Not too much happened today, we left Houstai bound for Elstai via Ulaanbaatar. The rain was still pelting down hard, it had been raining heavily all night and on into the morning. A pretty good effort for a country that has a monthly average rainfall of around 50mm (check this fact).
Again, I’m sure you’re all caught up by now and know that Tans is up the duff. This means that she has to go to the toilet every 30 minutes. After holding on for a record 13 hours, there was no way she was able to get dressed, and get down to the toilets. Times such as these call for desperate measures, so we managed to channel MacGyver and use our bin as a makeshift toilet. I must admit I also needed to go badly and a walk to the toilet block in horizontal rain was not appealing, so I also went via the bin option.
At breakfast we watched as a 3 centimetre tidal wave of water washed through the door of the restaurant. The canvas awning out the back of the restaurant was full of water that the workers were trying to clear.
We spent 3 hours bumping along the offroad tracks, I was hanging out to get back on the bitumen, but once back on it, it wasn’t much different from the offroad tracks.
We stopped along the way at a traditional Mongolian driver reviver centre and picked up a couple of bottles of airag. Airag is fermented mares milk, that has a slight effervescence and is mildly alcoholic, think milk based beer. It was still overcast, but the rains had stopped.
As soon as we arrived at Elstai and exited the vehicle the heavens opened and we trudged to the ger in yet more rain.
After a lunch of apricot chicken, not a traditional Mongolian staple, we waited in our ger until the rains cleared and then went for a walk around Elstai. We met the gardner and the lady that looks after the camp, we went for a short stroll and looked at the horses. Tans went to sleep. I sat out the front of the ger, read my book, watched the clouds roll across the Steppe and put away half a bottle of airag.
Whilst sitting around outside, I saw two kites fighting and flying all over and around me, so close that I could hear the flapping of their wings. Herds of goats and horses can be seen off in the distance and endless rolling hills.
For dinner, we had a great vegetable soup, with mutton spine, very tasty. We played traditional Mongolian games with knuckle bones and watched a bit of Mongolian TV. Then it was off to bed.
