Today was another one of those days given over to planning. Travelling is not like being on holiday. Often whole days are taken up just organising getting from one place to another and doing boring things like washing. After our previous experiences of getting train tickets we decided to enlist some help. I really don't get it, I mean people moan in England about the train delays or leaves on the line but at least you can just turn up and get on. I'd take that an...

I woke in a puddle of sweat, with a throat ache and saw head. It must have been a good night! Eventually we left the hostel to explore. As soon as you open the gates the City hits you there's no slow build up just wham Beijing up in your grill. We found a huge lake close by away from the hussle and bussle with families rowing boats, kids playing and old men fishing. It looked like a postcard so we just sat and soaked it in for a while, or did we just sit and soak...

Inside the hostel we were welcomed by a young, smiling pretty girl named Edie. That wasn't her real name but young Chinese people give themselves English names that are easier to pronounce, for some reason they are always old ladies names though like Mavis or Bridget. We could see into a lot of the rooms around the courtyard and they were really big and homely with Chinese furniture and ornaments and their own modern bathrooms. We were shown to ours a cupboard ju...

The bus ride back to UB went without a hitch which is rare in Mongolia. We checked back into the hostel for the night then caught the train in the morning to Beijing. Our new cabin friends were Robert and Katie, Robert was German and Katie was American they weren't bad for a German and an American, and amazingly Robert hadn't bagged my bed first with his beach towel. We got to the border and it was the same routine. Us travellers knew how it worked whilst the hol...

Eventually the time came to leave and I was gutted. Everyone came out to wave us off and there were hugs all round, I feel so stupid to admit it but I was really emotional to leave my new friends. I loved everything about the life there. Everything was simpler and stripped back, there was so much that I learnt in such a little time, but I don't want to go into too much detail as I'm worried I will paint them in a bad light as its easy to judge against our way of ...