.... continued. The Russian border crossing started with a very young soldier asking to see our passports, which he did, and then passed back to us. We were then visited by 2 more officers; one of whom took my passport, and one took Todd’s. We were asked to remove our glasses to check if we matched our visa and passport photos and then there was much scanning of the visa page and our main page. They each had a scanning machine to check the validity of both. Th...

After the 6am visit and restocking of the fire I had had enough and got dressed and went outside for a walk. It was about -12C outside, so the walk consisted of a quick walk around the gir and back inside. I did re-emerge around 6:50 and walked up the ridge again looking for a shot of the sunrise. No luck. Breakfast was some bread, 2 pikelets, a fried egg and coffee. Needless to say, last nights exploits we were ready for the van to pick us up at 9am. This morni...

After a very enjoyable night’s sleep in a full sized bed, the buffet served at the hotel was more than acceptable. The only issue was that the bacon was cooked US style, and every time one stabbed it with a fork, shards would end up all over the plate. Still, this was easily fixed with fingers, and the hotel had decent coffee, so we counted this as a success. After checking out and paying the laundry bill, we were taken out to Gandan Monastery, the major monas...

Continued from last night.... After 4 and a half hours of being shunted backwards and forwards to have the bogeys for each carriage changed over, and our passports returned, we finally entered Mongolia and began our trip across the plains and the Gobi Desert. There really isn’t too much to see here; apart from the occasional donkey, sheep, horse or cow. There are 60 million domestic animals in Mongolia compared with a population of only 3 million, half of tha...

This morning is just a case of sitting around playing the waiting game. The train for UB (UlaanBaatar) is at 11:22 but we need to take at least an hour to clear the security check before getting on board. As such, we spent the morning sitting around in our room reading, updating blogs/Facebook or reading. I took the opportunity to download most of the Belgariad audio book to have something to listen to other than Todd’s snoring on the train. Or simply to listen...