Well it wasn’t all my fault really. I told the nice man that worked at the quad biking place that I hadn’t quad biked ever before and I hadn’t even driven a car for 6 years, dammit. And if he’s not going to give me any bleedin’ lessons or explain the rules or anything then what does he expect? I mean things might have been different if we’d just driven round a field or a track or something and there weren’t any trees to smash into or deep muddy watery holes to get stuck in. Oh no, he just stuck me behind the wheel, showed me the accelerator and brake and I was on my own. Onto a very bendy track through a forest up the side of a hill, full of huge deep treacherous puddles and, well, a lot of trees. Obviously. What with it being a forest and all…Everything went swimmingly well for the first half hour. I was speeding around that forest like a very competent quad biker indeed. Then there was this tree. Just jumped out at me from nowhere it did. The bumper went flying into the middle distance, the front of the quad bike crumpled up like a bit of tissue paper. The nice man hadn’t smiled once since I met him and certainly wasn’t smiling now. He spent a long time trying to realign the wheel and axle and then, very stupidly in my opinion, let me go behind the wheel again. In a matter of minutes we were stuck at a 70 degree angle in a very deep and very watery, muddy hole. The nice man said nothing. He took 20 minutes to get his smashed up vehicle to a normal, horizontal angle, by which time all the thick wet mud he had sent flying off the front off side wheel had now settled and dried all over my face and sun glasses. Not a centimetre of skin, clothing or glasses could be seen from the top of my head to my waist. I showed the nice man my classy new look, cos it was quite funny really. Thought it might cheer him up a bit. He did not smile. Not one little teeny weeny bit. Instead he took the wheel and we drove back in stony silence. Some people have very little humour don’t you think…
Anyway, aside from that little mishap the trip so far has remained without incident. We spent some lovely days in Russia, exploring all things Russian. A very, very impressive country indeed and so bloody huge it’s almost unreal. We’ve been through 6 time zones in the past week and have no idea what time it is any more, let alone what day it is.
We met up with a crowd of English/German/French for various parts of our Russian train journey, God knows between where and where. More vodka flowed, many languages were spoken (including ancient Greek?!), we learnt the German word for fart. ‘Poopsen’, if anyone’s interested. Very cultural, these trips can be, you know. We waited for 9 HOURS at the Russian/Mongolian border, and another 6 at the Mongolia/China border, during which time the sniffer dogs were bought onto the train, every nook and cranny searched by more surly looking people in uniforms. Again, the toilets were closed for the duration. But it’s amazing what you can do with a cut-in-half coke bottle and a plastic bag…..
Soooo. We’ve just finished staying at 2 most wonderful ger camps, one on the steppes of Mongolia and the other in the Gobi desert. Mongolia is a fantastic country, with huge grassy plains, endless sky and very gentle, hospitable people. We’ve visited some beautiful temples and monastries, did some great hiking, camel and horse riding. A few days ago we spent the day with a 350-year-old monk called Bator who was quite obviously an extra from Lord of the Rings (what an outfit - check out the next lot of photos!!). We visited an ’energy temple’ in the middle of the desert where you had to go through the most ridiculous rituals to be re energised and at one with the elements (or something like that..) I kid you not, for about 3 hours we had to (all very dead pan as well, if you don‘t mind); throw milk over a massive pair of 12 ft high stone breasts (yes, really), stand on a stone and stare into a huge third eye for 20 seconds, walk around a sacred wheel in a clockwise direction 3 times, whisper all our bad deeds into a pile of stones (that took quite a long time), pour water into 7 bowls, scatter 3 handfuls of grain from 7 smaller bowls, tie a blue scarf onto another pile of stones, sing a sacred Mongolian song (oh yes indeed, there’s video footage of that….), lie in all the dust and desert shite to connect with the earth, then press our kidneys into a rock to ensure lovely and healthy kidneys for eternity. To finish off we all had to hold hands and weave our way around some treacherous rocks and caves so that we could all become ’brothers and sisters of Shambola’. Don’t know about feeling energised…after that lot we were worn out and had to take to our beds for 3 hours.
Bloody knackered, we were.
And Gawd ‘elp us, for some of our stay in Mongolia was it friggin’ COLD!! A least 400 degrees below zero, and after the wind chill factor, well, you’ve never experienced anything like it in your life. Lillian hung out dripping wet trousers, 5 minutes later they were frozen solid. To do the 40 second dash from the ger to the toilet in the middle of the night was frankly ridiculous and something I will never, ever do again in my life. I mean I’m nearly 50 you know, and I wasn’t built for undertaking such stupid activities.
Anyway, Mongolia is now in the past. We are currently back on the train, speeding our way through Northern China, Beijing bound. So I’ll be signing off now for a while. I’ll collect some adventures during our month in China and get back to you later! Lots of love to you all - hope all is well in your world! Please keep sending me your gossip - if you haven’t got any, make it up.....
The photos for this lot can be found under the same address I sent before - title 'Penelope Pitstop, Mongolia to The Gobi.....'
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