Taken from the Buddhist shrine (coming up)

The tied cloth is reminiscent of what the Buryats do (see the pictures from Baikal)

Very Flintstones. If you enjoy imagining what these rocks look like, this is the place. By the way, huge numbers of dinosaurs were found in the Gobi desert nearby.

On the left is a building with a big sign that says, "Restaurant", probably the only one for miles.

While people lived in the gers, they also kept sheds for storage

Among very traditional people, it's bad manners to knock - the greeting is, "Would you please call off the dogs." My tour guide chose to knock.

She lives here with her daughter. She asked what I do for a living, and when I said computers, she said, "Oh, yes, everyone's in that nowadays". Traditional, yes, but not born yesterday.

The layout is dictated by convention. The stove in the middle serves for heat and cooking, with a wok-like pot in the middle.

We ate very well - we had buuz (lamb dumplings), fried bread with butter, milk tea, and a sour milk drink called aarts. All the books tell you to avoid the local food at all costs, but I found that the food was good.

I took this photo to show how silly tourists can be. Apparently, Mongolians wonder why Westerners would want to camp out for enjoyment.