EACH DAY IS A LITTLE LIFE

365/365: The End.

We meet the children at the day care centre, in the morning. What a lovely, playful, affectionate bunch they are! We take a trip to the outskirts of UB and set up our shared campsite with the kids, for the next few days. And those next few days are some of the best days of my life.

One whole year. And it ended at only the beginning of my expedition to Mongolia. There were so many more pictures, and I will probably put them up on flickr. And I will certainly write  a proper concluding post for this project.

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Another day of travelling. A bus journey takes a whole day, but we arrive at the day care centre in the evening, meet Swedish Alex, and sleep in a ger. Neil vomits on Callum’s face.

A Mongolian woman on the street asks her husband to take a picture of her, Katie, Kiran, me and Emma. Probably the most multicultural photo ever taken.

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Hot springs. Gorgeous day. Heated water, heated rocks, hot weather. It feels like a spa. Lunch was a blessing - a three course meal. We are reunited with Katie and Kiran when they return from the hospital and Fairfield. Katie and I endure a hilarious taxi journey with the driver driving so fast over rocky roads that we have to stop the tire needs to be changed. Off to Fairfield for one last night of sleeping in a bed, for a few weeks.

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I force myself to eat, because my eating habits of barely eating anything tied in with extensive exercise is making my body break down. A 12 km trek turns into a gruelling 20 km trek apparently, because Togi directed us in the wrong direction. It rains. We find shelter under a horse stable.

The picture shows the aftermath.

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River crossing. We thought we had to cross one river. After the relief of crossing one and putting down branches as balance guides, we were told there was another.

Especially hot day. No shade. Our only source of water on this day’s trek is blackened water that cows were bathing in. The heat kills me and I nearly faint. Emerson falls into a cowpat. Our new campsite is beautiful. We bathe in the river, play cards, make dinner, congratulate Togi, our Mongolian guide who speaks little English, about his engagement. Ian wears animal bones.

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My fear of certain bugs begins to vanish. They’re everywhere, they’re crawling on me, they’re in my tent while I sleep, what can I do?

The immortal “Everydog” and “St. Vincent” running joke begins between me, Emma and Kiran. My iPod dies after playing 2 and a half songs (You’ll Be Mine by The Pierces, She Needs Me by Fyfe Dangerfield and half of Rufus Wainwright’s Across the Universe) meaning that I don’t listen to any music that isn’t Mongolian folk until I arrive back in London, a month later. Katie goes to hospital because the soles of her feet are coming off, as her blisters are infected. Emma and I chatter about cravings. We hang our clothes on driftwood by the spectacular island of a campsite. I eat a proper meal for the first time on the expedition.

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Second day of trekking. The weather is slightly cooler, but much more bearable. We stop for lunch, it rains, and a Mongolian family invites us inside their ger, welcoming us with a distinctive tasting salty-soup-tea.

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Eight hour bus journey turned into a 10 hours. I will never forget this ride. Lightly slept, only to be woken up by a child hitting me on the head with a toy firetruck. This would be the same child that urinated on Katie’s leg.

People sat on small plastic stools in the aisle of the bus, for the duration of the journey. The same CD was played on a loop for 10 hours straight - I can now say that I know a few Mongolian folk songs by heart.

Woke up, inside a ger, to the sight of two small children opening the door, letting blindingly bright daylight creep inside in a playful manner. Breakfast, then our first day of the foot trek.

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Learning that alcohol (especially vodka) plays a key role in Mongolian culture.

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A day of shopping for supplies to last us the trek phase.