We left Ulaan Baator early in the morning heading for Gun Galuut, a nature reserve 3 hours from UB, our transport was shared by Angie and Nick, a young travelling couple from the Netherlands, who turned out to be a lot of fun over the next few days.

On the way we stopped at a giant silver statue of Genghis Khan, it was 40 metres high, it appeared out of nowhere, totally majestic and totally surreal. The giant warrior stood guard over an endless vista of the Steppes and we were drawn into visualising 50,000 Mongol horsemen in full battlegear galloping over the plain with GK at the head and us on his shoulders, ready to sweep through the Asian continent into Europe - As the vision dissolved we continued on towards our camp.

The camp itself was excellent set in a remote location 20 kilometres from the nearest "road" . We lived in a GER with no electricity, just candles and a wooden stove. It was like the United Nations, we had representatives from England, Scotland, USA, Hawaii (yes I know Hawaii is part of the US) Brazil, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Surprisingly only a sprinkling of backpackers' mainly professional people - Surgeons, Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers and even a medical research Scientist, having an extended "off the map" vacation. On the second day a famous archaeologist/Explorer (no not Indiana Jones) turned up, not sure where from, maybe he got lost. The food was good and we had our fire lit every night and morning by one of the staff - That is until our neighbour (Rick an American from New York) had his Ger catch fire, quite a blaze but nobody hurt

We spent five hours riding horses across the Steppes, there was 6 of us, rather less than the 50,000 we imagined and we probably wouldn't conquer the known world but it felt good out there on the range , with eagles hovering in the deep blue Mongolian sky- It was easy to believe we were tracing the hoof prints of history.

We spent the next day at the Nadaam festival, where the 3 manly sports (Wrestling, Horse Racing and Archery) were competed. The highlight however was a novelty event that Heather entered - It involved picking up dried horses*** with a reverse rake-like implement and flicking it over your head into a basket on your back. Heather raced out ahead of the field and started picking at great speed, her overhead flick however was too powerful and s*** was flying everywhere. She soon spotted her mistake, refined her action and was back in the game, however time and the availability of local s*** ran out and her comeback was stalled, leaving her in 5th place.