Our tour requirements were: 4 nights / 5 days, Gobi desert, horseback-riding, and camel riding. We certainly got all that, and more than we ever imagined. We got a bright pink jeep 4x4 and a driver named Darien, who spoke approximately between 5 and 8 words of English. It has been frustrating communicating with Darien at times, but sign-language and gestures go a long, long way. He has a good sense of humor, and is very friendly.

By way of pothole-filled roads, dirt tracks, and open grasslands, he has taken us across endless vast expanses of terrain to see the "mini" Gobi desert (barely qualifies as sand dunes in my mind - very dissatisfied), visit the ancient Silk Route capital Kharakorum, sleep by a large waterfall, and spend time with no less than 9 nomadic herder Mongolian families. He taught us bits and pieces of the Mongol language, which according to one author of the Mongolian Lonely Planet, sounds like "two fighting cats hissing and spitting at one another". For example, "bai-aarl-laa" means thank you, "sain-ban-oo" means hello, and "amt-tai" means delicious.

The most interesting, awful, and eye-opening experience was the food: various Mongolian cheeses, milks, and mutton. Most of it, I'll be honest, was pretty awful (especially the hard cheeses and "airag", the fermented mare's milk), but the meat dishes were OK, if repetitive. My favorite dish was pronounced "tsui-van", which was fried sliced dough/pasta strips with mutton, carrots, and onions. Most gers (Mongolian yurt tents) we stopped at offered us airag, which according to custom we were obliged to drink as guests. Apparently it is extremely impolite to refuse a gift or food. That is a shitty rule. Airag is a nasty, sour, tangy, bitter-fermented stew that you sip from a bowl (they don't use cups). I've easily ingested a 1/2 gallon or more of the stuff! :-P

The other crazy food story I have happened the second night by the waterfall, after we showed up unannounced at a herder's ger hoping for some famous Mongolian hospitality. And boy did he deliver! So kind and hospitable was he, that the man went into his flock of sheep, plucked one out animal before my eyes, and killed it beside the ger for dinner. (!) It was one of the most basic, terrifying, and awesome acts I have ever witnessed, and I shall certainly remember it for the rest of my life. The sheep, laid on its back across the herder's lap, bucked and kicked but made no sound as the man deftly made an incision in its chest and stuffed his arm inside to (presumably) grab the beast's heart and kill it. The procedure was quite bloodless, but I still had to shield Nelle's eyes to save her from years of nightmares, I'm sure.

Two hours later, the living, breathing, carefree creature I had seen earlier sat in front of me in a bowl, inside dumplings. I shudder when I think about it; the dumplings were really good though...