We woke up early after a slightly restful sleep - the fire got too warm for us in the evening and Ko Bu had to get up and douse it (in the process covering everything on our dining table with ash but we wouldn’t know this till the morning).

At around 10 took a tour in the Ger District with Troy, the guy who founded Rinky Dink, the tour company we are using during our stay here. He’s set up a community centre for kids and youths in the area he lives in (the whole district is massive) and is helping families with basic needs.

Not everyone who’s living in the district are poor and there are new houses up there and even property speculation going on. But many ARE terribly poor and there is no running water. Pit laterines are the norm as there is no sewage system as such and you can imagine the living conditions are far from ideal.

Troy and his volunteers are helping them. It’s church-based but non-discriminatory from what I can tell. From there we moved to a swankier hotel in downtown UB - for 90 bucks a night we got a “deluxe suite”, a room for twin beds + a spacious lounge with TV, couches and a dining table which became our packing quarters as soon as we moved in.

Considering this is going to be the last night we’re gonna spend in a proper bed (on trains the next 2 nights followed by a plane ride the last night) we thought we’d splash out. The only kink was the bath tub which was big enough for a midget and whose showerhead go in every which way except where it should.

But considering the last time we showered was 4 days ago, no complaints! We wanted to have a look in at some of UB’s many museums but we had a late lunch and missed the National Museum closing time by 5 minutes. So we proceeded to shop for souvenirs instead - hahaha! Tomorrow we take the Trans-Mongolian train from UB to Beijing, passing Gobi and beyond. It’s going to be a 30-hr ride. My iPod is charged and I’ve got my Genghis Khan and Krishnamurti books ready.