Mongolia

It took a full 9 hours to complete all the border formalities to get out of Russia and into Mongolia – much of this spent sitting the Russian side doing very little. We arrived in Ulaan Baator at 0610, but the provodnitsa decided to wake the whole carriage up a full 90 minutes early and start collecting bedding; this is presumably so she could leave as soon as the train pulled in, but it could have been collective punishment for the loud Dutch couple.

Dawn is not a great time to start a city tour, but that's what we got. Starting with the Soviet-Mongolian 'friendship' monument, then Genghis Khan (or more correctly Chingghis Khan) square – one cannot overstate how revered he is here - and finally a temple complex.

After a quick shower we started our seven hour drive to stay with a nomad family, who were camped about 300km west of UB in semi-desert on the edge of the Gobi. Our vehicle was a UAZ - a Russian made 4x4, which lacks namby-pamby features like power searing or seatbelts. The road out of UB to the west is new and smooth. Unfortunately they've only built 12 miles of it, so after than it's all bumpy dirt track. Still, these are used as major highways, and the lorries can be seen for miles by the cloud of dust they kick up.

We arrived at our new home in late afternoon, and were presented with the traditional fermented mare's milk – Ayrag. This is slightly alcoholic, and apparently will give you diarrhoea if you have too much. I had half a bowl, while Kirsten barley touched it to her lips (incidentally, watching a horse being milked is a truly surreal experience). The family had two gers, the smaller was the kitchen, while the larger was the living space/bedroom . They'd given the larger ger over to us and Aggie (our guide). Meanwhile Ben et al where with our host's brother 30 meters away.

Keen to get involved with nomadic life, we tried to help out with the milking, which of course meant us standing round ineffectively while the kids tied the calves to a rope (this is to stop them 'stealing' their mother's milk). I did have hold of a calf at one point, but didn't know what to do with it, so I handed it to a seven year old. Meanwhile Kirsten made a friend, in the form of an orphaned goat kid, which was tethered to the ger. I christened him Stu. He bleated a lot.

The families kept a distance from us (not unfriendly, but we ate separately, with our guide cooking food they'd brought), and it wasn't 'till one of the drivers challenged Ben to a wrestling match (the Mongolia national sport), which turned into a hour wrestling marathon, that we felt that we'd bonded (I won 2 and lost 1).

At night the mixed sheep/goat herd where brought in to sleep between the gers, so they could be protected by the 3 large, but friendly, guard dogs. This was quite disconcerting when I went out with the head torch, to find myself in a goat herd, with hundreds of glowing eyes staring at me.

The whole experience was absolutely fantastic, and driving out there I felt quite emotional. In the warmth of late summer (it still got cold at night), it seamed an almost idyllic lifestyle, and we were sad when our three days were up – but the summer is very short, and they were soon to move closer to the mountains to get some shelter from the bitterly cold winters.

Visiting the loo nomad style: Take toilet paper and a lighter, and walk a respectable distance from the ger; squat down for as long as required; kick sand over unmentionables and set fire to toilet paper.