Our final dinner as a group was going to be hosted by the owners of the company. It was a shame as it meant that everyone had to be on their best behaviour, including Hashi and the drivers. It changed the mood.

Luke and I put on clean clothes and did hair - people seemed to be impressed, which made me wonder how we looked throughout the trip.

On the way to dinner, Taivna gave us a pep talk about all the Mongolian words we couldn't say during dinner. Bless him, he was absolutely terrified about how he would appear in front of his boss.

Like the lovely people we were, we therefore went through all the bad words we knew on the way there, and checked each one with him... it was amusing.

Dinner was at a decent Indian restaurant, and that was the best thing that could be said about it. Not sure how much the bosses wanted to be there, and it was all a bit forced. We sat down the end of the table with Jorge, Anne, Jagga and Taivna, and the bosses pretty much ignored us, although poor old Taivna kept checking to see what the bosses were doing. There is definitely a very strong hierarchy here, possibly stronger than we really acknowledged.

Anyway, quite a few photos were taken (including one of the OG car group), and lots of hugs given as quite a few people were leaving first thing in the morning.

Once the ordeal of the final meal was over, the way back to the hotel we once again ran through all our Mongolian insults and swear words with Taivna, just for old times sake. On the way back he even corrected a few we had mispronounced.

All in all, we have seen more of Mongolia that we would ever have seen flying between places, and whilst the drive days and the constant moving was quite tough, and we are tired, looking back, we saw some absolutely stunning scenery and really got a feel for the different environments here, from Steppe to Gobi to Taiga forest. We also got to stay in locations which were so off the beaten track we wondered how people knew where they were. Especially as the roads are pretty much non-existent, and we seemed to travel most of the time following tire tracks in dirt/grass etc.

The group was good, we didn't fall out. As someone said, when faced with some adversity (not that we had much at all), the group laughed rather than sulked/complained. That is not to say that there wasn't complaining, but it was more gentle or mild complaining. As the overlanding book we read said, it usually takes about 3 weeks for the "real person" to appear. Perhaps the trip was just short enough so that everyone could still pretend we were all nice people.

The next day was a free day in UB, therefore we went and did a couple of the museums we missed out on (the Dinosaur Museum – small but well formed), and the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts (which is not very big but if you listened to the droning audio guide you could be there all day) and the State Department Store (which was just like a David Jones or John Lewis).

That night we went out for dinner with Jorge to a Peruvian restaurant (by way of reminder, Jorge is Peruvian). The food was good – and it was so lovely to have seasoned flavourful food. The Mongolians aren’t brilliant (generally) at seasoning their food – as Hashi kept saying, they eat simple meat and flour based foods, vegetables don’t figure a lot.

The following day it was time to check out of the hotel and head to Russia for the next leg of the trip.

The things I will take away from Mongolia, will be:
- Prius cars are a lot tougher than they look, but UAZ’s seem to be indestructible;
- When it says some “off-road” driving, it means completely off road – there doesn’t actually seem to be many navigable, paved roads, even between quite large towns;
- Pillows can be made from buckwheat, or walnut shells (!), and seem to be crunchy, and Ger camps don’t like buying mattresses (or linen, a fitted sheet somewhere wouldn't have gone astray);
- “standard” Ger camp’s are pretty basic (I would hate to see “basic” camps);
- I don’t think I will want mutton again;
- Mongolian ketchup is surprisingly good (it has to be, to cover up the mutton - even the locals use it);
- The scenery has been stunning at every turn;
- The people have been generally so friendly (and can all sing) and are willing to engage with us strange foreigners; and
- Luke is now a real "Mongolian Man".

I think we will both look back on Mongolia with fondness (and compressed spines).

Next stop Russia.