it's an unforgiving environment. today, many are struggling, and i want to experience for myself what it's like. so i left the house nearly 2a hours ago. my body clock is very, very confused, but i've arrived in mongolia. my name is lucy hedges. i travel a lot and work on the move. a self—confessed digital nomad, and i love it. but i've left my laptop behind to find out more about the traditional nomads following a lifestyle that's been passed down for generations... goat bleats. ..beginning with those living in the capital, ulaanbaatar. i'll let rip at a throat singing lesson... guttural throat noise. ..toura unique tented suburb... this is unlike anything i've seen before. ..and cringe my way

through some market bartering. his face says it all. sojoin me on my epic adventure from the city to the steppe. so, where are you from, man? i am from london. oh, wow, man. and this is my first time in mongolia. it's very exciting. so beautiful country, so beautiful city. young city, young people, you know. yeah, that's what i'm seeing so far. i'm starting myjourney in the capital, ulaanbaatar, or ub for short. it's home to around 1.6 million people, almost half of mongolia's entire population. god, i thought the traffic in london was bad. there's a lot of traffic here. yeah, traffic is a

problem in mongolia. now, i heard a really fun fact. anyone with a car can basically moonlight as a taxi driver, is that right? yeah, it is true. so anyone can flag a car down, and if the driver wants to take them, they canjump in. yep. with average earnings of around $540 a month, lots of people here have a side hustle. that's a great way to make extra money. are you not worried about picking up questionable characters? you know, i could be a murderer. she laughs. ulaanbaatar has grown enormously in a short space of time. since 1990, its population has trebled. across the city centre, construction continues on shiny new high—rises, driven by a decades—long mining boom. to get a better look, i'm heading to one of the city's best viewpoints.

this has been quite the climb. i was secretly hoping there'd be a chairlift, but unfortunately, nothing. i'll tell you what. as far as views go, this one's not bad. 2024 marks a special anniversary for ub. a full century since it changed forever. come on, you can do it. it's easy. to find out more, i've arranged to meet a local expert. hey. hello. it's great to meet you. good to meet you. a little bit out of breath. that's ok. good to meet you nonetheless. rich beal fell in love with this city while travelling. he moved here back in 2018. so, paint me a picture, rich. what would this place have looked like 100 years ago? because i imagine very, very different. yeah. massively different. it would have been a tented city. yeah. dirt streets.

horses, carts in some places, and nowhere near as big. so what changed 100 years ago? in short, the soviets. mongolia was the first country outside of russia to turn communist. and 100 years ago, in 192a, the soviets gave this city its name, ulaanbaatar, meaning red hero. this is sukhbaatar square. it's the heart of the city, where it's a good place to meet. so you can still see a lot of soviet influence here. yeah, the pre—1920s, there's very few buildings or permanent structures here, and the soviets have brought those in. and of course then you have the factories around the outside, and that really did draw a lot of people in, notjust nomads. you needed a workforce to get the country started in its own way. yeah, of course. it must have been a real culture shock for some

of the people moving into the city. it was, yeah. the soviets cracked down on nomadic life by confiscating herders�* livestock. now that mongolia's a democracy, many communist statues have been replaced by tributes to their national hero, genghis khan. but rich wants to show me one spectacular example that survived. wow! it's one of my favourite places in ub. yeah? still. yeah, i really like it. this is pretty special. i mean, the view, as well behind. so this is the zaisan memorial monument. it was constructed originally in 1956, and it was to commemorate the soviet soldiers and allied soldiers that lost their lives during the second world war. the main tower is 27 metres

tall, and then eventually the mosaic was added to this, which shows kind of the mongolian—soviet friendship. over here is my favourite section, and you can see the mongolians clearly in their traditional dress. it's kind of integral to the monument, and especially in the way she's greeting, which is the true traditional mongolian way of offering a bowl of milk with the traditional mongolian scarf underneath. yeah. i love anything that's able to tell a story, and give you a sense of that history, and i think this really does that perfectly. with the help of rich, of course. so walking around, it's a real mix of the old and the new. so old soviet buildings... ..and new skyscrapers. but even in this bustling

metropolis, there are places where you can step back in time and experience mongolia's nomadic past. i've come to the theatre museum to meet ganzorig. guttural throat singing. this is throat singing. he's sounding two notes at the same time — a low, guttural drone and a higher pitched melody over the top. applause. woo! well, first of all, thank you for that amazing, incredible performance. tell me a bit about yourself and how you got started.

he's a member of a rock group called altai, updating this ancient art for a new audience. throaty singing. it takes years to master, but we've all got to start somewhere. ok, i'm ready for my throat singing lesson, and i apologise in advance for what's about to come out of my mouth. ok. it's here, not here. yeah.

he demonstrates. how was that? yeah. good. now i've got my growl, time to try a tune. guttural throat-singing. she coughs.

oh, i can see you doing that kind of small, medium, then "ah". yeah. deep guttural sound. that's about as much as my lungs can do. ok. one minute. she coughs. how do you think i did? good? yeah. or "get out". she laughs. outside of the museum, mongolian tradition continues to transform this city. hundreds of thousands of nomads have moved here in search of better opportunities and an easier way of life.

and most of them end up in ub's sprawling outskirts. i can just see lots of colourful rooftops and what looks like a lot of character, and it goes on for miles and miles. this is the ger district, a vast patchwork of small buildings and traditional tents. it's estimated to be home to 900,000 people, more than half of ub's population. hi, daria. hi, lucy. bring it in. how are you? i'm good, i'm good. i'm meeting daria, who runs a local nonprofit called gerhub. so ger is both felt and a wooden form of dwelling that's perfect for a nomadic lifestyle to pack up and go. yes. but we used, we carried on that form of dwelling into our urban areas.

and so you'll not see these kind of settlements anywhere else in the world. but despite the tranquillity, living here isn't easy. every day is a bit of a struggle for the ger area residents. you're connected to the electrical grid, and that's about it. so people have to, you know, fetch their household water. they have to burn coal to heat or cook. you don't have plumbing either, so a lot of challenges also emerge from that. the residents�* use of coal—burning stoves has contributed to another problem... ..some of the world's worst air pollution. but despite all that, daria is upbeat about these communities. there's a lot of misconception that ger area residents want to go live in an apartment building, but for some former nomads, it feels so constricted living and being surrounded by four walls, so we wanted to offer that

perspective for tourists. daria's nonprofit began running community tours in 2022. davga and herfather, sambuu, have lived on this plot of land for the past 30 years. ok, so what's the correct etiquette before i enter? so, when you're entering in, make sure you step in with your right foot first. ok. and be careful not to bump your head on the door frame because if you do so, you're going to be bringing in bad luck to the ger. ok. and i've got very high hair, so i've got to be very careful. yes. ok. inside, i'm offered a traditional mongolian welcome of fermented horse milk... thank you. ..and some sweets. it is, yes. and it is not disappointing

me at all so far. both father and daughter make a living, in part, by selling traditional mongolian arts and crafts. davga's ger is decorated with her paper cuttings, while sambuu creates games and souvenirs. wow. he grew up on the steppe. as for davga, she offers tourists the chance to try their own paper cuttings.

we're making a hole. ok, let's compare the two now. i mean, you can't even tell which one's mine and which one's davga's, right? the money raised from these tours is then reinvested into cleaner energy initiatives... ..and other community projects. so, we're at the ger innovation hub, and this is a community space located in the heart of this neighbourhood. and tonight we're hosting a game night. and i hear words on the street is that it's going to turn into a dance party soon.

oh, what? sounds like my kind of vibe. so, as you can see here, we've got some people playing cards. i'm not sure what's going on here. i'd like to think it's a drinking game. saim banoo. hi. so, we mainly use this space for all sorts of different events, whether it be like hands—on workshops or it be seminars and talks, orjust, you know, having fun and partying like tonight. how would you sum up the nomad experience in ulaanbaatar in 202a? i would say it's all about perseverance and adaptability. it's such a harsh environment, and the climate is ever—changing, but mongolians, they have that drive within themselves to continue going, to continue changing things, to improve their living conditions.

that was brilliant. i love the fact that everyone�*s just come together all in the name of fun. it's a beautiful evening. if this is what being a 21st century nomad is all about, then, mate, sign me up. but here in the city, i know i'm not getting the full nomadic experience. the real challenge will be trying to survive in the steppe. first, though, i'll need some supplies. so, i've enlisted the help of my translator, uchka. so, uchka, i'm ready to get my shop on. so talk me through where we are. so, we are outside of the outdoor market, yeah, and then you can find everything in here. everything? yes. with hundreds of stalls, the narantuul market is the size of nine football pitches. well, i've got my list. maybe i'll see you back here in about... half an hour?

let's say an hour. ok. yeah. good. all right. yeah. i'm ready. let's go. go. i have three items on my list. a traditional mongolian outfit called a deel, riding boots, and gifts for the family i'm staying with. and i'm sticking to a budget of 400,000 tugrik, which is about $90. i'm looking for boots for horses, riding. she said, "this way." horse? horse. yes. yes! 350,000. that's pretty much nearly all my budget. i'm faced with a choice — stay and haggle... . .oi’ run away. the haggling thing for me,

just it's the awkwardness when they're like, "no, no," and i'm like, "please, lower." and in the end ijust give in and say, "do you know what? i'll pay the full price." i'vejust got to toughen up, really. speaks mongolian. 200. 200? that's half my budget. that's not good. yes, bring out the phone. i'm going in. i'm going in for some haggling. yes? oh! i went in for 130,000, and we've got a result. thank you very much. thank you very much. next up is the deel. not this one, blue. this matches my hair. i don't want that.

this one. i like this one. yes. right. let's negotiate a price before i try this on. 280,000. that's pretty spendy. his face says it all. i've taken 100,000 off. ok, ok. 200,000. how do i look? yeah? we have 180,000. it's a deal for the deel. now, all that's left is the gifts... some of these things are beautiful. ..but with uchka waiting at the gates, the clock is ticking. uchka was not kidding.

you can pick up traditional dress and a chainsaw here. 0oh, we've got candy, which i think will make a nice present for the kids. who doesn't love pick �*n�* mix? i need two kilos, about two kilos�* worth of sweets. yeah. what about these ones? yeah, these. these, yeah, some berry sweets. ok. these ones look pretty good, too. 27,000. thank you so much. 0k, i've survived. i've got everything that i need. now ijust need to work out how the hell i get out of here. uchka, i need a hug. how was it? i think i got into the flow quite nicely. i stayed within my budget. nonverbal haggling is my cup of tea. i could do that all day, so i'm good to go. ready for the steppe. yeah. next time... this is amazing. ..i spend 48 hours living

on the mongolian steppe... ..experiencing for myself... ..the wonders... ..and hardships of this extraordinary way of life. thunderclap. we are really racing against time now. hello. we've got our first named storm of the season, so a notch up on what we've had so far this autumn. we'll all feel the effects of storm ashley. widespread gales, but a met office amber warning for some stormy weather for the western

side of scotland. more rain to come with it as well — you can see it developing here in the atlantic. it will rapidly develop in the next 18—24 hours, and even ahead of it, some typical autumnal wind and rain with us at the moment. moving its way eastwards to clear across scotland and northern ireland, western fringes of england and wales by the morning time. so, quite chilly in these areas and there could be some low—level fog to watch out for. under our rain band, it's misty, murky, with figures much milder than it was last night, but it does mean a slow start to saturday for eastern parts of england. it could be that that rain drags its heels into the afternoon, but for most of us, it's the quieter day of the weekend. the winds are lighter, there'll be some sunshine, just a scattering of showers, so i think it will feel quite pleasant. eventually, that rain clears from east anglia as we head towards the middle part of the afternoon. so, 15—17, just a little bit above average. but then as we go through the night, we start to see this next area of low pressure, this deepening storm

coming our way with windy weather and rain for all parts. as i say, it's a notch up on what we've seen so far this autumn. so, widespread gales, particularly around the coast, on the hills, but even inland for some, a spell again of very wet weatherfor a time. and then it brightens up with a few showers, but more rain and another escalation in the winds. it looks stronger still in the north and west. bear in mind as well, we've got high tides at the moment, so we may well have some coastal flooding as well — another hazard. so, these sort of wind speeds enough to bring down the trees that are in full leaf, cause some travel disruption as well, and structural damage, and even more ferocious, the feeling at the moment is that western scotland will have gusts of wind up to 80 miles an hour during the course of sunday, so it's definitely one to watch before it looks as if it'll scoot away into the north sea across to scandinavia, leaving us with a brisk westerly wind, possibly more rain coming into the south and the east on monday. but at the moment it's a couple of days of quieter weather, sunny spells and showers. we may even see high pressure

into the middle part of the week, but there's more on the storm on the website.

camp with more than 80 also wounded. local sources indicate northern gaza is effectively isolated with telecommunications and internet services severed. the director of al—awda hospital had told reporters about an overwhelming influx of casualties. it's believed around 400,000 people are trapped inside the camp without food or water. meanwhile, we've heard more reaction today from world leaders on israel's killing of hamas leader yahya sinwar. us president biden said the so—called quad of western allies agrees there is a road to peace, though he acknowledged it would be difficult to reach a ceasefire in gaza. on friday, a senior hamas member confirmed sinwar was killed, but says his death will only strengthen the group. the bbc has learned that the group will meet soon to choose a new leader. and israel's government says their war objectives have not yet been met. meanwhile, crowds of israelis have continued their protests against israeli prime minister

benjamin netanyahu in tel aviv, demanding a ceasefire deal to bring the israeli