So... After being really bored to the verge of falling asleep while standing, we decided to spend a couple of dollars extra and get our money's worth of fun..

We went to the Terelj National Park just outside Ulan Bator. This was Friday 29 Spetember 2006..
We booked this trip from our host Manlai, it was some of his friends to whom we were going.
On our way there, Manlai showed us this formation of rocks called Turtle rock.



We even climbed in the "belly" of the turtle.. That was real nice.
Then we continued towards our final destination, Manlai's friends. These people actually live in the national park, they live in these kind of huge tents called "ger".
This family has been living here for the past six years, summers and winters alike.



The locals use eagles to hunt foxes and of course to entertain tourists.. The ger on the left is the one we got whole to ourselves..
This family had also other domestic animals all around, horses, kettle (some sort of cows and bulls) and dogs.. All of them running loose together. Oh I forgot to mention also that this camel came near our camp, no idea whose it might have been.

So yeah, we arrived here in the morning, and after some icy joghurt, we got horses and went on riding in the vast plains of Mongolia..
First we got these older horses, maybe just that our guide examines our riding skills, they didn't want to gallop at all, mostly they just walked which was ok for us since we really had no experience with horses.. We went pretty far even though, at some point going into the woods.


From here on we got to climb up a this hill..



After this climbing, we took a break at this higher plateau admiring the views of vast emptiness..



Of course the break was for the horses to catch their breath. After we went back to our camp and our horses even run a bit.. This was really awesome except for the fact that I got an abrasion in the middle of my butt.. =)