Today we said farewell (and thanks) to Ulanbaatar, Chuka's Guest House (Chinzo, Turuu and Chuka), and especially thanks to the guys Tony, Todd and Barnsey at TWB (The Mongolian Drilling Company). We will (and already are) reflecting on our time in UB as enjoyable and interesting and are pleased that we spent enough time in the city to feel we got to know it a little.
After some extended good-byes at TWB, taking on some water, getting some hydraulic fluid, we were on our way. It took about 20 minutes to escape from the crazy traffic around the TWB facility and then we were in the country side on a good black top road and the green rolling hills of Mongolia were stretching out all around us.
Our plan for the remainder of our time in Mongolia is to limit our travel to 100 km per day (as a concession to what we expect to be very rough roads), however today with the good roads we traveled a little further.
We stopped in one little village (Lun) this afternoon to see if Nina could buy some vegetables. While she was at that chore I noticed people filling water containers at the village water pump house. A nice little white building surrounded by a blue fence.
Finding a camp for the night was simply a matter of pulling off the road onto a patch of the infinite sea of grass and getting far enough from the road that noone could hit us. Across the road from us a family in a Ger (Mongolian felt house) was tending to a large herd/flock of animals (mixture of goats, sheep, and horses).