Gobi desert

I am now back in Ulaanbaatar - tomorrow I will already leave to China... time passes to quickly or I am travelling too fast... However, even though I will have spent only 14 days in Mongolia I have the feeling of being here already since months.

During my trip to Gobi I had the same feeling: it was a trip of only 5 days, but still I had the feeling as if I had been on this van for weeks watching the landscape passing by...

that's us five :)

We were lucky to meet a polish couple in Tsetserleg who asked us if we wanted to join their trip to the Gobi desert - it corresponded completely to what we were looking for: a short (as Sylvie and Gwen had only limited time in Mongolia) trip to the main parts of the desert...

Suvd

Unlike the tour operators in UB this tour was organised by one really nice Monolian woman -  Suvd (check the link her guesthouse in case you just found my blog when looking for information about trips in Mongolia - I can only recommend her trips!!). She accompanied us throughout the whole trip, provided us with food and organised accomodations with locals in gers as well as horseriding and camelriding trips.

Driving through the Gobi is amazing: first of all, there are no streets, only roads that were created by cars driving through the desert. The more South we got the less gers we saw. We would quite often drive to them just to make sure that we are driving in the right direction. Suvd explained us that Mongolians have two compasses: the stars in the night and the sun during the day - however, in the desert you should still always double-check that you are driving in the right direction because getting stuck somewhere without petrol or water is - well lets say: not really healthy...

typical "equipment" of a ger: solar-collectors, satellite dish and small kids

Driving through the desert you would cross some cars every once in a while - same story here: stopping and double-checking the directions or quite often they stop you because they need some help as their car broke down. Oh yes, the desert kills your cars! The only cars that survive - and the only ones you would usually see are either the old but super-solid russian vans (can please some car-expert tell me the brand of this car?? - got it: thanks to Nati I know that it's an UAZ-452 - great vehicle!!) like the one one we were driving in; or jeeps. Our driver - Bade - was great! Considering the state of the roads you need to be a f** good driver in order to drive through the desert - and he definitely was...

 

So all in all we were driving quite a lot - a bit more than 1000km through the desert (that is a lot - we usually took 8h for 300km - it is not like driving on a motorway...). It is gorgeous: as already mentionned in my last story it is simply amazing to drive through this vast country without seeing any settlements - only some gers every once in a while. In the North there are a lot of green but sandy hills. The Gobi however is more a stoney desert. But still, we passed so many different types of landscape - this desert is soooooo huge...

We stopped in Bayanzag where you find the flaming cliffs (at this place they found dinosaur eggs...)
looks like Uluru, ha? ;)

Then of course we also stayed for a night near the sand-dunes of the Gurvansaikhan National Park. They are also really impressive: in fact they are around 200km long, in average 300m high and 12km wide. It is really funny: a long stripe of sanddunes within a quite green valley. We stayed overnight with a really nice and funny Mongol family that made us taste horse-milk, cheese made of horse-milk and yak-milk-tea... well, I guess you have to be used to this taste up from childhood in order to like it. The next morning we we went for one hour lasting camel-ride - touristy but funny!

Driving further West from the sanddunes we finally arrived in the canyons (yes in the canyons - we were driving through them...).

I definitely have to thank Bade here for driving us so safely through the canyons! Impressive!!

So, yeah, can't say more but that it is simply amazig how many different types of landscape you can find within this vast desert!

 

The time passed really quickly and finally I also had to say goodbye to my dear two travelmates Sylvie and Gwen whowere taking a flight to Beijing right after the trip while I had decided to stay a few more days in UB to let all my impressions settle a bit. So here I am now, in another hostel than the one I was last time because it was fully booked. And now I am happy about that because it is so much cosier here. There are 10beds in my room and we are all like a big family :) and I found my next travelmate...

I am still not a bigger fan of this city but I got a bit more used to the horrible manners of the car-drivers here (I'd better get used to it as other travellers told me that further in Asia it is only getting worse...)... And after dancing at a kind of practice-night in a nearby dance-school (which was in fact like a ball only with elderly Mongolian couples) I feel nicely exhausted and ready to leave tomorrow - direction China!!