We broke frosty's laptop so this blog is done on my phone with only phone photos sorry. (I'm not sorry)
Leaving Beijing was exciting! We had been dreaming about our adventures in Mongolia and couldn't wait to get into it! Getting on the train was easy peasy (I'm rubbing it in Mouse) and we boarded the 15 carriage sucker on carriage 14. I was thinking about the awesome people we had met on trains in India, Thailand,Vietnam and....Western Sydney, and I couldn't wait to see who we'd be bunking with for the 28 hour trip! we could see everybody else piling onto the carriages further up but none came to us. Not only did we have our whole compartment to ourselves but we had the whole carriage!!! Party time!
Though I was a teeny tiny bit disappointed at first (I wanted some friends) it was pretty awesome spending the whole time hanging
with frosty and giggling like little girls. Having the whole carriage meant we could have photo shoots and do yoga in the corridor with only the official in charge of our carriage looking on and judging harshly.
They give you two free meal tickets for lunch and dinner which we took in the dining cart! Yes that's right, a dining cart! Pure swank. It consisted of rice, stir fry veg and mystery meat in sauce. It was funny to see the first class people had to eat the same
crap was us haha.
First and second class were pretty flashy with sockets for
charging electronics, air conditioning and apparently their own showers! Other than that there wasn't really much difference with our room.
At night we stopped near the border to change wheels because Russia and China have different size tracks or something. So we all have to get off the train for 2 hours. We met this young pommy guy called Johnny and a Korean guy who lived in China called
Nick! Although, he told us his friends call him dick. Nick was bloody hilarious! His catchphrase was "it's China just try it!" And he applied this to food and throwing rubbish on the ground. He called China the land of the free. Interesting thought Nick!
He took us out of the station to meet up with his friends at a skewered meat shop for a midnight snack and ohhhhh my god it was good!! We had chicken, beef and lamb skewers covered in spices and piping hot straight from the BBQ. The lamb ones even had little cubes of fat on them that were crispy and juicy! We also tried chicken bone skewers. It popped when I bit in to it so i got rid of it quickly!
Once back on the train our carriage filled up with travellers closer to the border. We met some young Chinese guys who were
travelling to Russia. They had tried to keep their costs down by buying two separate tickets for the train but when we got to the next station thy found out they weren't allowed to and had to get off. I felt sorry for them! But not too sorry because it was about 3am and I was tiiiired!!!
OK, news on the Chinese dudes. They got tickets!!! You can all breathe a sigh of relief, phew!! They just moved carriage. I feel bad now. Then they gave us tea. Now I feel extra bad!
Once in Mongolia they change the dining cart. This one looked a bit like an American diner with blue vinyl (?) seats and curtains. we had pancakes with jam. Bad ass. The views on the train were amazing and it wasn't long until we were in the hustle and bustle of Ulaanbaatar. 1 million people live here so you can imagine it's pretty massive, like Frosty. We are staying at Danista Home stay and
I gotta say it's pretty awesome! The guy here is really helpful and funny!
We decided to introduce ourselves to UB in our usual fashion, buy walking around for hours and not finding the things we wanted to find. By dinner time we were starving (it's bloody hot here too!) so we stopped at the first pub we walked by for food. That is a risky, risky move! We both ordered soups with mutton (Frosty explained that from now on he's eating nuttin but mutton!) and French fries. The
French fries were just a backup coz we knew the soup would be crap and we didn't care how the 'French fries' were cooked, the potato should fill us up. We were wrong! the soup was amazing!!! They were like baked dinners in a bowl! And the French fries were real, delicious, crispy French fries! Score!
Afterward we ate ice creams to celebrate our success before checking out the Gandan Khiid in the afternoon glow. It was actually about 7pm but the sun didn't set until about 9. Gandan Khiid is the biggest monastery in the country and 6000 monks call that place home. Talk about a sausage fest!
The next day we spent relaxing, writing blogs, booking tours and eating damn good food! Korean for lunch and traditional Mongolian food, vegan style for dinner.
On Saturday we organised to go on a tour to Tamilj National Park. We chose the cheapest tour we could find which is a risky move and I kept thinking about Milf's horse riding experience where he got to watch his tour guide fix his mates car for a few hours!
Our group was made up of Frosty, two young guides on uni break, a young lady from Singapore, two oldies from Austria, our driver and yours truly. We drove out of the city in an old van that made interesting noises and headed to our first stop, a massive statue of Genghis Khan (the locals call him Chinggis).
This thing was mass. It was mo-ass! It was bigger than Jesus! No really, it was taller than the statue of Jesus in Rio. That's pretty big. The quality of our tour guides became more evident as we went inside. We could overhear another tour guide explaining to his group the details of how a giant boot that was on display was made. It's design was based on the traditional boots worn by Genghis
khan and others during his time. The leather was source from local cows and the design was created by local artists who still make these boots for special occasions. Our guy - "biggest boot in the world". Well he wasn't wrong!
You can walk up a staircase set in the middle of the building that goes found and round and up and up until you pop out from between Ghengis' legs and up the mane of his horse to look out on the valley from it's head. Not a bad view but packed with tourists. Underneath the building they have a bronze age museum with hundreds of artefacts. Pretty interesting! A couple of warlord's
bludgeons were on view. I bet they would have smashed a few heads in their time. While we wondered around this tourist hot spot, Mrs Austria stayed in the van the whole time!
Our next stop was the petrol station where the attendant
ladies were dressed in matching parachute suits and baseball caps Eagle v Shark style. We then made it to our lunch spot in the town Terelj. A little shack with plastic seats, rickety tables and steaming hot cups of salty Mongolian tea.
Lunch was a pretty tasty goulash but the best bit was, it came with a show! A local guy and lady started yelling at each other really loudly! Full on screaming match! Then he tried to run her down on his horse!! Holy shit! What the hell was going on?
OK, lunch is over (Mr & Mrs Austria didn't eat it) time to go on a horse ride. Guess who we're getting our horses from? That's right, psycho killa! Lucky for us he just gives us the horses and our guides take us (Mr & Mrs Austria don't join us).
We did a river crossing and then meandered through some trees. One of the guides held a guide rope from my horse so
I didn't have to do much but Frosty had to manoeuvre his all on his own which was a barrel of laughs for me coz it looked as though his horse had to enough for the day. It would stop whenever it wants and liked to walk a fair distance behind the rest of us.
Our hour long ride turned into 30 minutes after a storm
hit and it started pissing down! So back we turned and as we got back to the river crossing Frosty's old trusty calls it quits. A whole lot of other people were crossing too before the river got too deep when all of a sudden a massive green bus came flooring it out of the trees! I didn't know buses could drive across rivers! Not only can they drive across rivers but they do it with such style that I think it should become the new national sport! It came flying into
the river aiming up stream before making a sharp left turn mid river to make a curving arc. People were hanging out the windows yelling wooooooo and a couple of guys had to reach down to try and close the big door that covers the engine. I wanted on that party bus!
Our last stop was to turtle rock. Guess what it looks like. You can climb it a bit and so we did (Mr and Mrs didn't)! It gives you a pretty nice view of the rocks and valley below. To quench our thirst we had a cup of airag, a fermented milk drink that is alcoholic. It smells like yeast and tastes like really sour goats cheese. When you first sip it it's weird, then after a while you forget about it and go back for another bizarre sip. And so the cycle goes until your cup is empty and your head is tipsy!
We stayed at an amazing ger camp called Mirage. The staff here were amazingly sweet and our accommodation came with three meals. Dinner consisted of potato salad, rice, mash potato and lamb burger filled with cheese. I even made a very special friend. I went down to the showers for a shower in the shower. I was naked and trying to find that sweet spot between scalding and freezing when the door opened. The cleaner looked at my clothes with a puzzled look before looking at me standing there starkers. I just looked
at her and said 'ahh, sorry' before she hurriedly shut the door and had a little giggle. Nice lady.
We were even lucky enough to see a fireworks display just as a storm began to rumble over. So relaxing!
The next morning we went for another horse ride and it is beautiful!
Sunny day, rocky mountains, wild flowers and nothing but the sweet sound of birds and my horse ripping massive farts! Of course, we forgot our camera in true Kat and Frosty style! It's all up here mate.
Back in UB my belly was feeling very sore from the giant meaty, carby meals everyone kept feeding us (and we were grateful coz it had all been delicious!) so we went back to our fav salad spot to detox. Did I mention it was our 7 year anniversary? Well it wasn't, it was our eighth. And what a romantic day it was! I love Frosty, he's a cutie!
We went a day early to check out our bike sitch. They were a lot bigger than the bike I had practised on and after Frosty had a quick ride he thought it best that we just doubled. I was a tiny bit disappointed that I wasn't a good rider but that's what you get from 2 hours of lessons. This way I get to still have a go but there is no pressure. Bonus!
We will start our two week adventure tomorrow. We have an early start to beat the traffic! Pretty smart move I reckon! (that was ages ago. we are about to finish)
This is a long blog so we will continue it after the adventure :) Be cool, fools! xxx
Leaving Beijing was exciting! We had been dreaming about our adventures in Mongolia and couldn't wait to get into it! Getting on the train was easy peasy (I'm rubbing it in Mouse) and we boarded the 15 carriage sucker on carriage 14. I was thinking about the awesome people we had met on trains in India, Thailand,Vietnam and....Western Sydney, and I couldn't wait to see who we'd be bunking with for the 28 hour trip! we could see everybody else piling onto the carriages further up but none came to us. Not only did we have our whole compartment to ourselves but we had the whole carriage!!! Party time!
Though I was a teeny tiny bit disappointed at first (I wanted some friends) it was pretty awesome spending the whole time hanging
with frosty and giggling like little girls. Having the whole carriage meant we could have photo shoots and do yoga in the corridor with only the official in charge of our carriage looking on and judging harshly.
They give you two free meal tickets for lunch and dinner which we took in the dining cart! Yes that's right, a dining cart! Pure swank. It consisted of rice, stir fry veg and mystery meat in sauce. It was funny to see the first class people had to eat the same
crap was us haha.
First and second class were pretty flashy with sockets for
charging electronics, air conditioning and apparently their own showers! Other than that there wasn't really much difference with our room.
At night we stopped near the border to change wheels because Russia and China have different size tracks or something. So we all have to get off the train for 2 hours. We met this young pommy guy called Johnny and a Korean guy who lived in China called
Nick! Although, he told us his friends call him dick. Nick was bloody hilarious! His catchphrase was "it's China just try it!" And he applied this to food and throwing rubbish on the ground. He called China the land of the free. Interesting thought Nick!
He took us out of the station to meet up with his friends at a skewered meat shop for a midnight snack and ohhhhh my god it was good!! We had chicken, beef and lamb skewers covered in spices and piping hot straight from the BBQ. The lamb ones even had little cubes of fat on them that were crispy and juicy! We also tried chicken bone skewers. It popped when I bit in to it so i got rid of it quickly!
Once back on the train our carriage filled up with travellers closer to the border. We met some young Chinese guys who were
travelling to Russia. They had tried to keep their costs down by buying two separate tickets for the train but when we got to the next station thy found out they weren't allowed to and had to get off. I felt sorry for them! But not too sorry because it was about 3am and I was tiiiired!!!
OK, news on the Chinese dudes. They got tickets!!! You can all breathe a sigh of relief, phew!! They just moved carriage. I feel bad now. Then they gave us tea. Now I feel extra bad!
Once in Mongolia they change the dining cart. This one looked a bit like an American diner with blue vinyl (?) seats and curtains. we had pancakes with jam. Bad ass. The views on the train were amazing and it wasn't long until we were in the hustle and bustle of Ulaanbaatar. 1 million people live here so you can imagine it's pretty massive, like Frosty. We are staying at Danista Home stay and
I gotta say it's pretty awesome! The guy here is really helpful and funny!
We decided to introduce ourselves to UB in our usual fashion, buy walking around for hours and not finding the things we wanted to find. By dinner time we were starving (it's bloody hot here too!) so we stopped at the first pub we walked by for food. That is a risky, risky move! We both ordered soups with mutton (Frosty explained that from now on he's eating nuttin but mutton!) and French fries. The
French fries were just a backup coz we knew the soup would be crap and we didn't care how the 'French fries' were cooked, the potato should fill us up. We were wrong! the soup was amazing!!! They were like baked dinners in a bowl! And the French fries were real, delicious, crispy French fries! Score!
Afterward we ate ice creams to celebrate our success before checking out the Gandan Khiid in the afternoon glow. It was actually about 7pm but the sun didn't set until about 9. Gandan Khiid is the biggest monastery in the country and 6000 monks call that place home. Talk about a sausage fest!
The next day we spent relaxing, writing blogs, booking tours and eating damn good food! Korean for lunch and traditional Mongolian food, vegan style for dinner.
On Saturday we organised to go on a tour to Tamilj National Park. We chose the cheapest tour we could find which is a risky move and I kept thinking about Milf's horse riding experience where he got to watch his tour guide fix his mates car for a few hours!
Our group was made up of Frosty, two young guides on uni break, a young lady from Singapore, two oldies from Austria, our driver and yours truly. We drove out of the city in an old van that made interesting noises and headed to our first stop, a massive statue of Genghis Khan (the locals call him Chinggis).
This thing was mass. It was mo-ass! It was bigger than Jesus! No really, it was taller than the statue of Jesus in Rio. That's pretty big. The quality of our tour guides became more evident as we went inside. We could overhear another tour guide explaining to his group the details of how a giant boot that was on display was made. It's design was based on the traditional boots worn by Genghis
khan and others during his time. The leather was source from local cows and the design was created by local artists who still make these boots for special occasions. Our guy - "biggest boot in the world". Well he wasn't wrong!
You can walk up a staircase set in the middle of the building that goes found and round and up and up until you pop out from between Ghengis' legs and up the mane of his horse to look out on the valley from it's head. Not a bad view but packed with tourists. Underneath the building they have a bronze age museum with hundreds of artefacts. Pretty interesting! A couple of warlord's
bludgeons were on view. I bet they would have smashed a few heads in their time. While we wondered around this tourist hot spot, Mrs Austria stayed in the van the whole time!
Our next stop was the petrol station where the attendant
ladies were dressed in matching parachute suits and baseball caps Eagle v Shark style. We then made it to our lunch spot in the town Terelj. A little shack with plastic seats, rickety tables and steaming hot cups of salty Mongolian tea.
Lunch was a pretty tasty goulash but the best bit was, it came with a show! A local guy and lady started yelling at each other really loudly! Full on screaming match! Then he tried to run her down on his horse!! Holy shit! What the hell was going on?
OK, lunch is over (Mr & Mrs Austria didn't eat it) time to go on a horse ride. Guess who we're getting our horses from? That's right, psycho killa! Lucky for us he just gives us the horses and our guides take us (Mr & Mrs Austria don't join us).
We did a river crossing and then meandered through some trees. One of the guides held a guide rope from my horse so
I didn't have to do much but Frosty had to manoeuvre his all on his own which was a barrel of laughs for me coz it looked as though his horse had to enough for the day. It would stop whenever it wants and liked to walk a fair distance behind the rest of us.
Our hour long ride turned into 30 minutes after a storm
hit and it started pissing down! So back we turned and as we got back to the river crossing Frosty's old trusty calls it quits. A whole lot of other people were crossing too before the river got too deep when all of a sudden a massive green bus came flooring it out of the trees! I didn't know buses could drive across rivers! Not only can they drive across rivers but they do it with such style that I think it should become the new national sport! It came flying into
the river aiming up stream before making a sharp left turn mid river to make a curving arc. People were hanging out the windows yelling wooooooo and a couple of guys had to reach down to try and close the big door that covers the engine. I wanted on that party bus!
Our last stop was to turtle rock. Guess what it looks like. You can climb it a bit and so we did (Mr and Mrs didn't)! It gives you a pretty nice view of the rocks and valley below. To quench our thirst we had a cup of airag, a fermented milk drink that is alcoholic. It smells like yeast and tastes like really sour goats cheese. When you first sip it it's weird, then after a while you forget about it and go back for another bizarre sip. And so the cycle goes until your cup is empty and your head is tipsy!
We stayed at an amazing ger camp called Mirage. The staff here were amazingly sweet and our accommodation came with three meals. Dinner consisted of potato salad, rice, mash potato and lamb burger filled with cheese. I even made a very special friend. I went down to the showers for a shower in the shower. I was naked and trying to find that sweet spot between scalding and freezing when the door opened. The cleaner looked at my clothes with a puzzled look before looking at me standing there starkers. I just looked
at her and said 'ahh, sorry' before she hurriedly shut the door and had a little giggle. Nice lady.
We were even lucky enough to see a fireworks display just as a storm began to rumble over. So relaxing!
The next morning we went for another horse ride and it is beautiful!
Sunny day, rocky mountains, wild flowers and nothing but the sweet sound of birds and my horse ripping massive farts! Of course, we forgot our camera in true Kat and Frosty style! It's all up here mate.
Back in UB my belly was feeling very sore from the giant meaty, carby meals everyone kept feeding us (and we were grateful coz it had all been delicious!) so we went back to our fav salad spot to detox. Did I mention it was our 7 year anniversary? Well it wasn't, it was our eighth. And what a romantic day it was! I love Frosty, he's a cutie!
We went a day early to check out our bike sitch. They were a lot bigger than the bike I had practised on and after Frosty had a quick ride he thought it best that we just doubled. I was a tiny bit disappointed that I wasn't a good rider but that's what you get from 2 hours of lessons. This way I get to still have a go but there is no pressure. Bonus!
We will start our two week adventure tomorrow. We have an early start to beat the traffic! Pretty smart move I reckon! (that was ages ago. we are about to finish)
This is a long blog so we will continue it after the adventure :) Be cool, fools! xxx