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Tales from the outer

When the plumbing in Valerie Oltarsh's New York apartment explodes (again), it means evacuating for two weeks. Her husband, Rob, acts quickly to staunch the tears, holding out a Peregrine tour brochure.

Valerie blinks at the words. "A yak safari?" she says. "Oh god, yes."

Single travellers Jen and Margaret live on opposite sides of Canada and they, too, are unable to resist the concept of trailing behind a shaggy black yak.

I know so little about Mongolia that I've never really cared to visit but "yak safari" sells me in a second - it's a phrase packed with exoticism and otherness, an idea I can practically smell.

The 14-day tour starts in the Gobi Desert at Red Rock Camp, which is on no map that I can find. The camp is a line of lonely yurts sheltered by huge piles of smooth rocks that have seemingly bubbled up from the wind-blown plains.

There are no yaks here. "And no yurts," says our young guide, Namuul. "Mongolian name is gers. 'Yurt' is used by Chinese Mongols. Inner Mongolia."

Of course, we five visitors are on the outer and not least with the language, which grinds meaty vowel strings into patties of sound. The essential phrase "thank you" is "bayarlalaa", which comes out as by-rrrr-lla; by the time we learn to say it with any usefulness, the trip is over. Luckily we have Namuul, a tourism student from the capital, UlaanBaatar. He wears a Christian Dior T-shirt and looks as incongruous as we do among wind-burnt nomads but his translation is never less than valiant.

The Gobi, then, is our pre-yak induction and it comes in two parts.

Part one is "everything out there", which we walk into one fine blue morning. The Ikh Nart wildlife reserve spans 66,000 hectares and it swallows us in a flash of searing light.

The landscape is drier than a Salt Lake City wedding, dotted with skeletons, and we wonder what wildlife can survive it. But we're the ones being watched - by agarli, the cow-sized sheep that stand sentinel on the rocks, their giant corkscrew horns in silhouette. A Bactrian two-hump camel grazes in the shadow of a mountainous dune and a young cinereous vulture sulks in a nest the size of a small car while its parents are away, wheeling on their three-metre wingspans.

Our most remarkable sighting occurs on a sun-baked plateau dotted with chunks of white and purple quartz. A rider comes trotting up on his stocky Mongolian horse - he wears a sashed robe and carries a long timber pole with a noose at one end, his feet in stirrups like steel plates. He swallows some vowels and hawks them up again, to which Namuul replies, no, we haven't seen his lost cow. The rider reins his mount and gallops away.

10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace

Is this your life path lit by the flame of your candle inside, or are you stumbling along in the dark? In Dr. Wayne Dyer conference new video, it reminds us that so many people easily forget in the day-to-day grind of life that material success is not what we are ultimately trying to achieve, so it should not 't be our driving force. In each of us lies success and inner peace, which can be found once we understand that life a deeper experience, richer is characterized by a burning desire, or as Dr. Dyer describes it, a " inner candle flame. " In this thought-provoking video, Dr. Dyer offers simple ways to change your life—and your outlook on life.

The ten principles presented here apply to people who are just beginning their journey of discovery, as well as those who have already embarked on life’s winding path. Dr. Dyer urges us to listen with an open heart, and to apply the secrets that resonate with them and discard the rest. By doing so, we’ll learn to feel the peace of God that truly defines success.

The First Secret: Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing.

The Second Secret: Don’t die with your music still in you.

The Third Secret: You can’t give away what you don’t have.

The Fourth Secret: Embrace silence.

The Fifth Secret: Give up your personal history.

The Sixth Secret: You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.

The Seventh Secret: There are no justified resentments.

The Eighth Secret: Treat yourself as if you already are what you’d like to be.

The Ninth Secret: Treasure your divinity.

The Tenth Secret: Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you.

Our Day Will Come

Ministering children, by the author of 'Sunday afternoons in the nursery'.

Chemical news and journal of industrial science

The Chemical news and journal of industrial science; with which is incorporated the "Chemical gazette.", A journal of practical chemistry in all its applications to pharmacy, arts and manufactures

The Chemical news and journal of physical science