Almost four long weeks we've been on the road, Four long weeks I've been carrying an extra 3kg load, This load isn't just physical but mental too, Knowing Liam had marbles too few.

For almost a month now I've been struggling to sleep, No dreams of home, foreign places of sheep, Why you ask? The reason companions three, Me, Liam and Liam's A.D.H.D.

Let's go here Dec, everywhere, We've got 5 minutes Dec, let's go there, Get up now Dec we've got to go, More museums to visit and photographs of snow.

When Liam dozes off and quietness falls, Merchants emerge from their roadside stalls, For calm descends, people and animals alike feel safe, A short respite until the beast awakes.

While time allows I make comfortable my pillow as Liam lies in slumber, But after 10 minutes I hear a snort, then a rumble, Lights, camera, action, the quilt is thrown aside, Shouts of get up Dec, there's more snow outside.

Hey everyone!

I'm 27 days into the trip. The plan is to leave Beijing tomorrow night, then travel south to X'ian to tackle the Terracotta Army. Before I tell you about Beijing, I'd better talk a bit first about Mongolia.

On the 32-hour train journey from Irkutsk, we'd decided to stay in a Korean run hostel in Ulaan Baatar ?the UB Guesthouse ?which had been mentioned in the Lonely Planet. The reason being that we figured a Korean guy trying to make it in a country other than his native one would prove to be industrious and business-minded. The reason we were looking for such a hostel was because we were hoping to organize a ger stay with the help of the hostel management. The place turned out to be exactly what we were after. We found it was run by a girl - Bobbie - and her Korean husband Mr. Kim. The hostel was the best one we'd stayed in on the trip so far. Only $4 a night, free breakfast (bread with a choice of jam or Nutella), free herbal tea all day and a massive DVD collection. Over the course of our stay in Ulaan Baatar, Liam felt he had developed a connection with Bobbie and it was Bobbie who booked the ger stay for us. The taxi drivers (there were 2)picked us up at the hostel and we were waved off by the owners of the hostel. Liam asked Bobbie was there anything she wanted to say to him before we left for the countryside. She leaned in close and whispered "Make sure to bring toilet paper".

The taxi ride was edge of the seat stuff but we did have a quick chance to change our underwear when the drivers stopped at a shaman shrine to pay their respect. Basically, the custom is for people to come, find three stones and toss them on the pile, walk clockwise around the mound, make their request and leave something. What our drivers left were a couple of cigarette butts.

When we arrived at the ger, we were immediately invited in for cherry-flavoured tea and biscuits. As we all know Liam's fondness for cherries he immediately fell in love with the place. The family unit were Otco (33), his wife (whose name I didn't catch), Jom (21) who appeared to be an orphaned neighbour and Jom's older brother Mucko (23). Mucko was deaf and, due to an injury by a horse when he was younger, walked with a pronounced limp. Otco didn't have much English but, what he lacked for in English, he made up for in hand gestures. However, me and Liam disagree on what he explained had happened to Mucko. Liam thinks he signaled that Mucko was kicked by a horse and that the horse was fenced with the others we passed on the way in. I'm sure what he said was that a horse had fallen on Mucko's hip and that the horse had then been killed. Either way, Mucko was a nice lad and it was a shame that a further misfortune had been heaped upon him.

Our ger consisted of a small stove, a couple of beds and candles. After we had settled in, Jom, Liam and I saddled up for a 4-hour horse trek. It soon became apparent that the horse was leading Liam rather than the other way round. Jom had to take hold of the reins of Liam's horse and lead both Liam and his horse along the trek. It was touching to watch was Jom lead Liam like a parent would a toddler learning to walk.

We stopped at a neighbouring ger about 3 hours into the trek and knocked back some yak butter tea. You could finish a cup of it to be polite but any more than that was a mammoth effort. We had three. Liam turned about 41 shades of green and was very very quiet during our short visit.

On the way back we stopped for a couple of photos and then learned that Jom absolutely loved to have his photo taken. I don't mean liked. I mean loved. He directed us to take photos of him from his left side, right side and straight on. When we got back to the families main ger, Dawson's Creek was on the gogglebox. Of course Dawson spoke Mongolian. Very weird.

That night in the ger Jom called round for a visit. I whipped out the mobile phone after exhausting all other possible lines of communication. Pretty quickly he got the hang of 'Bounce' and 'MotoBP'. The concept of '6' and right had eluded Liam for days.

The following day we hiked around the mountainside which sheltered the ger. This was trouble some for Liam as he started suffering from vertigo 7 metres into the climb. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a hawk, woodpecker and wolf. Liam was too slow whipping the camera out so we don't have a picture of these. However, with his cat-like reflexes he did later manage to get lots of pictures of horses and bulls eating.

Gotta go now as it's 01:30 in the morning here and we're getting kicked out.

Take it easy.