shit happens and other incidentals...

when you've traveled in random countries, it's inevitable that you'll end up with a shit story...i already had one from thailand, and now i've got one from mongolia...i don't intend to tell the thai story, sorry to dash your dreams...it was plenty embarassing with just me...
anywho, the day started for me in the middle of the night when i woke up and had to go to the bathroom...not so much fun knowing that the outhouse wasn't exactly close to the ger, and that there was no moon to help light my way...i ended up walking what i thought was 100m in a straight line, and squatted...the first ger i tried was locked, which meant it wasn't our ger...whoops...the second was our ger, and i managed to knock into several things making my way back to my bed...hee hee...while i was outside, the weather was crap...sleet, and a whole lot of wind...when we'd gone to bed it was incredibly windy, and therefore very dusty...sometime after dark (we all went to bed just after 2100) the rainclouds rolled in, yuck...peeing in the dark, in the sleet and wind...ugh...
the next morning when we opened the ger door the whole area we could see was covered in snow...not a lot of snow, but it was totally white...and still snowing! i was both thrilled and a bit worried...i think everyone else felt the same...we didn't know what the roads would be like, and our guide had already been talking about the traffic jams of UB...
after breakfast, i needed to use the loo again...how annoying...this time i could see, so i walked over to the loo...and after doing my business, as i started to stand up, i heard a small thud...i looked down to see koen and kim's camera, falling into the hole...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! you know that feeling when you can see things happening in slow motion but you can't stop anything? that's exactly how i felt...i would've been upset if it had been my camera, but i was even more upset that it wasn't my camera...that someone had trusted me with something of theirs, and i'd dropped it down the shitter...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! so i ran back to the ger, burst in and told them "your camera is currently in a very smelly place"...i had tears running down my cheeks, i was so mad at myself...it was a horrible feeling...fortunately, they were much more calm than i was...(they told me later that both of them started thinking "hey, we can get a new camera")...kim went to find khorelee (sp?) and explain what happened...she told our driver, who came to help me...if i had been able to reach my hand down the hole far enough to grab the camera, i would've...but i do not have go go gadget arms...definitely not...instead, lauge (sp?) found some barbed wire, and unrolled enough of it so that it would reach the shit...he put on dishwashing/cleaning gloves, and managed to hook it on the safety thingy on the side of the camera, bringing it up carefully...my relief at this point was huge...i was still totally embarassed that i'd done anything in the first place...fortunately, the camera was still in it's case, so it was fine...(much to the disappointment of kim and koen who realized they wouldn't be getting a new camera after all)...the case wasn't that dirty, but it was still decided that they would toss the case, and get a new one in UB...

after renaud returned from his walk, we loaded everything in the van, and got started on the way back to UB...the "roads" weren't as bad as i had secretly feared, and lauge was just as good a driver as he'd been previously in the tour...he had the van under perfect control...the traffic in UB wasn't that bad, at least it didn't seem that way to me...we stopped at a fast food (mongolian fast food of course) place for lunch, which was pretty good...i had rice, and meat inside an omelette...taro wasn't pleased with his meal, and let the whole restaurant know...he definitely makes his opinions known!
after lunch, we tried to go see gandhan khiid...(the monastary/temple i saw my first full day in UB) but as we started to go in the temple, a guy came and said we had to pay an entrance fee...i'm all for paying such things, but not so much when they're only geared toward foreigners...and the camera fee is DEFINITELY only aimed at foreigners...i know the other people i'd seen in there previously hadn't paid any camera fee...we decided against the fee, and got back in the van after watching taro run through the pigeons a few times...so cute:)
returning to the guesthouse was kinda nice...since i'd spent a few nights there over this trip, it practically feels like home...i got another single room, this one in a different building...not really a different building, but i had to enter through a different door, and i didn't have access to the communal room except by going outside...not that it mattered...i went to the post office, bought a frog for my sister, met kim and koen in the grocery store in the state department store, where i bought a bag of chocolates i shouldn't have bought...oops...back to the hostel where i took a shower, it felt fabulous...soooo clean!!
as a group, we'd decided to go out to dinner after we had all cleaned up...since kim and koen are vegetarians, the obvious option was a vegetarian option...they'd been in several in the days they spent in UB, so we decided on their favourite, a place called luna blanca...we invited khorelee and lauge, they said yes...i'm not sure whether they really wanted to go, but they did come along...lauge definitely likes meat, so he probably wasn't all that keen, but anywho...i loved my meal, and if i'd been in UB longer, i definitely would've gone back...oh well...king taro ate quite a bit, though not of his own meal...he drank a bunch of each of his parents' smoothies, and some of their meals as well...at one point, we figured it was time to go home and put taro to bed...
after prince taro went to sleep, the rest of us met in the communal room to swap photos...we loaded each of our photos on a computer, then everyone had a jump drive with which to copy the photos...given my crap camera situation i was thrilled to get copies of renaud's and the dutch photos...not long after that, i was ready to go to bed...especially since i had to get up so early...i hate really really really early mornings like that...

not surprisingly, the taxi wasn't there when i wanted it to be...i had arranged it the night before, but of course it wasn't there when i arranged it...0430 is a time when people aren't usually awake...fortunately, it doesn't take long to get to the airport, so i had a bit of time to play with...i did get to the airport, and checked in quickly...i flew out of gate 1, which made me wonder if they ever have a gate 2? it was still snowing a bit when the plane took off!! for goodness sake, it's nearly the end of april!!!