Today started off relatively nicely – a horse trek out out to see the Ghengis Khan monument – a 14km round trip horse ride to the largest statue of Ghengis Khan in the world.

First item of business… pick a horse. Now, I can ride. I rarely ride though as I am not a big horsey person (I’d prefer a motor bike) and I think the last time I was on a horse was about 8 years ago in Iceland so I asked for the most placid horse they had. I was given a palamino which I promptly named “Dopey” but in all fairness he turned out to be a really good horse.

Here’s a picture of Dopey:

After about an hour on Dopey, my butt was sore but more worryingly, my knee was killing me. Anyway, we made it to the monument and whilst the guys went to have a look around, I tried to rest the knee a bit as I knew I had to go 7km back on Dopey.

Anyway… after an hour or so, we decided it was time to head home and this is where things began to get a little unstuck. As you can see from the photo above, the clouds where coming in and we must have got about halfway back to the camp before sheets of rain hit us. The horses all refused to move. They turned with their backsides to the rain and just stood there. None of us had rain gear as it had been very sunny before this. We dismounted and stood with our backs to the rain which promptly turned into a mix of rain and hail. I was wearing a singlet top so the hail hitting my bare shoulders really hurt but there was no where to go and absolutely no shelter.

Whilst we were standing there we saw a vehicle coming towards us. Someone said wouldnt it be good if that was for us! The vehicle pulled up and out jumped one of our guides… I’ve never seen a more welcome sight! She piled us in the back and took us back to the camp. By this stage we were soaked and freezing. It’s amazing how fast the rain can come over in this country.

Anyway… now changed into dry clothes and there is a fire going in my Ger so I am all happy now. Oh… and did I mention that I am sunburned from the ride out to the statue???