“Are you going to Mongolia?” asks the postman, handing me a card to sign.
Under other circumstances that might be an odd question but he’s holding a silver special delivery envelope, it’s roughly passport shaped and I expect it has “Embassy of Mongolia” as a return address. My answer, the rest of the conversation and some explanation is after the jump.
“Yes,” I reply.
“On holiday?” says the postman, in the same tone of voice someone might use while asking why you’re putting chocolate sauce on your lobster.
“Eh, yes.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going through there on my way from Russia to China,” I add lamely handing him the signed card.
“Oh, passing through,” he says sounding unconvinced, but adds a sincere “well, enjoy your holiday,” as he hands me my post.
I’m not even sure I’m that convinced, but it’s true, I’m off to Mongolia on holiday. In fact I’m off to a fair few places, as the plan is to travel to Hong Kong visiting London, Tallinn (for a few hours), St. Petersburg, Moscow, Irkutsk, Ulaanbaatar, and Beijing on the way. The bulk of it done via this trip from the kind people at Vodkatrain.
I’m not leaving until mid-September, but since I’m busy in August, with the festival and a trip to Oslo amongst other things, I’m trying to getting it all sorted early. I’ve still got a bunch of stuff to sort out, but the main parts are all booked so it’s definitely happening.
I’ll be putting up more details and some other ramblings about the trip over the next few weeks. In the meantime if you’ve got any advice on any of the places I’ll be visiting then get in touch or leave it in the comments.