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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 TWIG project Together We Integrate Growth
June 14th 2006

Trans-Mongolian Tracks : Six days from Moscow to Beijing. Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Trance-Mongolian Train
The view from cabin VI, wagon 7, train 004 from Moscow to Peking.

Moscow. Day 0. We move into our sardine can with an Irishman we call Dave and a Chinaman smuggler who crams bags and boxes of rowanberry vodka, cigarettes and bric-a-brac liberally about our cabin, and then disappears for three days. Our Chinese conductor speaks zero English (and we speak .0002% Chinese) and sports only one nametag: Conductor no. 186. He cooks himself delicious dinners of dumplings each day over a coal fire. Moscow slides far behind us. Novgorod, Russia. Day 1. Ramshackle tumbledown wooden cabins and newly plowed fields amongst fir forests. Pushups and situps da [View Full Entry]

By Mel and Gareth
November 20th 2005

8 days, 7 gers, 0 showers... Priceless! Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Sand storm

Well, we survived our journey into the abyss, with everything intact, and a little bonus body odour to boot. The Mongolian countryside is everything that the capital is not: clean, spectacular, beautiful, breathtaking and well worth another visit. At times we felt so far removed from our current residence that the only commonality was the blistering cold and wind (which began on the day we departed). Day 1 saw us bump out of the city in a brick-shaped Russian military style van, in the capable hands of our driver, Bazaraa (whom we soon renamed Red, after Morgan Freeman from "The Shaws [View Full Entry]

By Carolee and Jay
October 2nd 2005

Traveling in a Fried-Out Combi... Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Geologists say there are 33 types of Desert in the Gobi
I counted 37, so one of us is wrong...

The Gobi is one brutish beast of a desert. That's not referring to the drastic climate changes we encountered (mid-60s by day, low-30s by night) or the vast remoteness of the area (about 1000 miles of barren landscape from the SW to NE). Its traversing through the hellacious terrain of marred dirt and rock in a minibus that battered us so severely it felt like Ike Turner had given us a once over (that one's for you Jamey). For 6 days we traveled in a 1970s VW Combi throughout the SE of Mongolia. They call them roads, but they're really just [View Full Entry]

The gang heads off in the Mystery Machine

By degrubs
July 9th 2005

On the Trans-Mongolian Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

I love trains

Early morning start for Benedict and I. He is kind enough to drop me at the station. My train leaves at 08:10 precisely (as advertised on the ticket, with "precisely" underlined and in bold). Benedict is going to try to change his ticket to leave Ulan-Bataar earlier then he planned, so that he may join me in Beijing for Tibet. As I get on the train, my cabin is yet again filled with bags. Thankfully, this time it is not cigarettes but the bags of three English guys, named Ben, Jack and Jamie. Ben and Jamie are going round the world [View Full Entry]

By degrubs
July 8th 2005

Sadly back to UB Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Bored Camel

Our last day in the wild Mongolian Steppes has started. The usual breakfast of bread and jam follows a slow awakening. For the tenth time on this journey, I swear to myself that never again shall I touch a drop of vodka. I am looking forward to being in China again, where I will have to deal with the Mao-Tai on a daily basis and can leave vodka behind. I wonder what they drunk before the Russians arrived and imported vodka and their drunken habits. They probably got drunk on Airag. After breakfast, our things were quickly packed away and loaded [View Full Entry]

By degrubs
July 7th 2005

More emptiness.... Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Bene and I

My sleep was troubled and filled with visions of horses, yaks, camels, sheep and goats, all laughing loudly and displaying a rather strong stench. I awoke from those visions of horrors with a jolt and a sense of relief at it having only been a dream, only to be faced with Stinky smiling at me wildly with all of his 6 teeth and gesturing to the outside world. It was 9 am on my 20th day of travel. I pushed Stinky away from me, made a slalom through the empty bottles of vodka, made a mental note never to drink vodka [View Full Entry]

By degrubs
July 6th 2005

A big load of nothing Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Stinky is preparing the horses

As the rain got thinner and I struggled to find some sleep, I would look up to the sky and be met with the most extraordinary spectacle: the sight of a million clear stars. Never have I seen such a sky: it was perfectly clear and every star could be seen with incredible precision. There was no light pollution to disturb the idea nor any other pollution to disturb the way. Nothing, the purest sky with the most amazing, unpolluted view of the stars. I decided to count them, in order to try to get to sleep (a lack of sheep, [View Full Entry]

By degrubs
July 5th 2005

Heading out in the desert with sleepy and snaily Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Unending straight road

Early morning (and painful) wake up for us, but we feel excited at the idea of heading out into the wilderness. Xinthia, the Australian girl I mentioned earlier, was also meant to leave this morning for the Gobi but due to the fact that the girl she was supposed to travel with found herself a boyfriend during the night and wished to remain, she asked to come with us. Xinthia (aka: Snaily, in regards to her carrying everything she owns on her back) joined us at the start point at UB guesthouse. We saw three huge army jeeps engulfing their loads [View Full Entry]

By gogy80
August 27th 2004

En krog po Mongoliji Asia » Mongolia » Gobi Desert

Pri domacinih

Bok! Pa sem nazaj! Uf, 10 dni Mongolije je hitro minilo in doziveli smo veliko zanimivih pripetljajev. Na pot smo odrinili z novim pol kombi pol dzipom Mitsubishi, nasim Mongolskim mongoloidnim soferjem Brdavsom (iq<70, ), vodicem po imenu Gala, Stevie (26 let, NZL), Kristjan in Almut (32 let , DDR), Gregor(???, SLO), in jaz (24, SLO). Prvi dan je bila sicer samo voznja proti Gobiju, ves dan, kuhali smo si sami ob poti. Ceste so speljane malo tu, malo tam (makadam), nobenih oznak, za pot vprasas najblizjega nomada na konju. Ko smo enkrat zgresili, so nas povabili v ger na koscek [View Full Entry]

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