Day 6

Waking up in the school dorm, warm. Happy 25th birthday to me! Off we go to the white lake and to hiking its volcano (name).

An absolutely stunning drive completely off road through the mountains.

The white lake is stunning, quiet and very clean (it turns out after a long conversation the nomads of the lake are very concious of this), and completely frozen. Beautiful patterns lace it from dark blues to pure whites.

We arrive around lunch time at our local familys gers by the lake for the night, one of my favourite gers so far, three beds in our one (we'll only use one for warmth) and a round log fire, it's the perfect size. It's windy by the lake front with a slight snowfall in the air, the wood doesn't last long and the son of the owners bring us literally a metal bathtub of extra logs to set us up for the night.

We reach the summit of the volcano around 4.30pm and boy is it chilly...and snowing slightly. It bears an impressive crater with a few trees growing down into it. The view of the lava flow from above is impressive and clearly reaches for miles.

We play yam and rummy until dinner. When we go into our driver and guides tent for supper they had bought wine, lit candles, made a 26 sign (near enough!) and served cake too. Not forgetting a red, sparkly, feathered birthday hat! The man of the gers joined us and Idras snuff bottle was passed around (it smelt really nice) as is customary when meeting and greeting other people and families. The owner had even made me a traditional Mongolian puzzle game out of an animal leg bone and two ankle bones, inscribed with the name of his ger camp (name). It was very touching, he tried to show me how to solve it but Idra later informed me he had had some vodka at lunch! What lovely people is something I think every day. We passed it around for each of us to have a go at.Läs mer