Mongolia - The Gobi to Genghis Khan
On day 6 we headed deeper into the Gobi Desert where the landscape is huge gravel plains, rocky mountains, and endless horizons. The huge herds gradually disappeared and were replaced with desert camels
We stopped in a village where our driver did his best to find fuel - we left without success.
We arrived at a very modern looking Ger camp which looked straight out into the desert.
After having lunch we went to visit the Flaming Cliffs late afternoon hoping to see the sunset there. These are striking red sandstone formations which became internationally famous following the expeditions of American explorer and paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews during the 1920s.
In the visitor centre we saw a short film on how Roy Chapman Andrews found dinosaur eggs and bones whilst on an expedition here. It was quite fascinating to see footage of the logistics of getting his teams equipment from China into this inhospitable region using motor vehicles and camels. There were real some eggs on display in the information centre.
We then had a walk to various viewpoints around the cliffs which were all very stunning. I got Colin and Onoh to try to compete with the South Korean tourists for ridiculous poses.
We drove to a another viewpoint to have a sundowner beer and hoping to see the rocks light up. Sadly the sun got obscured by clouds, but we did see a beautiful sunset as we arrived back at our camp
Day 7 we had a 4 hour drive to the Khongor sand dunes in the Gobi desert. It was quite a sight when the strip of sand dunes came into view. They stretch for 180km reaching heights of 300m in places.
After checking into our Ger camp with a great view of the dunes we climbed aboard one of Mongolia's famous two-humped Bactrian camels for a 40 minute camel ride along the base of the dunes. Their woolly coat is surprisingly soft.
We then walked up the dunes - walking in the deep sand isn't easy, but the views from the ridge were spectacular. We sat and admired the views for some time.
Coming down was much easier and we visited a local camel-herding family and learnt about their life in this remote part of Mongolia. The father was a lovely character and answered all our questions about camels, how do they make money ( tourist camel rides, camel milk, meat and camel hair is very valuable), and how had the fuel shortage affected their tourist trade this year. We sampled some camel milk and some cheese which was much more to our taste than horses milk.
We headed back to the Ger for a pre-dinner beer and needed a post dinner beer to watch the sunset.
On Day 8 we headed to Yolyn Am (Vultures Gorge). The journey today was on very bumpy tracks but with awesome scenery. We had the dunes on our right and mountains on our left with huge open plains in between. The terrain was surprisingly green but there had been floods in this area last week
We stopped to admire this beautiful colourful valley.
We pulled up at a lovely Ger camp near the gorge for lunch before driving on to the gorge where we had a quick look in the small museum at the entrance which showed stuffed models of the birds and animals of the area.
We then explored the gorge on foot, following the valley as its tall rock walls gradually narrowed around us. We were sadly short of time to really take it all in as our driver had an appointment to collect some petrol in the nearby town. We walked down to a narrow area where we criss-crossed a stream of boulders.
We continued on towards the main regional town of Dalanzagad where our ger camp for the night was - not such a nice setting as where we had lunch but it had decent facilities.
The following day we had a long drive to Baga Gazriin Chuluu, an area with dramatic granite rock formations, for our final night of the tour. Normally the drive would be broken up by a visit to the White Stupa Cliffs, another famous desert sight, but we had needed to trim down our tour by a day to fit in with our time available.
After rain in the night it was wet in the morning. The driver had arranged to collect more fuel in the nearby town of Dalanzadgad. We were shocked at the length of the queues at the many petrol stations - they literally went on for kilometres
Onoh took us in the Gobi Museum of Nature and History which is housed in a modern building. There were displays on rocks and minerals of the area, mining (which is the main industry other than tourism), cultural history, and a floor dedicated to dinosaur finds in the country including those we had seen at the Flaming Cliffs
The driver had got some fuel through a contact which as always was a relief. Most of the onward journey was on paved roads although they became increasingly potholed.
We turned off the main road where the driver spotted a small petrol station with just 4 vehicles in front of us - he took some more fuel even though it was double the cost that it should have been
The last 30 kms to the rock formations were on gravel/sand tracks and the scenery got increasingly dramatic.
The late afternoon light was beautiful on the granite formations and hills around us. We headed to the remains of a destroyed Buddhist temple where we walked up on the surrounding hills for views of the valley. As always we were against the clock with time so we would have loved to have lingered longer taking in the views and soaking up the serene atmosphere.
We drove across the valley to see a small cave entrance and a small opening in the rock to a hidden spring said to have healing properties.
It was another half an hour drive to our Ger camp for our final night of our holiday. The drive and clouds were beautiful in the setting sun.
We spent the evening answering questions from the driver on life in the UK.
Our final day we were up early to hit the road back to UB. It felt strange seeing the huge built up city ahead of us after all the wild open spaces of the last 10 days
We bade farewell to our driver and Colin and Onoh jumped in Lolly to take her to a mechanic friend of Onohs who checked over our brakes and rotated our tyres around.
Lolly had acquired another UK vehicle companion for the night - a Dragoman Overland truck. We had a night in the hotel and headed to a nearby popular Irish bar for some post tour refreshments.
We had thoroughly enjoyed our whistle-stop tour around the central Mongolian and the Gobi region. We would have loved to have had more time to explore this vast and amazing country in Lolly, but I think we can safely say that we made the most of the time we had. The tour meant we came away with much more understanding of the country from our guide, and took away the stress for us having to worry about getting fuel. We were extremely grateful to our drivers constant efforts to source fuel, using his contacts and experience. Thanks again to Absolute Nomads for organising the trip at short notice during the fuel shortages. We've certainly left enough of the country to see on another trip.
We now had just three days to get ourselves from UB to the Chinese border - around 850km largely down one road.
We had a morning in UB getting laundry done and picking up some bits and pieces we needed for our onward trip. We called in at the historic State Department Store to buy a couple of clothing items and food for the next few days. I found some essential items including After 8's.
Over the road from the department store we walked past the Beatles statue. During Mongolia’s socialist period, Western music was officially banned . Young Mongolians nevertheless secretly listened to Beatles records, often gathering in apartment stairwells to play and sing Beatles songs. For many Mongolians, the music became associated with Western culture, freedom and the country’s eventual democratic transformation. The statue was erected in 2008, funded by Mongolian Beatles fans.
We then headed 50kms out of the city to the Genghis Khan statue complex. Here is a 40m stainless steel statue of Genghis Khan on horseback. It is the tallest equestrian statue in the world. We climbed the statue to a viewing platform at the top and had a walk around the museum inside the complex, although there was very little English translation to understand what we were looking at.
We drove a few kilometres further and parked up next to the river near here that Onoh had recommended. It felt great to be back in Lolly.
We were surrounded by yaks and horses in the morning - we were really going to miss this scenery when we leave Mongolia.
We now faced two days of driving long straight featureless roads to reach the Chinese border. The scenery got more barren, and we only passed through small towns which seemed to be based around mining enterprises.
On the second night we parked a few kms before the border where there ended up being around 10 other overland vehicles from Switzerland, Germany, France and Poland all doing the border crossing the next day, but none in our group sadly. We enjoyed a nice evening swapping travel experiences and future plans.
We got ourselves ready for what we hoped would be a smoother crossing into China the following day.
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