The Gobi

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July 11th 2006

Published: July 29th 2006

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JoelStern

North Gobi - Rock Formations

An early start at 07:00 and some mongolian cornflakes soaked in yak's milk before our guide Baysaa came to pick us up from the hostel. we went by car to the Golden Gobi to meet Jason, Madeleine, Morritz and our driver Dugreh before heading off in our fully-packed furgon (old russian van). After about 30 minutes of driving we came off the tarmac and onto a dirt track and that would be the last we would see of civilisation for the next 8 days. We continued for about 5 hours until we came to a tiny village consisting of a few gers. A ger is a traditional mongolian home which looks a little bit like a Native American teepee but is round and covered with felt with a small wood-burning stove in the centre. We stopped in one of the gers for some lunch - a large but delicious helping of flour noodles with mutton and fat. Fat is a delicacy in Mongolia and is actually more revered than the meat itself. We continued for another 3 hours until we got to some rock formations where we stopped for a walk around. The rocks looked like large bee hives and we

North Gobi - Destroyed Monastery

were able to climb to the summit of one for a fantastic view of the surrounding steppe scenery. Our next stop was just a few kilometres further on at a monastery which was destroyed by the communists during the soviet occupation of Mongolia. There isn't a lot left vto see but again the surrounding scenery made for breathtaking views and we all found something to take away from the experience. We continued for a further 3 hours into the Middle-Gobi, where we stopped at a herder's camp and negotiated a stay in their ger overnight. The family actually moved in with one of the neighbouring families and we had the whole ger for our disposal - even then, 7 people in a ger is still a squeeze! We played some volleyball with some of the herder kids and Baysaa made a delicious vegetable soup for dinner before we hit the sack with the sound and smell of our hosts goat herd just outside.

I woke up at 07:00 for the second morning in a row but this time had a plate of fried eggs thrust into my hand the moment I gained conciousness. Good old Baysaa! We packed up

Herder's Ger - 1st night Gobi tour

and left at 08:30 driving for 5 hours before pulling off the road for a gobi picnic. we continued on to Dalanzagad, the capital city of the Middle-Gobi, where we stopped for the night in a ger camp aimed at tourists. While the others showered and relaxed, I went to the market with Baysaa to buy meat for dinner. It was hardly a bustling market, although the fly-infested meat section served up some interesting sights including camel hooves and a whole cow's stomach. In the end we purchased some horse mince and headed back to the camp where Bayssa and Dugreh made Mongolian's national dish of Buuz - steamed meat dumplings, which turned out to be extremely tasty. In the evening we cracked open a bottle of vodka with Howard and Sue, a lovely welsh couple who were staying in the ger next to ours and their guides Julie and Oorna. The conversation revolved mainly around riddles and word games and at times it felt like I was in the crystal maze, however everyone had a good laugh and it was 01:00am before we all headed to bed.

The third day of the tour, we left Dalanzagad at 09:00

Nomadic Camel herder - Gobi

and managed to drive for an hour before the transmission on the furgon just went. Luckily, we were only a few kilometres away from our destination and we managed to struggle to the gates of the Yolyn Am national park in first gear. Dugreh began to work on the van while we visited the small Nature Museum showcasing both the wildlife past and present which resides in the gobi including dinosaur bones and eggs. It only took a few minutes to see the museum but we then had to wait in the hot hot sun while Dugreh continued work on the knackered transmission. Back in the UK, a problem like that would take about 3 days, numerous new parts and a few hundred pounds to repair however Dugreh had it sorted in 3 hours and that was the last we heard from it for the whole trip! We continued up the 10km to the main highlight of the park, a massive gorge full of ice. Really! It is absolutely mind-boggling to find this in the middle of one of the driest places on the planet however there it is. It is possible to walk on the ice and we followed

Impromptu Picnic - Gobi

the canyon all the way down, slipping and sliding, crawling through ice caves and getting soaked on the way until we reached a wonderful lush valley at the end. We returned through the gorge to the van, still in complete disbelief at this oasis of ice in the middle of the desert. We piled back into the van and began to drive as the rain started to come down. We drove through a narrow gorge and on occasions had to get out of the van as it drove through extremely narrow rock gates. After about an hour, we came out of one gorge to find the desert steppe laid out right infront of us and then Dugreh put his foot down. Unfortunately, due to the delay caused by the breakdown earlier in the day, we were unable to reach our destination at Khongorin Els, and as darkness swept in, our driver got increasingly confused and lost. By 23:30, we decided that rather than carry on, it would be wisest to camp the night where we were. We pitched the tents, struggling to hammer the pegs in through the hard desert floor and Baysaa cooked up some pasta before we retired

Yolyn Am Ice Canyon

under canvass. I shared a tent with Adam and Morritz and at around 4am were were all woken up simultaneously by the sound of our fly sheet blowing off in the strong wind. We feared that it had been blown off completely but luckily one of the pegs held and we managed to get it back on just in time before the rain started.

We woke up in the morning soaking wet. The fly sheet had come off again after we had reattached it and everything in our tent had suffered as a consequence. we packed everything up in the van and drove on to Khongorin Els which we had failed to reach the previous night - 20km away from where we ended up camping. Again we stayed in a ger camp which aimed at tour groups like ours and again we bumped into Sue and Howard. Our first job was to dry everything out after the previous nights' downpour which meant reserecting the tents and strapping our wet clothes and sleeping bags to the outside of our ger. Baysaa disappeared for a while and came back with a goblet full of camels milk which we tried. It was

Baysaa at Yolyn Am Ice Canyon

very thick and tasted like salty natural yoghurt - not really something I would like to drink on a regular basis. While everyone else was chilling out, Dugreh invited Adam and I to partake in one of Mongolia's favourite pastimes - Wrestling. We each took three bouts with him and both came out worse for wear with no wins between us. either way, it was good fun although really tiring and nowhere near as easy as it looks on the TV. In the afternoon we had a 2 hour camel ride up to the sand dunes, which was good fun although my camel, Philippe seemed to be in no kind of hurry and was always last in the train. We returned to camp and rested for an hour until 19:00 before Adam and I went with Sue, Howard and their guide Julie to the dunes in a bid to reach the summit. The air temperature had already cooled considerably, yet it took us a good 90 minutes to reach the ridge at the summit, climbing what must have been about a 60 degree slope for the 200 metre climb. Every step forward seemed to result in two steps backwards as

Yolyn Am Ice Canyon

we climbed up in a fair wind which blew grains of sand against our skin, stinging hard. This is possibly one of the hardest physical challenges I have ever tacked and I was the last one to reach the top, encouraged by Adam who promised me there was an Irish pub at the top serving ice-cold Guinness. Unfortunately there was to be no Guinness, however the views from the summit warranted the hard climb up. We reached the ridge just as the sun was beginning to come down and the low-light of the evening cast wonderful shadows against the Lawrence of Arabia-esque dunes. We sat on the sand for a while admiring the stunning views and the perfect silence as the sun began to set. In all the places I have travelled I have always been a keen admirer of sunsets but I have never seen anything like this before. It is always a humbling feeling when nature gives you something like this but I can honestly say this is one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life. Words really cannot do this view any kind of justice but it is a memory that will remain

Camping it up - Gobi Style

with me forever. As the sun lowered, we had to drag ourselves away and head back down to camp, but the sheer majesty of what we had just witnessed was ample reward. We made it back to camp shortly after 23:00 and I showered, cleaning sand out of every orifice and emptying the best part of a kilogram of sand out of my boots. That night I slept like a log.

I was woken up the following morning to a bowl of muesli drenched in hot sheeps milk which actually turned out to be very tasty although not quite up to the standard of Ready Brek. We packed up the van and drove for 3 hours to Bayanzag and the Flaming Cliffs, the site where in the 1920's Roy Chapman Andrews discovered dinosaur remains in Mongolia. Although all the bones and fossils have been removed by archaeologists, the cliffs still provide a short but interesting hike and some fantastic views over the surrounding landscape. We continued on to another herders ger camp, where we had the opportunity for a shower and a few cold beers. The rain descended in the afternoon and Julie, Howard and Sue's guide taught me

Wresting with Dugreh

one of Mongolia's favourite pastimes - The Ankle Bone Game. Ankle Bone is played with a number of sheep or goat ankle bones (cleaned and polished). The aim of the game, although relatively complicated depends on which of the four sides of the ankle bone lands on. Each side is signified by one of the 'Five Snouts', animals used in Mongolian daily life - Sheep, Goat, Horse and Camel and if the ankle bone lands on it's end (a very rare occurence), this is called a Cow. The winner is the person who has all ankle bones at the end of the game and needless to say that with my relative inexperience, I was not the winner. The rain finally gave way in the evening and produced a wonderful rainbow of which both ends were visible, signifying that it was time to return to the bar and schmooze over a few more of those lovely cold beers.

Our 6th day in the Gobi started fairly ominouisly. After driving for a short while, we pulled over at a herder's well, where a young nomadic boy was lazing in the hot sun while his livestock drank the fresh well water. Baysaa

Camel Treking - Khongorin Els

thought this would be a good place for an impromptu water fight and, as I was the biggest member of the group, decided that I was the one who should get drenched first. I'm sure that five minutes later when she was completely submerged in the water trough having a bucket full of water poured over her head, she probably thought that maybe Adam would have been a better first target. Either way, we all bundled back into the van soaking wet but the Gobi heat soon dried off our clothing. We continued on to Ongiin Khid, another monastery destroyed by the communists. Although there was not much to see there other than rubble and a stupa, the souvenir shop proved to be very interesting. Selling off antique artifacts that probably belong in a museum, there were items for sale such as smashed bits of Buddhas, the reading glasses of the Lamas and centuries old sutra prayer books. We ate lunch in the shade of a tree just outside the monastery before continuing our drive north towards the central region of Mongolia. And it came pretty suddenly. One moment we were driving through arid semi-desert and the next, we crossed

Khongorin Els

a ridge and the grass-covered steppe was laid out before us. We drove until 21:00 when we stopped next to a giant rock which looked like a turtle to camp for the night. Just as we got the tents up, some small boys who can only have been about 8 years old appeared on their horse to see who the strange looking people camping near their home were. They were very sweet and gave us a demonstration of Mongolian horsemanship. In Mongolia, children are taught to ride horses very early as in the countryside it is key to the lifestyle they lead. For a joke, we blindfolded these two boys and sat them both on the same horse backwards. They still rode it perfectly - absolutely unbelieveable! That night was pretty cold and we bought a bag of dried dung from the herder boys to start a fire. Due to lack of trees in the central regions and the multitude of animal faeces, it makes sense to use the dung for energy. And in fairness, it burns. Admittedly we all stank of shit-scented smoke the next morning but it kept us a bit warmer.

This time it didn't rain

Khongorin Els

while we camped and in the morning we packed up the tents under the morning sun and made our way to Kharkorun, the ancient capital of Chingis Kahn's empire. We pulled into the car park at Erdene Zuu Khid, the largest monastery in Mongolia and were suddenly greeted by bus-loads of tourists. We toured the ancient monastery, which still has some parts in use although the number of monks living here today is much smaller than it was before the copmmunist regime hit Mongolia. We managed to catch the monks' mealtime and the sound of them chanting their prayers was suprisingly soothing whilst also being slightly hypnotising. For lunch we bought some Kushuur (fried mutton pancakes similar to pasties but much nicer) outside the temple before driving for a few kilometres to the phallic rock aka The Cock Rock. The rock is about a metre in length and was sculpted into the shape of a gentleman's genitalia by the grand Lama. The idea was as a deterrent to monks to refrain from sexual activity. Those found canoodling with the fairer sex were castrated on the rock itself. Ouch! The highlight of this sight however was the souvenir stall. Selling penis-shaped

After conquering the climb - Khongorin Els

snuff boxes and precious stones, one of the kids manning a stall had a football which Adam offered to buy and we were delighted with his 75 pence purchase. The final night of our tour was spent in another herder's camp where after unloading the van we had an hour's kickabout with our new purchase. After eating dinner, Dugreh took a few of us out in the furgon to the nearest tourist camp a few kilometres away to purchase some vodka and beers for our last night party. The bonus of this was that he let me have a go at driving and despite the lack of power steering, I think I did a pretty good job although I think Adam was scared stiff. That evening we managed to get through 4 bottles of vodka between the 7 of us. We had a few games of cards and a lot of laughs and eventually Jason went to sleep, followed by Madeleine. After a while Adam, Baysaa and I were all talking and heard a very strange noise coming from outside the ger. After a quick look around, we realised that Morritz was missing. We bundled out of the ger to

Sunset - Khongorin Els

see Morritz listening to his ipod, singing at the top of his voice and dancing to a camel who looked exceedingly unimpressed. Happy times!

Our final day began with a late and hungover start.We drove for a few hours and eventually hit the tarmac again - sheer relief! In the afternoon we arrived at the Khustai National Park, where the last remaining wild Takhi (Preswalski) horses are conserved. We picked up a guide at the gate of the park and drove for a short while before we stopped and walked for about 2 kilometres to a site where we could observe the horses. On top of a mountain on the opposite side of the valley, we could just about make out the shape of a few horses but were unable to observe any kind of detail from that distance. To be honest it really didn't interest me and the ensuing dung-fight between Adam and Baysaa was far more interesting! At 21:00 we pulled up at the Golden Gobi Guesthouse in Ulan Baatar, dirty and tired but having had an absolutely amazing Gobi adventure.

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