She picked us up in a Land Rover and told us not to get used to the ‘road’. We were only on it for about 45 minutes before it ran out and we were driving over the rough terrain of the thawing desert. Passing over the last ice-covered streams, we disturbed a pair of Bar-Headed Geese along the way. In the distance we could make out the occasional Ger, surrounded by mountains, scrubland and packs of wild horses.Another hour passed before our guide pointed out a solitary settlement of a couple of Gers and a stable – she explained that we would have lunch here. A small family welcomed us inside a large Ger to a brightly painted room filled with suitcases, three beds and a fire. The fire is the central point of every Ger as it provides essential heat and acts as a stove (in these conditions and in this nomadic lifestyle the fire is sacred). The father of the household was resting on his bed, watching Mongolian game shows on a small black-and-white television powered by a car battery. His wife was tending to the food: bubbling on the hearth was a stew and next to the a table with a plate of home-made biscuits served with blueberry jam. We were invited to join them for lunch and we ate mutton stew and noodles washed down with glasses of salty mare’s milk.

Next to the house was a small wooden stable which sheltered goats, and was protecting the first spring kids and their mothers from the cold desert winds. The father of the family came out and showed us a pair of brown goat twins who had been born a week ago which he promptly thrust into our arms. The family also had three dogs, three horses and a cat whose newly-born kitten was taking a nap in a child’s toy castle. Spring was in the air and with it came an air of celebration and a focus towards renewal and rebirth.

After lunch, we said goodbye to the family and were taken to the museum of Mongolian history which is housed within a giant, hollow statue of Chinggis Khan (the common Western transliteration ‘Genghis’ isn’t quite right, we found out). The founder’s original vision for this desert folly was to create a hub for Mongolian tourism with a tourist Ger village surrounding its base. Sadly, before even the statue could be completed, he was killed in a car accident. Others are continuing his work, however (although the Ger village is thankfully on hold), and the collection of artefacts from the era of Chinggis’ rule were on the whole fascinating – (I say on the whole because of the giant Mongolian boot).

Just before sunset, we were driven to our home for the next two nights – a settlement of ten Gers in a desert valley. The pipes hadn’t yet thawed enough for the shower and toilets to work so washing was from a bucket of water, and the toilet was an Eco style sawdust arrangement a couple of minutes walk from the camp. As we settled into our tent (which was beautifully painted) and wonderfully warm thanks to the fire, we stared to smell tempting aromas coming from the ‘kitchen’ tent a couple of rows down. A gong soon sounded to announce dinner and we sat down along with seven other guests (4 Irish and 3 Australian) to a simple but hearty dinner of pasta and mutton with blueberry juice (with or without Chinggis vodka). We also managed to try some booz’i, the spiritual precursor to dumplings such as Dim Sum and ravioli, which were brought to Peking (then known as Karakorum) by the Mongolian army and, suitably dried, allowed them to travel huge distances across the desert.

By evening the temperature had dipped to – 10 so it was important to keep the fire in the Ger going all night. We were told that someone would come in and light the fire every couple of hours so not to worry if we heard the door open. The next morning we awoke in our toasty Ger to a beautiful sunrise. After a breakfast of blueberry jam and biscuits, we we went for a morning walk across the desert, aiming to climb a hilly peak in the distance. We navigated our way through thawing streams and herds of horses which had recently been let out to pasture now the worst of the winter was over. From the peak of the hill we could see them in their winter coats, clearly enjoying their freedom – bucking and playing – which was in stark contrast to the few horse skulls on the hillside left behind by those who had been more unlucky.

When we got back to camp we were asked if we’d like to see a little more of the desert on a horseback with Batsuk Ala, the local horseman. I hadn’t ridden for a few years but we thought it would be a good way to explore. The horses were frisky and clearly weren’t enjoying having their saddles back on after six months of freedom. As we rode out we passed a grazing herd of horses which which began to Whinnie causing my horse to strain and veer off in their direction. The horseman told me to say chu firmly which seemed to work. There was something rather magical about riding over the desert terrain with no sign of settlement or other humans around. The horses obviously knew their way home and I barely had to touch the reigns on the return which was a bit of a relief.

We got back to camp in time for sunset where our surroundings glowed red making us feel like me were on a moonscape.

Two days didn’t feel long enough as we prepared to return to Ulanbaatar the next morning to reconnect with the Trans-Mongolian train which would take us on the five-day journey to Moscow. On the journey back, Odtka told us about the significance of the Mongolian flags which we passed along the roadside. These are part of a worship ceremony and each colour held different significance – red = fire; white = compassion; yellow = sun; blue = sky; green = earth and black = burial. In Mongolia (Buddhist style) sky burials are common wherein a corpse is left without protection in a specific place (such as a mountain top) for the elements to take it – it is essentially given back to nature. Odtka also showed us how our names would be written in Mongolian (where letters are written vertically rather than horizontally).

Before reaching the station, we had just enough time to stop at an old Buddhist temple and have a look around. Giant prayer wheels and an ancient wooden temple-front had been beautifully preserved, and despite the best efforts of the Soviet-era government, who destroyed many of the temples, a large number of Mongolians practice Buddhism today.

By the time we reached Ulaanbaatar station, the train was already there and people were busy loading big packages on board. We said goodbye to Odtka and went in search of the cabin we would call home for the next five days…

Everything about the train oozed that 90′s vision of space-age chrome and glass, made even more 90′s in essence by Jackie Chan punctuating the news broadcasts flashing up on the carriage’s TV screens to announce his latest tiger-saving project with some Kung-fu moves. The first few hours were relatively relaxed with passengers reading newspapers, working on laptops or watching other screens but it wasn’t long before the smells from the dining car wafted their way through to our carriage causing a mass exodus to the heart of the train where a rapid-fire service of microwaved rice, meat and sauce was taking place (don’t try and ask for the vegetarian option unless you are the type who enjoys sowing chaos and confusion). The food was unexceptional but tasty and more importantly, given our general state of health at this point, packed full of microwaved oils and vitamins.

Our train from Shanghai arrived at Beijing in the late afternoon where we managed to find a cab to drive us to the happily-named Sunrise hostel, a short walk from the Forbidden city. As we drove away from the station, the sun began to sink, setting the murky haze of the city’s main arteries alight with the fire of a million headlights. The honking cars, bicycles, carts and masses of people pouring out of office buildings made a stark contrast to the clinical and calm surrounds that we’d just spent the last 6 hours in.

The following morning, we had an early start as we had decided to join a group from the hostel who had hired a mini-bus to Mutianyu, a popular segment of the Great Wall that has been restored and geared up to tourists. The two hour journey there was uneventful but one of the team from the hostel animatedly warned us not to lose heart over the Disneyland-esque entrance to the wall as once we were up there, we didn’t have to ‘stick with the crowds’. It didn’t take long to understand what he meant – we were greeted by crowded tourist market selling over-priced tourist gifts and refreshments (and various photographic opportunites – most oddly perhaps, involved posing with a camel). This soon gave way to a brightly coloured cable car which lifted the tourists who didn’t fancy the climbing the stairs up to the top. The cars passed over a giant toboggan slide which allows visitors to whizz back down from the wall the fast way when they’ve finished. We could now see why the word ‘theme park’ had been used so many times in connection to the wall.

What isn’t made explicit in any of the ‘info guides’ is that most of this stretch of the wall has been entirely reconstructed – in that it has been completely re-built with new stone over the original (a common theme in China, as it turned out). One of the guys from our hostel reminded us of what our guide had said on the way here and suggested we walked along the wall to point 1 where the new construction ended and we could see paths of trees and overgrown shrubbery stretching beyond. After a long climb up some very steep steps, we came to see what he meant – through a window of the last watch-tower was sign labelled ‘Dangerous, Do Not Enter!’, which he beckoned us towards… “This”, he said proudly, “is the old ‘disrepaired’ wall and is still an unofficial walking route for the adventurous. Just follow the scrubland and you’ll soon be among the eagles”.  With a quick glance behind us we took off along the path and were soon completely alone on the crumbling remains of a magnificent stretch of wall. Though it wasn’t obvious from where we had joined the wall, we could now see that we were in the middle of a mountain range dotted with sections of old wall and small stone-built forts that had been slowly overgrown by shrubs and trees over the years. Looking eastwards towards the snow-capped mountains, we could clearly see it snaking onwards into obscurity, circled over by eagles whose calls echoed between the peaks.

After a wonderful hour spent amongst the crumbling stone, we traced our steps back, descended the almost vertical staircase of the reconstructed wall and re-joined our group for a late lunch in one of the tourist outlets. We got talking to a man from Israel who had been working in Shanghai and was now making the most of exploring China before heading home. He asked us if we had yet visited the Arts District 798 in Dashanzi, just outside of the city’s centre, yet – which we hadn’t. “If there’s one thing you do in Beijing, make it that – you won’t be disappointed”. We only had two full days left in Beijing, and on one of those we were due to transfer to a hotel near Beijing central station, from where we were due to catch our train to Mongolia, so we had to make a call on what to see but decided that the arts district was definitely one of them.

The next morning we decided to take a cab to south of the Dàshānziqiáo flyover where the now defunct military warehouses which house the 798 Arts quarter (a sprawling settlement dedicated to freedom of expression comprising of art studios, galleries, bookshops, cafes and stalls) can be found. Factory 798 (as it is also referred to) became an underground arts hub and refuge to Beijing’s contemporary artists who were evicted from their Old Summer Palace residences by the government during the 1980′s. The site of the old factory with its industrial chimneys and sweeping ceiling arches offered inspiration as well as space to those who set up studios there and the area began to grow by word-of-mouth, in time attracting international artists to the area too. Industrial remnants are interspersed with exhibits that make use of materials scavenged from the old factories themselves, while quaint artists’ shops, cafés and residences now occupy the smaller buildings. It is now a fashionable hub of high-profile galleries, catwalks and event spaces for trend-conscious companies. Most of the exhibits are completely free but art can be found around every corner – from carparks to chimney tops – no space is left unadorned.

Inside buildings played to host to spotlighting one or two particular artists. One sculptor fashioned subjects that looked as though they were drowning or swimming in a pool of lrippling iquid cast from dark iron. It wasn’t clear if they were winning their battle against the tide, but fittingly for the area, the focus seemed to be in the struggle.

Another exhibition, Bashir Makhoul’s “Enter Ghost, Exit Ghost“, was set out as a maze of confusing holographic pictures, each simultaneously displaying a Middle-Eastern streetscape contrasted with an equivalent one made out of old cardboard boxes, to look like a ghost city.
In another brick-interiored industrial outhouse, blown-up photographs were being carefully ignored. I particuarly liked the contrast of this photograph with the group in front inadvertantly mimicking one of the pictures in the gallery, transfixed by their iPhones and tablets instead of the nude woman just behind them.

We were completely absorbed by the arts district and only noticed the fading light when the cold started to seep in. Stalls roasting sweet potatoes over a fire had sprung up next to an old steam engine which helped to warm us up. As the temperarture continued to dip, we made our way to the exit, not realising how tired we were until we flopped down in the hostel and slept for a full 13 hours in our clothes.

With one day left in Beijing before our departure to the Gobi desert, we decided to get up early to try and beat the crowds to the Forbidden City. It was so cold that the trays of milk drinks we had got used to seeing around the city had frozen tops and the groups of men who were usually outside playing Mahjong and dice were nowhere to be seen.

We got to the Forbidden city early, but not early enough to escape the mass of tour groups all colour coded by hats and led by guides carrying large flags and megaphones. We made efforts to avoid the sea of red hats (many clinging onto children dressed as little emperors) and headed to the side rooms instead, which gave us a bit more space to breathe and take in the detail. We spent a lot of time looking around the emperor’s theatre, which was still complete with trap doors and a wonderful selection of 1920′s vinyl recordings of the dowager empress’s favourite eunuch troupe. Next we visited the treasury within the Forbidden City, a collection of buildings housing some very extravagant teapots and trinkets including an amethist massage roller, a disgustingly striking headress made of brilliant blue kingfisher feathers, and an incredible golden astrolabe with pearls representing each of the star clusters. If you look closely at the signs outside each building you can see that they many were once upon a time sponsored by a certain American company, which has since been discretely painted over.

After a morning’s exploration of the Forbidden City, we made our way back to our hotel to prepare ourselves for the onwards journey. We could see Beijing’s Central Station, with its mass of crowds, from our 20th floor window and it felt strange, as we watched the people below disperse, to think that this time tomorrow, we’d no longer be in China…