We had organized a weekend away to see the Takhi horse, which is a seperte species to the horse with a much larger head and Zebra like strips on, its the only true wild horse on the planet. They had had it hard and died out but had been reintroduced from three stallions in to different areas of Mongolian one of which was Khustain Nuruu National park about three hours out side of UB. Ogi and our driver picked us up in a marvelous off road vehicle and we headed out of the smoggey UB to the countryside, as usual an interesting journey with terrible roads but it was great to get out of UB.

After about two hours we headed off road through the snow and ice at one point we span off the road and had to get out out and push the vehicle back on. A further hour passed and we reached the entrance to the park, we had been hoping to stay in a Ger but found out it was forty dollars per person which was madness so we asked at the visitor center for them just to put some dinner on for us and we would be back later in the day. We asked one of the park rangers where we could see the horses he explained it was not always possible but this was a good time to see them as it was winter and they had put out additional food for them. With directions in hand we headed out on an off road track, as we where heading out ogi spotted herds of red deer, after a while there were hundred of deer all over the valleys. We passed over hills, frozen rivers just about keeping on the track. After driving for a while we passed a rangers station and asked if he had spotted the Takhi he said they were just over the valley, we were in luck. We headed over the valley to a feeding station asked the rangers there and they pointed to some horses in the distance on a hill explaining they were takhi we parked and headed out.

Very quietly we climbed through the grasses over ridges and cuts till we could see them, firstly we stayed back encase we spooked them but eventually we were 20 yards from them, you could really tell they were different to other horses with big stocky necks and a mane that looked like it had been cut. The group seemed to be made up of a stallion, mares and fouls, the stallion was very aware of us marching up and down in front of his ladies, he had some amazing stripes on the front of his body. We kept our distance and just watched ogi and our driver said they had never seen them this close before and had not seen them at all a few times which was amazing to hear. After a while they had had enough of us and stormed off up and over the hill. We retreated back down the hill to our car well aware how lucky we had been. We headed back to the visitor reception taking in the amazing scenery.

At the vitors center we had the typical Mongolian dinner, mutton dumpling soup followed by Buzz a traditional food of mutton dumplings with gerkings, very nice indeed. As the price was to high to stay we headed back to UB in the evening, although we got a third of the way back the driver real;ised he left his coat so headed back.

As we were dismayed at the extra length of the journey we started on a bottle of Vodka we had brought to have that night, raising toasts in the car all the way back to UB. By the time we reached the hostel we were happy to see the takhi and also maybe a little intoxicated!!!