‘Pity you didn’t swim to the bottom,’ Carrie quips, her eyes still closed but a smirk now on her face.

‘Funny. Are you going there after here?’ Martin continues, directing the conversation back at me. ‘You should. Seriously, it’s beautiful. We hiked, swam. Did some weird Buddhist stuff that I thought I was going to hate but actually was so chilled out.’ He reaches into his bag and takes out a bottle of water. ‘Want some? You look a bit pale.’

Grateful for his hospitality, and deciding that they probably aren’t as bad as I had them pegged – well, not Martin, at least – I take the bottle and a long, soothing sip. Why didn’t we bring anything with us? Oh yes, because we drank it all last night. Two bottles of wine on top of the beer, shots and cocktails. I woke up with crushed crisps all over me in bed. The empty 1.5-litre bottle of Coke on the floor. I don’t know if it was me or Carrie who drank it, but I know I’d kill for some right now.

‘Thanks … and wow,’ I manage, fuelled by the water. ‘The lake sounds amazing.’ I don’t bother to mention that I can’t swim. We’re not going anyway.

‘We’re not going to the lake,’ Carrie mutters.

Martin gives me a ‘what can you do?’ look and I smile back. Maybe I can persuade Carrie to change our itinerary. I’ll work on her later.

‘So what was the Buddhist thing like?’

‘Hey, if you like to observe the different religions, you will love the camp,’ Sarnai chirps in from the front. She swivels around in her seat and grins at us. ‘There is a traditional festival happening tomorrow. There will be a shamanic ceremony later on. It’s lots of fun.’

‘What’s shamanism then,’ Rory says, sitting up. ‘Isn’t that the thing with druids?’

Sarnai giggles. ‘Mongolian shamanism is a wonderful folk religion. It shares lots of elements with Buddhism too. We call it yellow shamanism – because of the links with the Buddhist colours. There is also black shamanism, but that’s not what you will see here…’

‘The black stuff sounds a lot more sexy,’ Carrie says. She’s sitting up now too. All four of us are rapt, now that Sarnai is actually saying something interesting.

Sarnai giggles. ‘It’s just an older form. Different. But really the roots are the same – in shamanism we worship the ancient deities, and nature. Tenger is the main god. He embodies Chingis…’

‘Is that like Genghis?’ Rory asks.

‘You Westerners mainly call him Genghis, but in Mongolian it is Chingis…’

‘Is he literally the only famous Mongolian?’ Carrie says. ‘He’s on all the banknotes. Most countries like to mix things up a little … a queen, a king, some inventor or whatever.’