stop we paused at an open-air amphitheatre which houses a horse-hair fiddle music festival in August, and were serenaded by our drivers, who sung us a traditional song from the middle gobi region (where they are all from). It seems that everyone in this place has a good voice!

We then stopped at a nomad’s home for cooked goat and pickled vegetables (Luke was brave and tried the offal - I didn't). Once again we had vodka and I got blamed for encouraging it. The best thing about it was they had a kitten (which of course we played with). We got to bond with the children by showing them pictures of Monkey.

Next stop is the Nadaam Festival - one of the reasons for doing this trip.