Into Mongolia

I am sat in an internet cafe in Erdnet, Mongolia and am not exactly sure again of the date. I think that it is the 17th of June but I cannot be sure.

The last few days have been very eventful but i will begin from where I left off.

We cycled from Irkutsk to Ulan-Ude and on to the border of Mongolia. From there we headed south to Darchan and then west to Erdnet and here we are.

After leaving the shores of Baikal we were getting a bit desperate to leave Russia and move onto the next leg of the journey. We took a brief stop in Ulan-Ude to look at the giant head of Lenin. It's really big actually and we believe that it is the biggest Lenin head in the known world. Bar none.
After Ulan-Ude the countryside became distinctly arid and flat which was very demoralising and boring. We were regularly gnawed by insects of all kinds.

We had to spend 4 hours at the border as they told us that we had to buy new visas for 110$ as there was a printing mistake on them or something like that. I was absolutely convinced that they were trying to scam us and Thomas will confirm that I was furious with them. In the end we made them call some main office and the fee was reduced to 5 dollars each and we grudgingly paid it and left angry. I know that makes us sound like misers but I genuinely felt ripped off.

Happy to be in Mongolia we didn't let it bother us and we set off only to find that the scenery was much the same as the last part of Russia. It has since then got better and I am no longer moaning.
On our second or third day here we stopped by a river to wash and relax and were approached by some Mongolian students from the capital, they were very friendly and offered us some food and tea which we accepted without any hesitation. Delicious it was and we were happy. They told us then that one of them was a national wrestler. Needless to say Thomas wanted to have a go at taking on a national wrestler and he fancied his chances too. Three bouts ended in three victories for the wrestler. Then i stepped up, also backing myself to take at least one round from him. Three more resounding victories for the wrestler. Tails between legs we said our goodbyes and sat on the banks of the river discussing what we could have done to beat him. Did i forget to mention that the guy was five foot three and 66kg?

Two days later, or yesterday, we were cycling along when we saw a storm brewing ahead. We stopped to put on our rain coats as a precaution both quietly believing there wouldn't be anything more than a short shower followed by more glorious sunshine(the weather has been an almost unbroken run of days in the late 20s, early 30s).
How wrong we were. After continuing for 5 minutes or so i began to think that the rain must be falling really heavily as the drops were causing some slight discomfort to my knuckles. It turned out to be hailstone and the drops got larger and larger until they were striking us on the head and back like rocks. I am not exaggerating when I say that the hailstones were almost as large as golf balls. We had to come off the road and scramble into a tube under the road usually used for draining fields. There we waited for 20minutes for the storm to pass. We were joined in the tube by a local herdsman who was also sheltering from the storm. He then invited us into his ger (check google images for mongolian ger) and gave us tea and something like yoghurt which was offered to us after we had inquired, in Mongolian, if their animals were fattening up nicely. Apparently a standard greeting phrase there which, according to our phrasebook, is normally answered with "Yes, fattening nicely."
We do have some photos of the inside of the ger and the friendly people but the internet connection here is very slow and I am unable to upload and pictures at all.
That was yesterday and pretty much brings us to now.
Hopefully i can add some photos in a cafe in Ulan Bataar but it still remains to be seen.

That is really all for now. We would like to thank everybody for their support and comments. It does mean a lot to be far from home and hearing from everyone.