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Gobi Desert Travel Blogs

Background: The Mongols gained fame in the 13th century when under Chinggis KHAN they conquered a huge Eurasian empire. After his death the empire was divided into several powerful Mongol states, but these broke apart in the 14th century. The Mongols eventually retired to their original steppe homelands and later came under Chinese rule. Mongolia won its independence in 1921 with Soviet backing. A Communist regime was installed in 1924. During the early 1990s, the ex-Communist Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) gradually yielded its monopoly on power to the Democratic Union Coalition (DUC), which defeated the MPRP in a national election in 1996. Since then, parliamentary elections returned the MPRP overwhelmingly to power in 2000 and produced a coalition government in 2004.

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By Bikepacker
October 24th 2006

Wow! Oh what fun one can have in an abandoned Soviet Air-Base Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Me and my MiG
The last thing we expected to find in the Gobi other that camel-carcasses and thorns in our tyres! A completely abandoned Soviet Air-Base!

Day 145, 23rd October 20 miles north of Choyr - Otsol Uul (nearest peak) It wasn’t as cold as I expected it to be last night, a frost was on my tent though. The sun rose swiftly and melted the ice immediately causing my sleeping bag to get wet. I also didn’t sleep well last night because trucks were circling the tents, in curiosity I suppose. Being out here in the flat desert at night, the thought has occurred to me that a speeding truck will inadvertently run into one of the tents. What are the possibilities of that then? After [View Full Entry]

By Bikepacker
October 23rd 2006

Cycling into the Wilderness - The Gobi Crossing Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

The Gobi Crossing
At last - the hardest part of the trip begins. No roads now - only desert. And it's south all the way to Singapore!

Day 142, 20th October Ulaan Baatar - Khooltyn Davaa Nothing more has put fear into our hearts more so than crossing the Gobi Desert on our bikes. We’ve heard stories that the road is non-existent, there is very little water, and we could get frozen to death. Still, four crazy guys on bicycles keeping the tran-Mongolian railway in view shouldn’t have much of a problem - we could still flag-down a train if we ran into serious trouble…. Couldn’t we? After the usual amount of arsing about and last minute things to do that should have been done in the previous [View Full Entry]

By Jenni
September 18th 2006

TransMongolian Train journey Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Tuesday September 12 - Monday September 18, 2006 I'm cheating a little here by labeling this as Mongolia, since it is actually Russia, Mongolia, and China, but figure that you'll allow this as creative. I've decided to just lump all the days together as they were fairly similar, being on a train for almost 7 days, as you can imagine. The good news is that, overall, it was a great journey. I got along with Caryl and Darragh, my cabin mates, very well. They were both great to talk to. They traveled for a year and then were home for three [View Full Entry]

By hannah_newell
September 15th 2006

The Gobi Desert, Mongolia Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

A lake on the way south towards the Gobi

After a couple of days in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, I met some other travellers and we decided to do an 11 day trip together to the Gobi Desert and some of the National Parks in Mongolia. There were four of us in total, Heidi from Germany, Rainer from Austria and Miguel from Argentina. Instead of doing an organised tour, we decided to just hire a van and a driver and do it on our own. We organised this through one of the hostels and they provided an itinerary and some camping equipment and we left on the 15th of September. Our [View Full Entry]

A service station where we stopped for lunch

By Bla
August 11th 2006

BUMPY!!! Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Ger

We spent 8 days travelling the mongolian countryside in an old russian van, built like a tank and driven by Gana our mongolian driver who was an awesome mechanic. We could have done with him 3 months earlier when we ground to a halt in Germany. These guys lash across the rough gobi terrain which means many punctures, leaks, new gearboxes....Each nite while we sat down, in the ger generally to mutton stew they tinkered away with the mechanics. Saw some amazing skies. It's so dark out there with nothingness around that the sky is so dazzling. Of course as [View Full Entry]

By Er Chinghhis
July 28th 2006

Más Transmongoliano, camino a Datong Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Ulan Bator de madrugada

Cogemos el tren de nuevo Lo de madrugar se estaba haciendo recurrente y encajaba mal con nuestra idea de trasnochar. La verdad es que no trasnochábamos mucho, pero sí lo justo para comentar o hablar las cosas que habíamos visto o que nos habían sucedido, que era hablar de nosotros mismos. Conversaciones en las que lo inmediato iba modificando lo que ya llevábamos de viaje. Conversaciones sobre que les gustaría, o no, a aquellos que habíamos dejado donde vivíamos y que se convertían, sin quererlo, en una manera de clasificar nuestras experiencias. Una manera personal, de un pequeño [View Full Entry]

En la estación central de Ulan Bator de madrugada

By nomadicanuk
July 18th 2006

Look another destroyed monastery Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

budhism + Shamanism

July 18th After a decent night of sleep and missing the sunrise above the dunes its onwards to one of the largest monasteries. This is slightly hampered by us getting lost for several hours though since I have no idea where we are anyway it doesn't really matter. Finally finding a small kid in the middle of literally nowhere picking his nose he gives us further directions and we're off again. After driving along a river bed that due to the recent rains has become an actual river we arrive very late at the monastery. A long search for wood gives [View Full Entry]

By nomadicanuk
July 16th 2006

Yal Valley and Sand Dunes Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

my soldiers

July 16th Even with rain the gobi is still hot, the morning entails another lamentable breakfast and off to the yal valley. After arriving we hike through the mountain passageways untill we arrive at the Ice canyon, due to the rain I left my camera behind, I'll try to post some pictures another time. It was quite amazing and on the return way it had rained enough to make the small caves within the ice passable, saving us the trouble of climbing over them again though the prospect of hundreds of tons of ice crushing us was also exhilarating. The gerbil [View Full Entry]

By nomadicanuk
July 15th 2006

Flaming Cliffs Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

hurray for communism

Waking up in the morning after a freezing night camping in a small valley, the equatorial sleeping bag from mountain equipment did not exactly live up to my expectations for the desert. After a mediocre breaki we hit the road/non-existant road again and soon end up at the equivalent of a cafeteria (more closely resembling a few planks of wood nailed together with a tin roof and pit toilet 30 meters away. After another horrowing ride we come to the flaming cliffs and the dinasour finds of the gobi desert, it will now be about the 30th time I've been approached [View Full Entry]

By JoelStern
July 11th 2006

The Gobi Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

North Gobi - Rock Formations
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 [View Full Entry]

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Gobi Desert Travel Blogs, page 6

Gobi Desert Travel Blogs

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