Mutton mania!

Well, here we are in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Earlier I said the train journeys had been surprisingly easy, so this time I got my comeupance. Our train stopped at the Russian border post for 6 hours, while the toilets were locked, the cabin got more and more hot and sweaty, and we didn't dare leave the train for much of the time in case it left without us or border officials turned up. Eventually the officials came and we could move on. After trundling a few miles and stopping briefly at the border itself, we had another 3 hour wait on the Mongolian side. At least there weren't any problems with our visas or customs forms. And having said that, this wait was all in the timetable. Russian trains are notoriously punctual, and even on a 6 day journey they always seem to arrive at the scheduled time - to the minute! It's just that the scheduled times can be very slow...

There's obviously a quicker way across the border, because, in the single carriage that actually crossed the border (all the rest steadily left us), there were only a couple of Russians. Everyone else was a Westerner. It couldn't have been more different to our Moscow-Irkutsk train where no-one else in the carriage spoke English!

Irkutsk was a lot more relaxed than Moscow, but it was Lake Baikal that was the real draw. The lake is so vast it contains 20% of the world's fresh water, and this water is so pure you can drink it straight from the lake, because of unique endemic sponges that filter the water. There was no way the icy temperature could stop me from having a long swim. The scenery around the lake was beautiful too, with the steep slopes covered in untouched taiga forest. We even managed to do a round walk, by getting slightly lost!

In Russia, several people had come up to us on the street and started talking in Russian, before we had to tell them we didn't have a clue what they were saying. But in Mongolia we are very clearly tourists and foreigners. And one of the most foreign aspects is the food (at least for a foodaholic for me!). Mongolian cuisine is based on mutton, more mutton, and some fermented mare's milk. Vegetables are very rare, and sadly there aren't the mounds of strawberries and blackcurrants that were everywhere in Russia. Maria can find vegetarian food here in the capital, but when we get out into the countryside it really will be hard! But still, we can't wait to get out and stay in some gers, see the mountains or desert and get to know the nomadic culture. Are there any other countries in the world where 25% of the population is nomadic and another 25% is semi-nomadic?