Mongolia

I arrived in Mongolia and stayed in the capital Ulaanbaatar for a few days. Visited the city sights and the wonderful local markets. I had to arrange my visa for China which turned out to be a very straightforward and painless operation.

I decided to spend a few nights at a Ger camp (the round tents made of felt with a hole on the roof) The camp was great but very cold at night and I had to get up at least 3 times to stoke the fire up! Rather stupidly I also decided to go horse riding with a local woman and could hardly walk for the rest of the day, the saddles can only be described as homemade!! I then chilled out doing a bit of walking and talking to some of the local families in the village. Back in Ulaanbaatar I went to what I thought was a free for all game of British bulldog, it was in fact the queue to buy my train ticket from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing - Crazy!!

I travelled from Mongolia to Beijing with a German Couple - Veit and Iris and also met two Scottish girls Daisy and Jess who had won the BP Portrait Award the previous year and their prize was a trip on the Trans-Mongolian railway. Throughout the journey they used their cabin as a studio to paint portraits. They later had an exhibition of work from their trip displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in London.