In the countryside

On Monday, Altaa and I decided to go to the countryside and escape the fumes of Ulaanbaatar. We got to a good spot in Terelj National Park, just outside the city, at 8.30pm and spent the next two and a half days there. The first night we spent in a ger, but we were beset by black ants, a few in our bed, but most making a beeline (or ant-line?) for our food. Having survived the night, we moved to a chalet-style cottage and left the ants to the newly-arrived German tourists in the morning. There were still a few insects, but nothing like before. It was a great time as we interspersed good walks with doing nothing.
I'm the kind of person who thinks sunscreen is overrated, but I pushed my skin too far on the Tuesday, a mild sensation of soreness covering my arms, shoulders and legs - the sunburn. Still, there was nothing we could do, as we had left the sunscreen at home in our forgetfulness.
In the city, everything is really close and is easy to get to. On Tuesday night, at seven minutes to eight, I saw the sunsetting on the hill on the opposite side of the valley. It didn't look that far, maybe five minutes running there. So I dashed across dale and gulley and sprinted up the hill and twenty minutes later, not five, with my heart virtually leaping out of my chest, I had achieved my objective and caught the last rays of the day (it was an objective, I had to achieve it).
On Wednesday, as we rested in our country home, we kept the door wide open. A little sparrow landed on our porch and hopped along. How good to be so close to nature I thought. A minute later, cows were seeking entry into our cottage for pastures new, but my approach with my camera deterred the photo-shy animals. Eventually, they shuffled off before being "shooed" out of the summer camp. They, like the horses that night, had come through a gate-less part of the fence looking for fresher grass. The horses themselves were eventually shown the rough of the Mongolian owners' tongues and beat a hasty retreat.
Two and a half days is not long enough to fully recharge the lungs after so long in UB, but other matters needed to be attended to and we left after eight on the Thursday morning to catch the bus back to town. These other matters included going for a luxury sauna in the Gobi Sauna located near our home for the first time. It certainly was the best 10,000 tugrugs could buy (roughly four pound eighty). Not only did it have 'Finland Sauna' and jacuzzi, but also three separate upstairs saunas of, in order they should be used, amethyst, agate and salt (they got gradually hotter), with a five minute break for each, going to a relaxing room. In a way, a shame that after living near it since the middle of February, I've only just gone to it, but at least I did go and Altaa's planning to become a fairly regular customer.