Back in UB

By steve on August 27th, 2004

We’re back in Ulaan Baatar! We have officially survived our 18-day road trip — now let’s see if we can make it back to Seattle.

18 days of squatting over pots and pans finally caught up to Kate this morning and she threw out her back while washing the breakfast dishes. A pharmacy gave us something called Diclofenac to treat the pain (no codeine in this country!), but it doesn’t seem to be working (yet).

Tonight we’re going to have some much-deserved showers and try to squeeze in a bout of laundry. Tomorrow we’re going to do some souvenir shopping and have one last dinner with Tsogo and Ganba. The day after that, we’re on the train back to Beijing!

Recent highlights of the trip include:
– riding camels!
– drinking vodka with Mongolians!
– blessings from a Lama!
– eating lots of strange food!
– listening to people talk in Mongolian and not understanding a word of it!
– many, many, rounds of Moshik! (a card game)
– actual paved roads!

Overall the road trip was great and (aside from a few bouts of illness) we both had a wonderful time.

Recent pictures here (#126 – #157).

We’ll probably check email once again tomorrow, and then we’ll be offline until we get back to Seattle on Aug 31.