Eventually I came out of my shell. Once I started involving myself in their daily life they really opened up. Most of the days were the same, we would milk the cows and horses which was so much fun, I really enjoyed getting dirty. It was a tough job, you had to make the babies go to there mums then once they had got the milk going you had to put the babies away so the girls could milk the mum this was really hard with the horses as they were so strong and very v...

The next couple of days were tough. Adjusting to the way of life. The language barrier made everything difficult. Our ger was a round frame covered in material that didn't quite reach the ground, it had a grass floor with a couple of rugs as our bed there was a small table and a fire in the middle. The toilet that everyone shared was a whole in the ground with a few logs about 3 feet high around 3 sides that faced the gers with the front left open, it had an ama...

We left the hostel at 6am and caught a taxi to the bus station. There were people everywhere, loads of people kept calling out to us, it was complete chaos, we wandered around and eventually found the right bus amongst the mayhem. Everyone was scrambling to get there bags under the bus it was real dog eat dog to get your bag in the hold, which also doubled as the post van so was full of packages. Once on the bus everyone was arguing over seats, even though every ...

We stepped off the train at Ulanbatar and it was like a switch had been flicked, suddenly the people looked completely different to those in Russia. There was no gradual change as we crossed Russia they just changed from one side of the border to the next. The main difference was they were all smiling. Ulanbatar or UB as us locals call it is the main city, well the only city really, with 45% of the countries population living there, it's big and developed but th...

The train from Irkutsk to Ulaanbaatar looked  the same as the others. But they were worlds apart, there was no smoking or drinking, the carriage was locked so you couldnt even walk up and down the train and the toilet was constantly closed. We seemed to stop at every shed and dog kennel along the way which meant you were constantly woken when the train broke and you had to grab something before you fell out of bed. We shared our carriage with a guy called Roland...