Most of today was spent on the road, hence the numb bums.

However we had some fantastic Mongolian music live at our ger, hence the notes.

We had some much-needed freshening up this morning when we got back to UB - showered, washed my hair, slathered ourselves in moisturising cream, etc etc etc. After running some errands - check mails, buy maps and batteries, get groceries - we headed out to Har Horin, the ancient capital, around 1.30pm.

It’s almost 400km away to the north west, and we didn’t get there till around 6.30. Along the way, we encountered some heavy dust storms, melting snow turning into sludge and creating puddles of dangerous waterways on the road, packs of antelopes and a grandmother and her grandson heading the same way as us to see another newborn grandkid (Mongolians hitchhike a lot and we picked them up).

Central Mongolia, as this region is known, is quite different from the north. The terrain is much flatter and mountains smaller, bushes replace corniferous trees, and it’s a lot more barren. We saw loads more of animal carcasses too, at times just piles and piles of sheeps and goats on the barren land.

In the evening, we had a personal show by a traditional singer who used his horse hair fiddle, a sitar and a flute to entertain us with some authentic Mongolian music which included crazy throat and chest singing. We bought his CD of course, and tomorrow I bet our car’s gonna be moving to this beat.