Mongolia, day 1

I'm now speaking to you from the extremely humid streets of Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia. This probably won't be the most coherent post because I'm going slightly insane from lack of sleep, after spending the last couple of days back on the Trans-Siberian Express and bumping into a few people I'd met briefly before on platforms during the four day transfer across Siberia. They reappeared on the steaming platform at the Russian border town, and we lamented the old Russian bureaucracy (six hours' wait on the Russian side to cross, and then four on the Mongolian side broken up by one slow hour across no-man's-land.) Promising - somewhat meaninglessly, I thought - to find each other on the 24 carriage train, we disappeared back inside after having our bags torn apart and our passports scrutinised by mean-faced Russian officials with guns.

Come midnight, when the border crossings were finally, finally done with, I was surprised to find one of the guys from the platform at the entrance to my compartment.
'We have decided,' he said gravely, 'to start drinking.'

When I arrived in the carriage and compartment of the person who had initially suggested it, with no vodka to my name, I was amazed to watch the tiny four-bed cabin transformed into a twelve-person game of 'celebrity heads.' Russian vodka versus Polish vodka versus Chinese 'we don't know what it is but it's 40% and it tastes disgusting' was sampled and 'judged.' A couple of Polish newlyweds came to join the party, and then an elderly couple from Mexico. A tour guide from Australia and two Belgian girls from opposite sides of the political spectrum (one Flemish, one French), a sixth former from the South of England, and at least five committed travellers made their way inside over the course of the night; the age range was a solid forty years, from 18 to 58. The party was broken up and then reformed a number of times, as the angry provodnitsyas (glad it wasn't my carriage) banged on the walls, yelled at us in Russian, and then eventually cut the carriage's electricity in a bid to get us to dissipate back to our beds. There was a toast for everything, and no one was allowed to pass.

I stumbled back to my compartment in the early hours of the morning and was shaken awake at 5am Mongolian time, 4am Siberian time, by my own provodnitsya. As I opened my eyes, she hissed something urgently in Russian in my face, and then turned around and began to shake the girl above me. I took this to be the wake-up call for our 6am arrival into Ulaanbaatar, and dragged my protesting limbs off the board I'd been sleeping on and into the familiar Trans-Siberian bathrooms for a quick toothbrush that might disguise this was the morning after the night before.

Pulling into Ulaanbaatar was pretty grim. Its heat is oppressive and grey, its buildings a couple of glass structures fighting for professionalism amoung a load of crumbling Soviet blocks. Jumping off the train at 6am, I was confronted with a singular hammer-and-sickle monument which still stands in the main part of the city station.

My hotel (an actual hotel! It's basic but it's real) is on Peace Avenue, which does NOT live up to its name. All of this came as a bit of a disappointment before I wandered up to the resident Buddhist temple - accessible via a shanty town where the local Mongolian guy warned me to
'stay very, very far from the dogs' - and was greeted by an incredible, hidden haven of Buddhism starkly contrasting to the grimy poverty of the rest of Ulaanbaatar. The temples were definitely worthy of any other South East Asian country I've been to, and the service that I managed to miraculously arrive bang on time for was incredible.

A Mongolian guide directed me towards the school that young children attend before becoming fully fledged Buddhist monks, and their service was if anything more impressive. The identically shaven kids all chanting separate rhythms that come together every few minutes over many hours a day is really something to see. As a few other groups of tourists and me walked around the school during the chanting and inspected the Buddhist artifacts, a Nokia mobile phone tune rang out suddenly. Tourists and locals looked around and at their own bags sheepishly, and then angrily.

'Wouldn't it be funny--' started a guy beside me, before his humorous moment was granted. One of the teenage monks picked up the phone and started to have a leisurely chat on it while his mates carried on chanting. Good to know absolutely everywhere has joined the 21st century.

Hidden in one of the temples was also the biggest Buddha in the world: 26m high. That's a fucking tall Buddha.
'We had to build this one again from scratch in the 90s,' said the Mongolian guide, 'because when Russia turned our country communist, they took the old 26m Buddha and melted it down to make bullets.'
Good old Russians. Why did I leave again?

Tomorrow: off to the countryside to stay in a 'traditional Mongolian ger.' I'm warned this will include horse-riding, fermented mare's milk, and the possibility of no running water. Luckily it's only for two days before coming back to UB, as the in-the-know locals (such as myself) call it.

I hope it's raining in England, kids. Actually, I wouldn't mind a bit of rain right now!