We’re off again today, can’t wait – 2 more nights of wonderful huge landscapes (and no wifi).

To give you an idea, Mongolia has the lowest population density in the world with just over one person per square kilometre (UK  has just under 400). Total population is about 3 million, over half of whom live  in Ulan Bataar.

UB was a moveable capital til less than 250 years ago, now its just a big city, people flocked here 30 or so years ago in search of all the usual things but many of them still live in gers in the suburbs, or have a house with a ger next to it. At heart every Mongolian is a nomad and at weekends likes nothing better than to take his ger off into the wilds and hunt wild boar and barbecue it. They are not profligate – they well respect the environment and wildlife and are not actually supposed to hunt but its who they are!

Nearly all the animals we see are healthy and well cared for except, very sadly, one of the national parks we visited where, for some reason there were also far too many carcasses lying around and horses excluded from the herd, nothing but skin and bone, soon to be carcasses themselves.

Ger suburb of Ulan Bator