From Ulgii we drove to Khovd, then to Bayankhognor, to Arvaikheer and UlaanBaatar. The first few days were tough driving, as there was little to no "road" just a series of tracks. We kpt looking at the GPS and when we saw other vehicles we were reassured that we were on the main track... but at times it was hard to believe that this was true. As Fintan said - it's like driving in a field covered in snow, but it's a whole country! On the way to Khovd we had to go across a valley and across some frozen streams and then over a mountain pass...

From Khovd to Bayankhognor its 400km, so we expected it to be a long day. We set off and after about 50km from Khovd, we got a flat tyre. The first of the trip! In the snow and -6 degrees! Luckily we had our happy jackets (the super warm hi-vis jackets), so we were warm enough... Unfortunately, the hydraulic jack wasn't warm enough - it would not pump up! The hydraulic oil must've been frozen! So we put it in the car by the heater, and had tea. Hmmm... nice warm tea, and time to think of an alternative... We tried the regular jack with some books stacked underneath, but to no avail.

The hydraulic jack did start to work after 30 mins in the car, but then when we put it in the snow it froze up again. As a last resort we pulled out the exhaust jack - an inflatable bag that fits under the car and is inflated from the exhaust. Eventually we got the car raised, with the regular jack underneath for safety! We changed the tyre, and Fintan fixed the puncture, then off we went again.

When we arrived at the hotel in Bayankhognor we were exhausted. And we had driven through a time zone (Mongolia has 3). We had our dinner, showered and went to bed, only to be woken up by a group of drunken young girls giggling and screaming, at least until they were throwing up!

We thought it would be another long day to Arvaikheer (450km), but there seemed to be more stretches of actual road so we made good time. Coming into the town it was a dirt track and the puddles were just freezing over as we arrived in, so Yoshimi ended up looking like she was covered in vomit... nothing we could do about it though - it froze almost instantly.

We stopped to take a photo and another Landcruiser pulled up next to us - it was the Immigration officer! He said they had left Tsaaganuur the day before and were arriving into UlaanBaatar that night! Crazy!!

When we finally pulled into the city we were greated with a massive traffice jam! It took us two hours to cross the city, but we finally arrived at our warm, clean guesthouse!