we are cleaning ourselves and tidying up wilma and larry in preperation for queenie (our guide for china).

we will get to the border at 07:00, despite the lonely planet telling us the border opens at 08:00, in an attempt to beat teh passanger train that arrives at 08:00.

the whole camp is most excited about going to china as it will be somewhere new and hopefully have some fruit other than apples.

the big news today is that lewis and i had our hair cut. the only reason for this was that ice-creams were promised. i feel i got a pretty good deal and my hair is feeling properly clean for the first time since leaving london. the hairdressers style of washing hair was agressive but thourough.

i realise that all our blog fans out there did to expect another post today, particularly as we have not been the most regular users. however, we are making the most of the slow internet connection and have very little to do today.

THE SAND INCIDENT
i had forgotten to tell you about the most interesting and dangerous part of the gobi tour.
we had carefully been avoiding the deep bits of sand when we came across a wide pond of sand across the whole of the road with not path either side. tessie and i got out to make the car lighter, lewis go in the front to give daddy moral support and advice and daddy reversed for a run up. we decided that we would just have to plough through and, in the time honoured fashion, we got stuck.
it was suddenly all hands on deck as we detached larry from wilma and moved him to another part of sand just as deep. just as we were deciding upon how to get wilma out, a 4x4 drove up and i hailed it down. we think he only stopped because there was not way past us due to wilma's wonky angle and larry in the middle. the 4x4 kindly towed us out of the sand with embarassing ease (wilma was moved before she was even in gear). wilma then towed larry out all by herself. no problem.