Desert Trek to the Gobi

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Well we have returned from our Gobi Desert visit. We spent 6 nights and 7 days out in the Gobi. It was an amazing experience and certainly not one that I will forget in a hurry! Our driver Tiger, who couldn't really speak English - although we did manage to add about 6 words to his vocabulary by the end of the trip, these included "Thank you", "good night", "good morning" and "SLOW DOWN TIGER!!"

The roads were - basically rubbish and just dirt tracks that all look the same. We are fairly certain that it was Tiger's first trip - which meant we got lost a LOT! We spent a lot of time going from Ger to ger trying to get directions. We were in a very old russian army van that wasn't particularly reliable. The poor girl overheated constantly and by the end of the trip could only be started by a hill start or crank started! It made for interesting times!

Aside from that the experience was great. We stayed each night in a ger camp, I thought we would stay with families, however this wasn't really the case. Generally the camps had one family ger and a few that tourists stayed in. Generally they were quite nice with beds around the outside. We were fed each night some kind of goat stew with either rice or noodles. Very basic and generally edible, but I did tire of it quickly. Our diet consisted mainly of this, supplemented by pot noodles and tuna!

The highlights of the trip included:

White Mountain - which had almost a mars type landscape. Really beautiful.

The Ice Valley - which is a valley that in winter contains glaciers, because of the depth of the valley some of it remains in the shade and the ice doesn't melt. There wasn't that much there when we got there but a few blocks.

Sand Dunes - which were absolutely amazing - they started of quite small and by the end of it were just enormous! We climbed them one morning and it was extremely had work - at some parts I was up to my knees in sand!

There was also an area that had really red coloured earth and was absolutely amazing - apparently lots of dinosaur fossils have been found there.

The whole trip was quite amazing and really memorable - the desert was remarkable and the people were very friendly and so lovely. The roads and the driving could be a little scary at times - but really was incredible.

We are back in UB now - we went to a monastery this morning which was really interesting. We went to a couple of temples where the monks were praying and chanting which was pretty special to see.

More site seeing this afternoon and heading to a bar tonight to catch the opening ceremony. We leave UB on Sunday to head into Beijing.

I've added some photos as well below - they really go with some of the other blogs - but it takes a while to download - but I am sure you'll get the message!!

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