3 Days in Mongolia, and still not dead yet!

We've now been in Ulaan Baatar for a few days, and have spent most of that time trying to get over our jetlag! (that's right, the same jetlag we hadn't quite got over on our return from Japan to England!).

We've been to a few museums, including the (apparently) world famous Natural History Museum with all it's dinosaur stuff. The display there includes the only fossilised remains of two dinosaurs fighting, which sounded really cool from the description - a velociraptor and a protoceratops. Forget Jurassic Park though - we walked into the room expecting this huge great skeletal monstrosity, only to have to adjust our gaze downwards... and further downwards, to a small glass case. It turns out that velociraptors are only about 1M tall, so it actually looked a bit like a small emu attacking a lamb...

This morning we went to the Gandan Khiid monastery and temples, the highlight of which was another huge Buddhist statue - they seem to be becoming a recuring feature of our trip! It was very impressive though.

Tomorrow morning we leave the capital and head off for the Gobi desert. This will entail lots of driving in a cramped Russian van, lots of sand, no toilets, no water, scorching heat during the day and freezing cold at night... Sharon wants to know why Craig has dragged her here!

This will probably be our last update until we return to the capital in early September. We'll expect lots of comments to read when we get back!

In the footsteps of Genghis Khan...

We're now off on the next phase of our travels - a month in Mongolia!

We're really excited about it (well, Craig is excited, Sharon is dreading the camping and lack of running water).

Internet access may be hard to find (unless any of the nomadic yak herders we bump into have a laptop), so we'll apologise in advance for the lack of updates over the next few weeks - we might manage one from the capital, Ulaan Baatar, but that will probably be it until we get back home.

Japan Piccies

The A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima which was about the only thing left standing after the blast.
















The Bullet Train.

















Craig at a temple with lots of lanterns.
















Sharon and Craig at Todai-Ji - the largest wooden building in the world.
















Japanese Garden
















Water fountain.
















Traditional dining but not sure about the bright red food...




















Pagoda Temple in Kyoto




















Craig with a Samurai
















Sharon and Craig at Himeji castle.






















Dripping green slime for lunch. Nice...

Pictures from Fiji

Bounty Island, a.k.a. the first Celebrity Love Island - how trashy! If only we'd known before we booked...
















The rudder from HMS Bounty!




















Caption competition - answers on a blog comment!




















How many E numbers in that drink!
















Starfish at Bounty Island
















It didn't take long for Sharon's Hayfever to kick in...

















Craig swimming in the bay at Nacula
















Craig had just about had enough of the beach by now!
















Sunset at Nacula - every night there was a brilliant sun set just as Happy Hour started at the bar!















Sunset at Bounty Island.

Samoa Pictures

Hopefully you'll see why we loved it so much...





















This was the view from the market.
















Sea arch carved out of the lava by the sea.





















Lovers' Leap. No idea why it's called that as the story about it involves a shark and a turtle!
















Samoan fishermen.
















Craig at the lava fields on Savai'i island.





















Waterfall on Upolu Island.




















Sharon at Lalomanu Beach
















Lalomanu again...

















...and again (can you tell we liked this beach!)

















Something in a basket for lunch!





















Craig at the Blowholes. At the top of the picture you can see some black specs. These were pieces of coconut that were thrown into the blowhole and then catapulted 100ft in the air.

And you all thought Craig looked frightened of the Koala!

He obviously needs more practise with Sharon's budgie!

Piccies from Tonga

Stonehenge???
















We were beginning to forget we'd travelled to the other side of the planet!
















Yatchs off the coast of Tongatapu
















Craig drinking from a coconut
















Sharon being 'British' and rolling her trousers up at the beach. If only she'd had a handkerchief to put on her head!
















We were starting to get home sick...




















Sharon on Fafa Island
















The Blue Lagoon in Vava'u
















Hector the Humpback Whale (actually 'he' was female and pregnant but Craig had already decided that the first whale we saw would be called Hector)!
















Traditional Tongan dancing - it's very static!

Piccies from Oz

A few of our pictures from Australia below:
















Nemo at the Great Barrier Reef!




















Sharon had forgotten to do her hair that morning...
















Craig at the Great Barrier Reef.




















"Are we playing Follow My Leader or Simon Says"?
















Koala in Brisbane.
















Craig was always popular with the birds!
















Sharon at the Blue Mountains (see what we meant - not blue!)
















View of sunrise at Ayers Rock from the Olgas. We were trying to be 'arty' - did it work?

Craig, Sharon and Danger Mouse at Sydney Harbour Bridge

(In case you were wondering, we got back fine - only a couple of hours delay. We did get filmed queueing at Tokyo airport for check-in!)