Mongol Derby - Medic's Blog - 31st July 2011

Sun 31^st July – Briefings and meetings. Today was spent having various briefings to introduce us to the event and meeting our interpreters. Pete and I are with Altai, who is on summer holidays from her PhD in Taiwan, and Catherine is with Daava, who qualified as a Mongolian doctor and has worked as a pharmacist and medical representative for the government. They both seem great – very friendly and helpful. We all trooped off to the State Department Store to do the food shopping for the next two weeks’ camping. I think we’ve probably bought far too much. The lack of powdered milk caused the interesting debate over whether coffee creamer would be better on cereal than baby milk. Coffee creamer narrowly won but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it... This evening we went to see a local band Altan Urag (a cross between heavy metal and traditional folk music) with the rest of the crew and a few of the riders came along too. It was great to meet the riders – they all seem very enthusiastic and well-prepared, although some have already confided in us that they haven’t done as much training as they’re telling the others.