The Chingis Khan Pilgrimage

OK-- This is a mess, the computer is puking, I am pissed at dumb computers (among other things) and outa this computer cafe!! Maybe another day. . .

Well, we rolled out of UB in our three-van caravan early Friday, ready to start tracing some of the Great Khan's life stories-- visiting where he was born, captured the thieves who stole his eight horses, perhaps died, was crowned Great Khan, and the like. Two Russian vans and one Mitsubishi-- tho the Japanese van looks nicer, it will turn out that the Russkie vans are sturdier in the vast, vast steppes that we will traverse.

All are four-wheel drive, but the Russian vans seem to have better suspension and handle the fact of virtually no roads at all better than the Mistsubishi, which likes paved roads. . . unfortunately there are none.

Along the way, we stopped for lunch at a sort of "town". . . and in my wanderings I wandered into a snooker room-- I have never played, but with the encouragement of the guys and a few shots of the ever-present vodka, I took a few shots and missed every time! Oh well-- the vodka was good, I only held the crew up for a few minutes and was able to snooze a bit through the grinding ride.

As I said, Chingis Khan is huge over here (about 120 feet huge, in this case):

Well, I gotta see a man about a horse. . . .this was the line that we all used when we made a pit stop. . . in the beginning, we would all politely wander off in different directions, hopefully discrete, the girls in particular preferring to crouch and pee behind a hill or whatever. . . by the end of day one, however, we would pile out of the van and if somebody made it as far as around to the back of the van that was considered rather polite of them. . . we are slowly getting weirder. . .