Ok, so even though I am back home (I kind of got side tracked with updating my travel log – sorry!) here is a quick update with what I got up to in the midsection of my Mongolia adventure…

So after spending two days in the gorgeous Terejl Hotel and enjoying the luxuries of life again (showers and internet!), we then headed off further east, towards a place called Dadal, which is apparently the birth place of Genghis Khan (or as the locals say, Chinggis Khaan). We spent about 3 days driving about the most amazing snow covered mountains and visiting some interesting sites. At some of the sites we partook in ceremonies that apparently allowed one to tap into Genghis’ ancestor’s energy. We also went and found a river (albeit frozen over) from which he apparently drank from to cure some of his abdominal problems (we managed to crush some ice from it and ate that instead – it still hasn’t really helped with my chocolate cravings, but then again, that’s probably not an abdominal complication.

We also went to a local shaman the one evening. There is no main religious following in Mongolia and shamanism is still widely used. The ceremony was very interesting, seeing how the shaman transitioned herself into one of her spirit guides an elder and what she/he had to share with us. It was very fascinating and thought-provoking as there were so many similarities between the Mongolian shaman and our local sangoma’s. It never seizes to amaze me how certain things are always a constant no matter how many miles apart they are.

Enjoy some of the images from our mid-Mongolia adventure…

Enjoying a dancer pose in the freezing cold

Nina doing Warrior I at the birth place of Genghis Khaan to salute his energy and his formidable conquering of the east.