Day 6 - 27/7/11 - Wednesday

The fresh air of the Mongolian countryside was food for our lungs, and with the sun shining it was hard not to feel positive. The turtle rock tour I had preconcieved as a likely lame experience, and although visually it looks moderately turtle like, the climb up, and through the rocks was good fun. Cinthia and I managed to fit through a rock squeeze, which our guide also managed just. Perhaps 5 tours later, and 3 more kilograms, and he won't be fitting through that rock squeeze no more. Our Mongolian guide very nearly tumbled off the rocks, where he would have come crashing backwards to a rock ledge several metres below, on his head and/or back. His coordination was poles apart from the contortionist we would see in the next few days.

The Mongolian nomadic family we visited live a relatively simple life, yet the TV, mobile phone and other technology show the popularity of man's 20th century inventions upon those living in a similar manner to earlier times. The satelite dish, solar panel and energy saving light globes in particular made it slightly more difficult to envisage this is exactly how Ghengis Khan lived 800 years ago.

We went inside their Ger and were offered some of their traditional food, such as Yak milk salty tea, salty "vodka", a liquid cheese thing and a hard salty yak cheese. Cinthia had a tiny little sip/bite of each just to taste it, as she didn't want to get sick, so politely refused the rest. I consumed it all, giving as much thought to what I was injesting as the Cookie monster does to his cookies.

Cinthia's highlight was holding a baby goat, which she thought was the cuttest thing ever. She wanted to bring it home with us but I didn't think he would like the St Kilda apartment courtyard...not enough grass :(

Post the nomadic family visit and lunch, back to UB, along the pot hole laden roads, through the crazy UB traffic, to the White House hotel..... which as the name suggested, provided us with a presedential like room.... about the size of at least 14 F1 hotel rooms It also had a city view, twin double bed, 100 channel pay TV, WiFi, and a bathroom the size of many hotel rooms. Lucky us, our base for the next 3 days!