Mongolia - The Gobi

The Gobi

Thee Gobi desert was not what I expected.  It wasn't the sand dune covered desert that you imagine.  This part of the Gobi was more like a gravel covered car pak.  There was a bit of sand here and there, but not that much. Our guide took us to "the sand dune" which was the only decent sized mound of sand I saw. Oh yeah, and the desert wasn't hot either.  It was damn cold, probably why the Chinese didn't want to go there.

Eating food made from milk, flour and meat

To be fair we didn't "do" that much in the Gobi.  It was just an awesome experience being there are seeing the emptiness of the place.  Despite the apparent hopelessness of the place, it turns out people, plants and animals live there quite happily.  We visited a nomad family who claim they have about 800 animals, all wildly roaming the desert.  I'm not exactly sure how they look after all these animals, but apparently Mongolian herders are very in touch with their animals.  The nomad guy was nice enough to find some of his camels for us and let as go for a ride on one (although the camel wasn't so happy about this).

Our driver (who turned out not to be an ordinary driver, but quite an extraordinary person) showed us "Gobi Desert spring onion", which apparently the camels and sheep love eating.  It's because of this unique type of food that the animals of the Gobi eat that makes the animals more delicious (or so I'm told).  Apparently, the Gobi has the tastiest mutton, and I must say, it was quite tasty.  It's a good thing its tasty too, the nomads who live out there basically live off a sustenence of meat, milk products and flour based products.  There's not a lot in terms of vegetables and fruits avaialble to them.

Camels just chillin

The resourcefulness of the people living in the Gobi is quite amazing.  Not only do they eat their animals, their animals have many uses.  They wear their animals (it turns out animals are quite warm), they build with their animals (turns out animals provide good insulation), they can turn their animal's milk into almost anything you could think of, and they even use the shit of the animals as a fuel source.  Yep that's right, since there's not many trees in the desert, nomads use camel shit as firewood - and you need a lot of fire to keep warm in that place at night!

A nomad and his kid

Nomads are pretty cool folk.  They live the simple life.  They live in gers (round tents that you could imagine Ghengis Khan in) and have no running water.  Inside the ger, in the middle is a stove (as previously mentioned fuelled by camel shit).  The stove has a multi-purpose function in being used for cooking and heating.  Cleverly, there is a chimney so the ger doesn't get smokey. Around the outside of the Ger are usually beds where the family sleeps.  Pretty simple.  The more hi-tech nomads use solar panels for power in their gers, while the simpler ones rely on car batteries.  Power is important, not only for lighting, but a power source is required for the satelite dish and TV and to charge mobile phones. Yep, nomads don't need a toilet or shower, but they can't live without TV and phones.  I guess with out a mobile phone, how do you find a nomad? Interesting how the basic human needs have been redefined. Maybe Maslow got it wrong. It also turns out nomads don't constantly move around, they only move their gers about 2-3 times per year, usually dependent on weather conditions.

In the Gobi, I stayed in a tourist ger camp.  This is like a high school camp, expect the cabins are replaced by gers and there are much fewer activities to do.  There's comfortable bathroom facilities and a dinning room for meals.  All in all a nice place to stay to feel like a Mongolian nomad, but actually be reasonably comfortable.

A ger camp

The desert omens were quite good for us on our trip in the Gobi.  We climbed Wish Mountain and from the top we were able to see about 7 Gobi Ibex (some kind of rare wild sheep).  Apparently, the locals believe sighting these animals to be extremely good luck.  When I came back down the mountain, some people asked to see my photo, and even took photos of my camera's screen.  Our incredible driver says he has seen them many times, but this was the closest he has ever seen them.  In addition to the ibex, but we also sigthed a snake on the way down the mountain - apparently also a sign of luck.  These signs of luck came after we visited a temple and were proved to be super lucky by playing Shagai (rolling animal knuckle bones) and rolling in the right combinations. At this point it was becoming apparent that we were the walking deities and the Gobi was bowing to our every need.

The Gobi Ibex

In the Gobi we visited more temples, encountered more luck and finished our visit at the Danzanravja museum, where we encountered our most lucky moment yet, learning that our driver was actually the grandson of Tuduv, the monk who was the custodian of all the historical buddhist relics which were hidden underground during the Mongolian purge which started in the 1920s.  This link gives shows the recent unearthing of some of the relics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drZJc4Uy8jY Our driver was able to give us some special insights into the museum, which I would have otherwise found relatively uninteresting.

The Gobi desert has a basketball court

With the Gobi part of the trip wrapped up, it was time to bid farewell to our amazing driver and get on an overnight train to head north to Ulaan Baatar.  The train ride, although this time not completly empty, was still quite comfortable for a shitty old russian train.