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Published: August 8th 2007
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Hi there. So here is the 2nd part of our Mongolian adventure...Apologies for the huge delay - but this website crashed, so we lost our photos and new entries we made - boo!! Anyway.....
We set off for our big desert adventure in an old, rusty Russian van. Accompanying us was our trusty driver Jigmee, our guide Ortgoo and the tour owner's mother, known simply to everyone as 'Mama', who was along for the ride, because (like the others) was from the Gobi and fancied catching up with some old friends.
Before I begin, some fact about the Gobi:
It is the size of France (roughly)
There are 0.3 people per square km
It is dusty and sandy and desert-like in parts
There is also lush green-ness, and an ice gorge
There are NO PAVED ROADS
There is no electricty
Ditto for running water
Mostly nomads live there
You do not want to break down here with no provisions
And some facts about Mama (she plays a big part in our experience)
Mama is about 60
She is the daughter of a wrestler and a singer
She knows a lot about the desert
She also knows
a lot of the 10 people who live in the desert
She likes vodka
She can say 3 things in English - 'Eat eat!', 'Sleep, sleep' and 'Mama tea good!' (a statement, not a question)
She can also do the splits
We travelled to the South Gobi, via the Middle Gobi, looped round to the West, then back up again. All in all, about a week's journey.
It was a very bumpy ride, and our spines seem to have impacted, and I swear we are a couple of inches shorter than before this trip (not good given previous stature anyway). Gobi desert drivers would make the best rally drivers in the world I reckon.
Anyway, each day we seemed to be in a new environment - the Gobi isn't just sand, it has lots of other permuatations, and so we saw a lot of different animals. On our first couple of days, it was hot and dry and dusty. We saw a lot of eagles, and a few voles. The land then seemed to turn red, and looked a lot more like the Aussie Outback. It is in this part of the Gobi, called Bayanzagdad that a
lot of dinosaur bones have been found - one Mongolian man was trying to sell us a dinosaur neckbone. It was so old (obviously!) that minerals had started growing in its crevices. It was here that we experienced our first (and hopefully last) sandstorm. The horizon suddenly turned dark, and Jigmee started driving furiously to get us to a shelter. There was a small sum nearby (like an oasis, where there are some fixed dwellings - kind of an administrative centre for the district). Mama had some relatives here, and we sat out the fierce storm, drinking yak butter tea, being commanded to 'eat!' and 'sleep!. (Mama). We also experienced a huge lightning storm that night - totally unusual as it hardly rains in the desert.
During the nights we stayed in nomadic ger tents. Mostly Mama's friends or relatives. She would spend hours cooking up a feast for us, whilst catching up with her friends, and then they would force us to eat huge quantities of food. They also spent a lot of time gossiping about us and laughing - not unkindly - I think they found us quite strange - they don't get many tourists their way.
Jigmee our brilliant driver
Our hero chopping mutton for dinner Nomads in the Gobi live in big round felt tents, called gers. It is customary that they put any visitors up, and their hospitality is legedendary. In exchange for our nights stay, we would give a small gift to the nomads in the gers, ussually things that they found hard to get, like soap, and rice (and sometimes vodka!).
Food at the gers was interesting - it is a real insult not to eat food given to you, especially when a guest in a ger, so we were subjected to all sorts. The worst was probably camel curds (vile - tastes like smelly feet). At one ger camp, we were really lucky to have had the privilege of watching a mare milking festival in full swing. Basically, nomads consult a lunar calendar, and when they deem it a good day, the round up all their mares. They do this by catching the foals and tying thm to a post, so that the mothers will come to them, then they catch these and tie them up too. This is a laborious process that takes hours, as the mares are quite wild and numerous. Why do they do this? Simple. So
Nic on her fat camel
At Kongorin Els (Sand dunes in Gobi) they can milk the mare 5 times a day for about a month, ferment the milk, and drink it.....This is a drink called 'airag'. We were given some of this to try. If you are ever offered it in the future, just refuse it. Tell them that you are fatally allergic to dairy. It tastes like warm, fizzy liquid feta cheese. We also, about 5 minutes later, were forced to drink camel vodka, made from the milk of camels. Its only virtue is that it took away the taste of the aireg. It smelled and tasted of camel, and burned out our throats and insides. But you can't refuse these things. And when you are given something to eat and drink, you are watched very carefully by your hosts, who give you encouraging smiles and beacuse you are being watched, you have to swallow this, quietly gagging, with a big fake smile plastered on your face, crying 'mmmm! delicious!'. And you wonder worriedly what you are going to have to consume next. But, you only live once...(though you liftime is porbably going to be greatly reduced by drinking camel firewater). We also consumed vast quantities of mutton, a meat we
would be ahppy never to see cross your plates again. It is considered a treat in Mongolia, but less of a treat for Anton - he always seemed to end up with bone, gristle and tough chewy meat. To his dismay, Mama seemed to have brought a whole sheep with her and we ate mutton every night.
The horizon seemed to go on for miles in the dusty dry bit of the Gobi - the Middle Gobi. The sky was a bright uninterrupted blue, and was pounding hot. Every now and then we would see a nomad, wearing traditional clothes, walking along in the middle of the desert, usually on the way to a 'sum'. Or we would occasionally see people on their horses, riding bareback, herding their sheep or goats. We also saw men on horseback catching wild horses. One of the most amazing sights we had, was when suddenly, a pack of 40 or so wild horses appeared from seemingly nowhere, running by our van for about 3 or 4 minutes. You could feel the ground thumping as they galloped. They were really beautiful - it is one of the most awesome sights I have seen.
Whilst staying at one ger, we were shown a lump of rock, with glittery bit of gold in it - the desert is really rich in metals and minerals, mostly gold and copper. After that, everytime we stopped somewhere we would have a scrabble around in the sand to see if we could spot some gold - it never happened!
One evening we rode camels midway up a huge sandune, called Khongorin Els. Our camels were very well typecast, I thought. Mine was a bit overweight, panted a lot and moved very slowly, whilst constantly lowing in complaint. Anton's was very...gaseous. (Mama found a lot of mirth in this, as did I). So with our wheezing and flatulent steeds we made our way up this giant sandune, dismounted, then walked up the rest to get to the top for sunset. Well, Anton did. I was worried about shifting sands so I sat down and waited for Anton to summit the peak, watch sunset and attempt to slide down on his rucksack cover. (In all truthfulness, it was more the hours' climb to the top rather than the shifting sands that put me off).
We also rode horses at
an ice gorge called Yolyn Am. It's a natural wonder - an ice gorge in a desert. It was beautiful and green, with lots of flowers, rabbits and huge vultures. Without the vultures, it was like NZ or Switzerland - very incongruous and bizarre.
Anyway, that is pretty much it for te Gobi. All in all, it was amazing. We have never been somewhere so mindblowingly vast, varied, harsh and beautiful, all at the same time. We saw sandstorms, ice, eagles, rabbits, horses, wild camels, dinosaur bones and eggs, but the best thing was meeting all the lovely people that we did, and the friends that we made. (Cheesy, but true.)
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david
non-member comment
really fantastic