So, today was it – the Nadaam festival – and we watched the most joyful celebration of a nation’s culture I have ever seen. The stadium was packed, there were bands and dancers and march pasts of people representing every aspect of Mongolia from past to present with camels and yaks and horses galore, in fact the horse is absolutely central to Mongolian culture and the horse is what was so exuberantly shown off today..

It was wonderful and equally wonderful was milling around outside the stadium before and after, among the performers lining up ready in all their glorious traditional costumes, families out for the day, many wearing all sorts of variations of local dress, hundreds of food stalls all packed, stalls selling all the usual stuff you get at a festival, horses in among the crowds, everyone happy and excited to be there.

In fact happy crowds has been a delightful feature of this whole trip from the street party atmosphere in Moscow in the build up to the World Cup to Ulan Ude with the cultural show there and enjoying everybody milling round in the square to here in Ulan Bataar with the various Nadaam events we’ve been to and the big square where people love to gather and enjoy the statues and music and just hanging about enjoying life.

Another happy gathering the other day found us out in the desert in one of the remotest places on earth, no wifi, the only electricity there was generated on site with solar power and what do we do of an evening? Crowded round a television and cheered our boys through to the world cup semi final!!!!