My money is on Noddy

New year... new house... new scouting role


nothing like jumping in at the deep end!

Sorry while I compose myself, I find that picture hilarious

...


*bites fist*


... sorry, I got to look at that picture again....


Right, what was I talking about... ah yes, me starting explorers. And what a way to start, before I had even been down to a normal meeting night I was away camping with them at Gilwell Winter Camp. I've been to Gilwell a couple of times now, but this was the first time I was at Winter Camp.


The weekend wasn't exactly wintery, but it was a grand opportunity to get to know some of the explorers. Like how they had a competition to see who could pull using the line "Do you like apples?"

Who would have thought that they would be Good Will Hunting fans?

And being mildly disturbed when one of them actually succeeded!

Or how one of them had a random dream, an extremely random dream, it was about a fight to the death between the Hulk and Noddy... he subsequently ended up with the nick-name of Noddy.

Personally, my money is on Noddy

Winter camp also gave me the opportunity to catch up with some mates from previous events. In some cases instead of 'catch up' read 'bother'... as in the potter puppet pals.

I literally bothered one of them like this. The other I joined on the leaders pub quiz and we came joint 7th out of 39. I think I know who got off lightly.

The day after the camp I got to actually start explorers officially, with my first meeting at the hall. It wasn't much to write about as it was program planning... so I'll skip a week, to when we did the life auction.

I did it a while back with the scouts, but as there are more explorers I added some more lots to the auction: like a house of your dreams, being a trend setter and travelling. The explorers seamed to really get into it and there was even some fights for some items.

All in all, a good start I think!

Flaming Phalanges

As you all know I was recently at the World Scout Jamboree as an Assistant Unit Leader, and, as promised, I took my diary with me to jot down all the little stories and details.


Oh the best laid plans of mice and men... if only my writing hand hadn't caught on fire.


Yes, you read that correctly. Caught. On. Fire.

Not me, yes. Not exactly what happened, yes. Cool picture none the less, hell yes.

It was our first day on the Jamboree site in Sweden, we were still setting everything up, including the kitchen. The way that our chosen system worked meant that the patrol that I looked after was on duty and had to cook dinner.

We were making dinner, on our brand new stoves, in our brand new mess tent surrounded by packages and boxes hiding all manner of things, like those handy things called fire blankets. Everything was going smoothly until I hear one of the kids say "Oh look, it's on fire"

That, for the record, is a sentence that can send shivers down any leaders back.

I quickly turn round and not only has the kitchen roll that was beside the stove gotten so hot that it spontaneously combusted, but it was in said kids hands. Everything following this happened in a matter of seconds. I ran over, I think I stupidly tried to blow on it (I know, I know, but this was like a second after seeing it) realised that I needed to get it out of her hands and out of the mess tent.

So I grabbed it and ran.

And then stomped all over it.

And then released that in the past 3-5 seconds from seeing fire to stomping it that I had burnt my hand...   not my best moment I will admit.

We got to treating it straight away. I was pouring cold water over it while Elaine (our first aider extraordinaire) was prepping the burn kit, and as soon as that was on I was on my way to the first aid facility. A first aid centre which was embarrassingly still setting up, that's how early in the Jamboree this happened!

I did try to write that night, a lot had happened that day after all... we'd gotten to Sweden, to the actual Jamboree itself after 2 years of work... but it just hurt too much to write with my burnt hand and if I had tried with my left it would look like a 5 year olds scrawl and a single word would probably take up half a page.

So all my Jamboree stories are going to be just that, stories. Unlike the 3Nations posts (going day by day) I'll be doing some random little stories from time to time. If you don't like it then you can blame the flaming kitchen roll...

And if you still don't get what "Flaming Phalanges" are... then this little clip from Bones might help

3Nations: Free Day

Have a look at previous 3Nations posts on the Expedition Page. It's where all the cool kids hang out!

Sunday 26th July 2009

Today was a free day for us to relax, recharge the batteries etc... which is usually needed at some point in the middle of such a long expedition.


In the morning, as a thank you to the monks that allowed us to camp and hike on their land, we did a litter sweep through part of the Bogd Khan National Park.

All of us, about to set off on our mission.

You would be surprised for somewhere so remote just how much rubbish we found in the National Park!

It truly was rather disgusting. Some of the stranger things that we found included most of a deck of cards (all separate of course, we were all trying to collect poker hands as we went along) and I found a fair amount of a vehicle chassis.

A small selection of the bags that we filled.

In total we filled somewhere in the region of 130 black bin bags!

The rest of the day was ours, and was mostly filled with laundry and washing and relaxing. Until dinner came along and we were told that it would be a cooking competition, where we were to make some traditional Mongolian food. We opted for some Khuurshuur (pronounced Horsha) with a variety of different fillings.

And we actually came joint first! Tho to settle who came first overall it was a relay race to the flag pole... which we didn't win. The rest of the evening was just laid back and relaxed.

3Nations: Ulaanbaatar

Have a look at previous 3Nations posts on the Expedition Page. Go on, you know you want to!


Saturday 25th July 2009


Today was rather different from most of the days here in Mongolia. Instead of the Aravts pairing off and going to do activities separately, we were all going to be heading out as one big happy family!


The plan... taking in some of the sites of Ulaanbaatar! woo hoo, touristy fun! I'm always a fan of touristy fun.


First stop was the Gandan Buddhist Monastery. Which was packed with tourists, or at least it felt like it after the quiet of camp.

Ok... doesn't look as busy as I remember it...

We'd waited about a bit, waiting to find out exactly what was happening. I think someone was supposed to show us around, but that didn't turn out, so we eventually just started wandering round like the rest of the tourists. Right round the back of those buildings was a load of prayer wheels, which led us round to a prayer room, where there was a load of monks chanting. Unfortunately there was also a load of tourists surrounding and blocking the entrance, so I didn't really get to see anything.


But turns out, this was only a small part of the monastery. We found a temple nearby with possibly the biggest Buddha I have seen (and I've seen some big Buddhas in my time)

I didn't take the photo, cause of all the signs saying not too. But one of the others was naughty and snapped this quick one. Yes, it is a Buddha statue. Looks rather Hindu in style I thought; what with the 4 arms, breasts and the spot on its forehead.


Actually, check this out. It's a 360 view from inside the temple itself!

Megjid Janraisig in Ulaanbaatar

How cool is that!! Anyway, I asked Dawn, one of the leaders on the trip who is Buddhist, about the statues form and she said different statues were aimed at getting different aspects of the Buddha across symbolically.


After exploring the temple we were then taken to our next location, a sauna. A chance to get properly clean was a very welcome prospect at this stage, since we left China we'd been washing in buckets from water you had to heat over the fire. The showers were nice and strong, the green tea bath was very refreshing and the freezing plunge pool took your breath away. The fact that all the guys were in together and we were all completely naked.... *shudder*... I saw FAR TO MUCH of some people. and before any of you ask, NO there are no photos, and if there was any they would be hunted down and destroyed for the sake of humanity.


Moving on, after lunch we went to the National Museum of Mongolia, where we got to learn a bit about the history and culture of the country. I say a bit because only the first so many displays had english translations. We still enjoyed it tho, and I did get this:

It's my name in Mongolian

We were then given some free time around the main square area of the city before heading off for another meal. Myself and a couple of the others went in search of somewhere to post our postcards and I attempted to phone home (it was a stupid number of digits to use, like 20-30ish).


Dinner was followed by a visit to the Cashmere Market on our way to our final destination, Zaisan Hill. It's a huge memorial for Soviet Soldiers killed in World War 2 on the top of a hill just south of Ulaanbaatar.

Photo from travelblog.org

The inside of the ring is covered in a mural.

Zaisan Hill Inside View in Ulaanbaatar

This panorama is just perfect actually, it looked exactly like this when we were there. Have a look round at the mural and see if you can find the woman breast feeding!


Thanks to those that I borrowed photos from, thanks also to 360cities.net for the awesome panorama views!

International Man of Mystery

Or to put it more accurately... International Mystery of this Man.

That man being me of course, well, not him in the picture. That's definately not me!

And that International Mystery, well, hopefully you guys can give me a helping hand with that. As part of my grand plan, my evil plot or even my cunning ploy (depends on how you want to view it) for my scout troop I want to alternate having summer camps abroad and in the UK (but not in Lincolnshire).

Given that this summer we went to Kandersteg in Switzerland, one of my evil compatriots (aka. Assistant Leaders) will be organising 2011s summer camp somewhere in the UK. I would organise it, but I'm going to be a tad busy what with the Jamboree. But, as unbelievably far in advance this sounds... I'm going to have to get my finger out with summer camp 2012.

Yes, you read that right... I'm going to start organising summer camp 2012. Which will be abroad...

... somewhere...

... and that is the difficult part. WHERE?! I'm trying to pick three sites that I can get details for and present to the scouts for them to vote on. But which three?!

Do you, people of the interweb, have any good suggestions?

I'm looking for a campsite that would preferably deal with international scouts regularly, have a load of activities (on and off site) on offer that would be suitable for 10-14year olds... oh, and not cost a small fortune! I know, it is a lot to ask.

So please leave some comments to this post with recommendations of campsites. I asked nicely and said please after all

NOTE: Image is of Austin Powers and belongs to however in the film industry it belongs to

District Camp

Apparantly I can't say or do anything about this particular event without putting my size 9s in it...

... so I'm going to keep my mouth shut

Sorry to all who wanted to hear about District Camp

Gilwell Reunion

Well I've already said about me arriving onsite for Gilwell Reunion, I suppose I really should cover the rest of it!


This was my first time ever going to Gilwell, yet alone Gilwell Reunion, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.


I camped with Rosie, Rich and the rest of the Freespirit ESU gang from Wales; and after my late arrival the night before it was a pleasure to wake up the bacon butties (a pleasure purely reserved for camp)

And buying one of these... part of their fundraising efforts for the Jamboree.

Once suitably attired, it was time to explore the site. A big part of Gilwell Reunion is that they have a load of stalls to give you program ideas for your section.

"ooo, that looks interesting..." *picks up leaflet and shoves it in bag*

...*plods along*

"We could adapt that to work" *shoves more leaflets in bag*

...

*waits for freespirit people as they are selling stuff to random people*

...

"You heard of that before?" *grabs more bits of paper- which, if I am honest, I will most likely not look at again- and shoves into ever bulging bag*

But it wasn't just leaflets gallore, at a load of them you got to actually try out the activity as well.

Like making edable campfires....

Nom nom nom

Or tie dying, which unfortunately didn't have any gloves! thanks Lucy!

... and this was after me spending about 10minutes scrubbing them!

But it wasn't all work, there was Pimms on the Lawn

And a campfire... although it was a sit down one, didn't want any of the old dears to pop a hip now did we? The guy running it was brilliant tho, really funny

That and getting to see a load of my friends from past adventures again... some of which I havn't seen in about 3 years, which is just shockly long.

Was a fantastic weekend, lots of ideas on offer and some very very good company

Kandersteg 2010: Setting off

Well... I said that I would try to get this out on a faster timescale that the 3Nations posts... so here is the start of it anyway.

Friday 13th August 2010

Yup, it's Friday 13th.... and we are setting off on the groups first ever international camp, with 13 people. I'm just asking for trouble arn't I?

Given that the bus was supposed to arrive at the hall at 10:30, the sprogs at 10am and I wanted to make sure that I was at the hall in plenty of time to make sure that it would be open for them arriving... I asked Niall to give me a lift to the hall at 9am.

It was a good thing that the coach was early to pick us up. Tha Salvation Army (who we are linked with, just so that you know) was wanting to get into the hall to set things up for a funeral. So what is worse, setting off on a journey on Friday 13th or having your funeral on Friday 13th? Anyway, it wasn't long til we were on the road.

WOO HOO... Next stop Kandersteg.... err Essex? Ok, so we're picking up another group in Essex. Well, we all had our little mishaps with getting onto the coach, our was the funeral. Theirs was the fact that the heavens opened (it was actually a thunder and lightning storm) so all their stuff got wet. Including all the parents waiting to wave them off some were impressively resilitant.

Mim and Jo also got wet while running to the toilet while they were getting themselves onboard.Right, that's them all on board... let's go!

... let's GO!

...

...??

*tries to move bus through sheer mental will power*

.... GO!

... crud

Our next set of bus drivers, the long distance ones, were supposed to meet us at this pick up and take us to Switzerland. But they were still way behind us, stuck in motorway traffic... so here's the kicker, we DOUBLED BACK a bit to a service station we'd already stopped at to collect them.

Sprog: "these service stations look the same"... *facepalm*

Right, now off to Kandersteg... Euston Station in London, awww man! Picking up another group, and what was their coach loading troubles I hear you ask (that is you isn't it? Would be bad if those voices are back again) well, their group was split between two coaches. And the other coach wasn't there!

The sprogs that were already on the bus amused themselves trying to get Londoners to wave back to them good luck with that girls while the leaders already on the bus were in awe. Every adult is usually put in awe when met with someone famous from their childhood, and what is more they were going to be sharing the coach with us!

Must try to contain myself!

Wait... you want to know who it is?

Run for your life!

Turns out that the ghostbusters failed to kill him... either that or it was Hollywood trickery. Mind you, he didn't seam that happy about being banished to the back of the coach.

Your choice Stay Puft, your choice...

Ok, So now that we're all on... can we head to Kandersteg now? WOO HOO

Next we find out that, what with all the delays, we've already missed the ferry that we were supposed to be on. And there is one more ferry tonight. And we might not make it, in which case we would have to wait overnight for the ferry (making our arrival in Kandersteg very late indeed). Pedal to the metal time... damn you London traffic!

We managed to make the ferry, with about 15minutes to spare. So it was very very close.

We all had to leave the coach once we were on the ferry, and while on board we gave the kids a packet dinner. Sausage rolls, juice, fruit etc. Certainly easier and cheaper than getting dinner on board like was suggested to us!

Bye bye UK!

I was going to finish this post with us leaving the UK, as the rest was just bus journey. But I do have to share this little bit of wonders from a sprog. While the air conditioning had been off on the coach for the ferry ride over, it had gotten rather hot in there...
sprog: "I'm roasting like a spit-roast"

ha-mphf.... must not laugh! Little sprog doesn't realise why it is so funny... must protect sprogs sweet and innocent mind... must... not.... LAUGH

*Bites fist*

Thanks to those that let me use photos. Obviously the image of Stay-puft belongs to who-ever it belongs to... basically it ain't mine. Hope you don't mind me using it. Please don't sue me!

3Nations: Evacuation Day

Right, before I get started... if you havn't read them already, visit the Expedition page and follow the 3Nations Expedition from the start.

This post has been rated PG and contains scenes of mild-peril*
No Networkers were harmed in the making of this post.

*Trace amounts of other types of peril may be present.


Tuesday 21st July 2009

Well, this is probably the most memorable day of the expedition for all involved... and not for the right reasons... but before I get ahead of myself I should really start at the beginning of this rather eventful day.

We were to get up early this morning to make sure that we would be able to set off on the hike that our aravt was programmed to do. Given that this is Mongolia, and they generally have little use of maps, we had a Mongolian who was going to guide us on the hike.

Time keeping in Mongolia is a tad different from here in the UK. Generally when we say that we will set off around 9am, then we will try to set off as soon to that time as possible. In Mongolia they will wait for a good omen until they set off. This can mean that they will wait several hours until the omens are right.

I don't know what the omen was on this particular day, but it was actually nearer ten when we set off, heading just over the hill into the next valley and the entrance to the Bogd Khan National Park.

Once in the national park we headed to the museum and the ruined Manzhir Khid monastery. The place really was beautiful and rather awe inspiring.

One of my favourite pictures (that I took anyway). The blue cloth is used in prayer.

I just love the detail!

From the monastery we headed/scrambled up the steep slope behind it to the top of the hill, which is where our first mishap of the day happened. To be honest I am not entirely sure what happened, but one of the girls had a bit of a run in with a snake or something... anyway, she was a tad freaked out and required a bit of consoling. Once she was ok to carry on we set off again.

This smaller shine was part way up the slope.

Occasionally we would pass something similar to cairns randomly dotted in the hills, they would also have prayer flags attached to them. We were directed by our Mongolian guide to pick up some small stones, we were to walk round all of these cairns while adding our stones to it three times; first for luck, then for sorrow, then for luck... so that your journey will start and finish with luck.

It was about 12noon ish that we reached this really large one at the top of the hill, and after doing our circuits of it for luck we stopped to take some photographs of the stunning view.

The approach...

Woo hoo! I got there!

It doesn't really show well on camera... but out there, the horizon just keeps going further and further back. It's like the longer you stare at it the further it goes.

The guide set off again... wait a minute... we came from THAT direction... why is he going away from the site

"now we head for the summit"

.... oh crud...

We thought that we were at the summit already! We had been told that it would be a short walk and that we wouldn't need to take much in the way of supplies. But then again, we still hadn't got used to the Mongolians concept of time just yet.

It was actually 4 hours later that we reached the actual summit, with no food or water left... we were all starting to suffer from dehydration in the hot weather. But we were happy we had reached the summit.

To our left we could see Zuunmod...

to our right was Ulaanbaatar...

... and what's that thing in the middle...

... ohh yeah.... that'll be the biggest storm that they've had in 20years!

... ohhh and look, now its turning towards us

double crud!

We only stayed at the summit for a short while, as we raced down the mountain ahead of the storm. Unfortunately the storm won, it was only maybe 40mins or so after we started our descent that we were hit. This, ladies and gentlemen, is when the excrement collided with the propeller.

We got soaked. But why only be soaked by rain when you can be pummeled by hail stones that were the size of a 20pence piece. And believe me... they hurt! We were carrying our small day sack over our heads to try to provide a little bit of protection while we walked... but there was more than once we had to run for cover under the trees.

I know, I know, you don't need to tell me. Hiding under trees in a thunder and lightning storm isn't a good idea. Frankly it's dangerous. But at that point we were in too much pain to do anything but. Even when we were under the trees, with our bags over our heads we were crying out with pain when hit.

I managed to get one quick photo during one bit of hiding... just before we were told to turn everything electrical off so that we wouldn't attract any lightning.

The rest of the hike down to the site is frankly a bit of a jumble in my head. but there are certain things that stick out in my head.

Like the moment the lightning struck a nearby hill top, you could feel it through your entire body,  and our guide.... the ONLY person who knew where we were... curled up in a ball and started screaming like a little pansy.

I also remember getting scared senseless by the marmots, who had been forced out of their holes (as they were overflowing with water) and were defending their territory against us.

Or the 5 rivers of ice cold water, that hadn't been there that morning, which we had to wade across and which went half way up my thigh.

But, thankfully, we all made it back to the site to find chaos. The flash flood had ripped right through the camp. The people that had been onsite that day had been running around trying to secure everything and reduce the damage as much as possible. They had been panicking about us as they hadn't been able to get in contact with us (everything electrical switched off remember?) and had made sure that there was a ger heated up for us to get immediately bundled into.

We actually had to be stripped out of our wet clothes by the others, our hands had gone so numb that we couldn't bend our fingers. Basically they started treating us all for hypothermia and dehydration (remember we had run out of water as the start of the day had been gloriously hot and sunny).

Once we had recovered enough, we were moved back to our our ger to rest and recover more while the others finished securing the site. By this point it was about dinner time, so we took the decision to make ourselves useful and make dinner for everyone on site (as the others were so busy they didn't have any time to prepare anything).

It was once we had dinner ready that we had been told that the storm may be returning and we were to evacuate.

Everyone and all personal belongings were to be removed from the site... NOW. The race was back on, and we were determined to win this time. All of our stuff was packed, but we also had to pack all the gear from the people that were in Zuunmod and Ulaanbaatar, so we went from ger to ger grabbing things and stuffing it into any bag that you could find. It could be sorted out later.

Those that were on the hike and those that were ill were to be evacuated first, so that included my aravt. We were to be taken to a boarding school that was empty for the summer. It was like a refugee camp...

...mass confusion, stuff everywhere (chain gangs to move gear from the buses inside to the corridors), people going around trying to find their bags... even a hospital room for those that were in bad shape. It was good when I found Eds little room of calm. He had imposed a rule that anyone coming into the room was not the panic and just RELAX.

I remember writing up my diary that night, up until then I had usually done some little funny notes of things that had happened that day (which I have tried to share with you).... but I made a conscience decision not to make too light of a day that could have gone horribly wrong.

Thanks again to those I borrowed photos from

Please be reassured that everyone from the expedition fully recovered from the effects of the storm, it was later reported to us that 8 Mongolians in Ulaanbaatar died... my thoughts and prayers go out to them and their families.

Honey I'm Home!

All going well, I should now be back in Lincolnshire after an awesome week in Kandersteg, Switzerland... with a diary full of memories to pass onto all of you.


Woo hoo


... now to do that laundry

... damn

3Nations: Day On Site

If you're new to the blog then feel free to back to the start of the 3Nations posts, they are all linked on the Expedition page.

Monday 20th July 2009

So it's the first day of activities in Mongolia, in a rather full program... so, what does my aravt have...

*looks up timetable*

... a day off. cool.

Well, a day to relax and get into the laid back Mongolian way of life is a rather good way to start off any expedition. And as we're being laid back we were able to get a lie in, which was very welcome after all the traveling and setting up the site yesterday.

Our first traditional Mongolian activity was stitching, initially they were only going to teach this to the girls of the group... until Dan managed to convince them that the guys should have a go too.


Some of the guys, unfortunately, lived up to the poor expectations of the girl teaching it!


After our bit of stitching we got to try some Mongolian writing, which if I am honest is really difficult. First you have to change the word to the Cyrillic alphabet and then into the Mongolian... which has three different forms for the letters (start middle and end).

It means Mongol by the way

If you want to try it then you can find tables with the letters on wikipedia.

And now, for the laid back nature of this part of the trip, a four hour lunch! I wonder if I could sell this concept to the office?

Eventually we tried the some of the Mongolian music. In total we had three things to try... the horse-head fiddle, the flute and some throat singing.

 

First off the fiddle.

and yes... that is me trying it

*screach*


*squeal*


*squeek*


As you can see from the picture above, instead of holding it under your chin, you hold it between your legs. The bow hand actually holds the bow strings tight and the other hand presses the strings. But again it's different from our fiddles, there are only two strings and instead of pressing them into the wood you have to press them across... which makes it really difficult as you have to match the pressure with the bow for the sound to sound right. And even then sometimes your fingers go over the strings and other times then go underneath!


Fortunately I wasn't actually that terrible at it! But what i really wanted to try was the flute. I used to play it in school so I should easily be able to play it, all I would have to do is work out the new fingering right....


... right?


I couldn't even make a sound out of it!


Right sod it, I'll try the throat singing.


*droan*
*gargle without water sound*
*cough, splutter...


wait a minute, what did he just say? "if you practice this wrong then your throat will bleed" Ok, maybe I'll just leave that to the Mongolians...


... crazy b******* (edited for any younger readers- its crazy bananas by the way... just to let you know, honest)


Here's some people that actually know what they are doing!

Lessons learned today...

• The badger can be buried
• Some Mongolians also know some pretty filthy phrases in English
• The program can and will change
• Unfortunately the badger is like a pheonix and can rise from the dead... either that or its zombie badger. I don't know what is worse.

 
 Thanks again for those I borrowed photos from

3Nations: Off to Mongolia

Previous 3Nations entries can be found on the Expedition page

Sunday 19th July 2009
The Chinese believe in the whole good/bad balance, they call it yin yang. This morning, at least was... well... balanced.

Good: We were getting a flight to Mongolia today! woo hoo
Bad: We had to leave the hotel at 3am to get to the airport

Good: We were given rice cakes on the bus
Bad: That was the only food we got til the plane as everything was shut at the airport

Good: We arrived at the check out desk the designated 3 hours before departure
Bad: No one told the airline staff this, they didn't start check in til an hour and a half after we arrived.

Good: The flight was relatively short
Bad: The flight was relatively bumpy

Ulaanbaatar

But all that didn't matter... we were all successfully transported to Mongolia, the main part of the expedition experience. If only we could say the same thing for the luggage. Heather was unfortunately without a bag, a hour or so of investigation... and getting us to all line up with our bags to make sure that none of us had it by accident... revealed that it had fallen off the luggage cart on the runway in China. errr, opps

Ulaanbaatar Airport, it's really small... only two gates!

Just before setting off on the coaches, we were introduced to our Mongolian scouts, they would be paired with an aravt (group... kind of like a patrol) for the length of our stay in Mongolia. I am a part of the Lion Aravt, and Anne is our Mongolian scout

go Lions!

... we rock...

Sorry, just a little bit of Lion PRIDE coming out there...

you know it's rude to groan out loud like that!

Anyway... it wasn't that long a trip to the camp site, located just outside the Bogd Khan National Park (on the south side, near the Manzushir Monastary and Zuunmod). It was an absolutely stunning spot.

Stunning isn't it...

Absolutely unbelievable, completely untouched and incredibly fresh (well the freshness was extremely noticeable given that we had just traveled from the smog of Beijing!). The grass even had some wild thyme in it... so when walking about you would kick it up and get a lovely whiff of it.


As you can see from the photos above, not all of the gers had been built (they're the 'tents' that Mongolian Nomads use)

Ger Building 101:
First, start off with the floor

... and some confused looking Mongolian scouts

Put together the center of the roof in the middle of the floor area 

Tie together the curved trellis like walls (all 5 of them)

 

... wait for Mongolian guy to fix your work....

Get some people to hold the roof centre upright in the middle of the floor area

Attach the roof slats, slotting them into the central wheel and looping the horse hair string to the trellis

Getting there...

woo hoo!

Cover roof with layer of cotton like fabric

Cover roof and walls in thick wool

Get someone to climb onto the roof

Final top layer of cotton like material (white of course)

Strap it all in...

... and stick two posts in at the door

And Bobs your estranged sibling of one of your parents (ok uncle then- but am sticking with the estranged, fine then.... just strange then)

Notice some people digging in the background in some of those photos? Well... that's people digging out the toilets. I'll leave those details* out, am sure you'll thank me.

With the completion of the gers and the toilets it was time to officially open the camp with a little ceremony. The Scouting, Mongolian, Union and Austrian flags were all raised over the camp, and the Mongolian part of the expedition was underway. Which is when Troll decided to surprise us with a gift. Our very own Mongolian top!

That's the Mongolian scouts being presented with the expedition neckies

Each aravt had its own set of colours, the Lions were red and silver, and it had Mongolia written in Mongolian script on it. Very classy. I still wear it to some camps actually

 Random lessons learned:

• 80 people in a queue to check in at stupid o'clock in the morning can have an uncanny resemblance to human-pick-up-sticks.
• Sitting next to Stu on a plane can be hazardous to your health (number of flights so far=2, number of people beside stu throwing up=2, number of others throwing up=0... coincidence?).
• Tiny, little, sweet, innocent Beth can be a force to be reckoned with when she is trying to get the bus to sing.
• In Mongolia, large stage coaches are apparently classed as off road vehicles.
• ... either that or anything resembling a brown smudge on the ground is classed as a road.
• The in fight magazine informed us that it is actually socially acceptable to throw bricks at cars that run red lights in China! 

*Throughout the Mongolian part of the trip the conversation regularly turned to toilet matters... things like colour, consistency and even artistic impression were discussed. This is how sophisticated we were, and this is what I will spare you from in the future! (except when I publish the International Toileting Badge requirements later- and yes we came up with all the requirements while away)

Again, thanks to those that let me borrow steal their photos