:: zone3 ::

A while since being online for more than a couple of minutes.

Spent two days at Heavenly Lake staying in Yurts (Gers). A beautiful mountain lake area off to the side of the Taklamakan desert. It's the source of some of the water for the Karez in the region. Was nice and relaxing spending a couple of days by the lake. The mountain are snow capped and looked a bit like home (a little like the Nelson Lakes area).

After the nice relaxing, on to long driving days in a bus... Although the views of the sand in the desert are amazing to see, it is a bit tiring spending 22 hours in a bus over a couple of days.

Mongolia was pretty cool to visit. Staying in a Ger camp made for nice
relaxing night. Went off horse ride for a couple of hours and then another
the next day after the night in the Ger. Ger's make for a nice warm place
to stay the night.

After headiing back to the Mongolian capital for a night, was on to more
trains. Then time a 30 hours on to Beijing. Sleeper trains do make for a
fun way to travel. Although a bit tight on space.

Beijing is like many monden Metropolis'. Getting around is pretty easy,
taxis everywhere. The traffic is interesting for crossing. Much like
Vietnam, walk across and hope the cars dodge you. Was surprised how clean the city is. Prob cleaner than central Wellington.