We were up early again ready for our trip to the Gobi Desert. We were in the same car that we drove around Olkhon in (much to Toms delight). We met our guide Bimba and driver Rucksha. Bimba is 21 and is working as a tour guide as a summer job as she has just graduated. She speaks perfect English which is a real novelty! Our first day was a 7 hour drive south of the country. The paved road lasted about a minute outside of Ulan Bator, after that is just 4x4 te...

So after our exciting train journey we made our way to the hostel. The first thing you notice is how friendly everyone is here, after Russia a smile was very welcoming! We had to wait a while before we got our room because it was so early so we just sat and chatted with other people from the train, it was quite amusing to swap stories about the now infamous "006" train! Whilst there we bumped into a guy we had met on Olkhon Island who was looking t...

Right, this is highly irregular, but the last train journey was outrageous I just had to write something about it. Firstly, we have arrived in Ulan Bator safe and sound. We have a couple of days here to potter about before heading out on our week long expedition through the Gobi Desert. The hostel seems excellent, and has a bit of atmosphere a couple of the Russian ones were lacking. Now, we left Irkutsk at 05:00 yesterday morning. A pretty uncivilised ti...