The Gobi Desert, Mongolia

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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 driver was called 'Ekhmer' and he spoke only a few words of english. He brought his 6 year old son, 'Otkar' on the trip too. He was really cute and lot of fun. He was also useful as our mongolian model so you will see him in lots of my photos!

From the capital we drove south. After leaving the capital the road ended and we headed towards the desert through a labyrinth of dirt roads. It was really bumpy but we were told that this was actually qquite good conditions compared to what was to come later on in the trip.

For the first couple of days we drove for 5-6 hours a day and met with families who invited us into their homes for tea and to try their food. In Mongolia they have a lot of meat and dairy. We tried their cheese, milk, cream and yohurt and lots of mutton. It was definitely an acquired taste but it was interesting to see how the women cook and what they eat.

We went to several sites with interesting rock formations and to a National Park where we camped for a night. The local people we met were so friendly and full of smiles.

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Comments

[Andrew]

Walking The Gobi
Your pictures are terrific. It gives me some idea of what the Gobi is like. I am doing a simulated walk of the Gobi. I add up my distance each month as I take out groceries for little old ladies. I am taking the width as 1600 km. I still have 400 km to go. Thanks for the pics Andrew from Calgary