We drove into Mongolia from China, happy as Larry, the millstone of ridiculous Chinese bureaucracy and the annoyance of having a guide 24/7 in our car has been cast off. We are free to drive where and when we please. The cherry on the top is that Mongolia is a land of wide open space and is sparsely populated. You essentially have the place to yourself. Many areas do not have formal roads. Locals have simply driven from A to B across the wide open plains more or less in a straight line and thus created a “road”, which is essentially a track. As people consider the track to have become too rough, they simply start a new track next to the old. It is not unusual to have a half a dozen or more tracks next to each other.
Our plan was first to explore the southern part of Mongolia, the Gobi desert, before travelling northwards, and ultimately on to Siberia.
The Gobi desert is actually not the classic sand dune covered area that springs to mind, but comprises of arid wide open plains cut by a series of east west running mountain ranges. There are no fences or man made barriers. Some areas are covered by sand dunes. The plains are covered by very hardy desert bushes, and in many areas there is a covering of sparse hardy grasses. Oddly, in most areas, groundwater is only a few metres below ground level and water can be obtained from shallow wells. Nomads run herds of horses, camels, sheep and goats on the plains and in many cases, the nomads seem to have established semi permanent dwellings and animal enclosures. The nomads are scattered very sparsely across the desert.
The nomads water their animals from the wells. This is mostly done manually using a bucket and lifting the water about 5m. This would be hard work and we often saw women doing this work.
The track from the China border at Erenhot to the central Gobi desert area, our first area of interest, is about 700km. Cutting across the desert on a 700km two wheel track on our first day in Mongolia seemed a bit daunting. We therefore travelled northwards on a new asphalt road for 400km to Choyer, from where we could cut our teeth on a 250km desert crossing on a reasonably well defined track. Our GPS guided us well to the next fair size town, Mandalgov, without much of a problem. Travel progress was slow due to the rough track, with the average speed being about 30km to 40km per hour. Without GPS, one would get lost within the first couple of kilometres. There are numerous tracks leading in different directions and at times, the split into a new direction is so gradual that you are miles off course before you become aware of the issue. No problem actually, simply use your compass to head across the plains until you find yourself on track again. Our confidence grew as we covered more and more kilometres and especially when we actually managed to reach our chosen destination without getting hopelessly lost.
Dalanzadgad, a provincial capital of about 20,000 people, became our base for a few days from where we made day trips to interesting places, located in different directions.
Yolyn (which means valley of vultures – we saw none) gorge, was our first side trip to what we understood to be a remote ice filled gorge. We were taken aback to have half a dozen cars and suv’s overtake us at speed. To our surprise and pleasure however, the rush of cars was as a result of the annual local farmers yak festival, held within the mountain valley. We joined spectators and enjoyed the fun watching singing competitions, Mongolians expertly handling their horses, yak lassoing, and yak shearing competitions. Then it was on to the gorge. The lower, narrow end of the gorge still had about 3m deep ice, remains of the winter freezing of the stream. The narrow part of the gorge is only about 3m wide. On the way back, we drove down another gorge, following the track, which is for the most part within the dry river bed. The outlet from the gorge is a narrow 2.5m section with sheer cliff sides, which was just wide enough for us to squeeze through with the vehicle.
Our second day trip was to a place called Flaming Cliffs. The soft reddish coloured sandstone had been eroded away over thousands of years to leave a line of jagged “cliffs”, about 50m high. The view from below was a lot more impressive than from the “plateau” level and fortunately we could use a 4WD track to get to the base of the cliffs. The Flaming Cliffs was put on the map and owes its popularity to an American palaentologist, who in the 1920’s, discovered a concentration of dinosaurs fossil remains, including eggs, at this site. On the way back, we decided to follow a track across a nearby mountain range. The scenery was spectacular with various mountain and valley forms, and different colours. We could not get enough of it. We saw a couple of eagles, a fox and nesting raptors as well. A local farmer helped us out of a remote valley where we seemed to get our directions into a knot and our GPS was off the grid. A great day out.
We considered ourselves ready now to head deeper into the desert to the more remote areas. We were tanked up with diesel, water, food and snacks (chocolates). Our GPS map unfortunately became more and more hopeless because of the lack of formal tracks. We did however learn that we could use our GPS to get us to the general area of interest, and then nearer to the destination, nomads could generally give us precise directions.
Khongoryn Els is a line of sand dunes 3km to 5km wide and about 100km long, and in one area they are said to be 200m to 300m high, seemed more like 150m. At this site, there is a natural spring which feeds into a large pool. The 180km trip out to this area is fairly tough, which for us is good as tourists are spread very thinly. We basically had the place to ourselves with nobody in sight. What bliss, one could almost hear the quietness of the desert. What a tough life sipping a cold drink (from our fridge) in the desert in the late afternoon. This was after we had used up a lot of energy climbing halfway up the dune and sliding down on a boogie board. Good fun but too much like hard work. Apart from the sand dunes, the area, like most of the desert, has some amazing land forms and colours. Also of course, the desert would not be a desert if there were no camels. Mongolia has the Bactrian camel, which has two humps.
During our time in the desert, we saw vultures in several areas. On a couple of occasions, we saw the vultures feeding on a dead animal. They were so busy feeding that they did not take much notice of us and we could thus get very close to them. The vultures entertained us for ages, particularly when they were scrapping over the food. We also saw the huge lammergeier eagle from close by on several occasions.
The desert is also a good place to have a camel ride. We found the two humps make for a comfortable ride and we enjoyed our ride on the sand dunes. The camels can apparently go for a week without water, if it needs to.
At times we had to cover relatively long distances across extremely harsh terrain with severe corrugations on the tracks. We found that the bone jarring tracks shook our poor vehicle badly and we spent half a day doing repairs and tightening bolts on the he vehicle that had shaken loose. A lot of the problems stemmed from our tyre pressure that was way too high. All part of the learning curve. Stephan, a Russian that had travelled overland from Moscow, came across our pit stop and gave a hand. His stern Russian demeanour evaporated after awhile and we had an enjoyable few hours in his company.
Beyond the sand dunes, there were said to be world renowned petroglyphs, located 17km from a small town (Sevrei). If anybody reading this is planning a trip to this site, spare yourself the effort. The track is horrendous and bone jarring. It took us 4hours to do the round trip, and it was a total let down. Added to that, you are unlikely to find the petroglyphs without a guide. We only managed to see the petroglyphs through good fortune. We flagged down a local family in a Russian jeep who were on their way into the great unknown. They were extremely friendly and led us to the site. The rock engravings are said to be roughly 3,000 years old.
We headed further west into the driest part of the desert. There are no nomads for about 200km and practically no defined tracks. Our aim was to get to an oasis way in the middle of nowhere. Very few people venture in the east – west direction to the oasis. We knew the co-ordinates of the oasis and therefore navigation was reasonably simple, that is, using our compass and picking up tracks of other vehicles here and there. Dry river beds usually formed excellent “roads”. We came accross a very broad band of sand dunes and it was just too dangerous to try and traverse, and so we made a huge detour to skirt around the dunes. The great benefit of the remote areas is that you have wonderful camping spots in the desert to yourself. We were taken by the spectacular landscapes, scenery, sand dunes, river valleys, colours of the land forms. We could happily spend weeks in this area, however we tend to move on because we are impatient to see what lies around the next bend or next river valley. The only sign of life we saw in 200km was an eagle making a big noise protecting her almost ready to fly chicks on a nest. We did however find lots of prehistoric life. At one of our camp sites in a gorge, we found several areas in the immediate vicinity where dinosaurs bones and fossilized tree branches were lying on the surface. The American palaeontologist of the 1920’s did not seem to have found this location.
The Ekhiin Gol (oasis) is the largest in the Gobi desert, and is located in a very remote area. It used to be a Russian “agricultural research station” (yea right?) and now there are only about 12 people living there. We did find an old Russian tractor, trailer and plough. Apparently, Chinese grew opium at this oasis during the early part of the 1900’s. One local, an environmental student, spoke a few words of English and is involved with the Gobi bear research. We were keen to see a bear, however he said that the reserve was totally out of bounds…strange. Can’t imagine what keeps the other people at the Oasis. Water from the spring at the oasis, which was surprisingly cold, flows into a man-made pond and was a great place to wash the desert dust off us.
Sadly, our time in the Gobi desert was over too soon as we drove from the oasis northwards to Bayankhongor and Tsetserleg in central Mongolia. There is a reasonably well defined track. On the way, we drove along another spectacular dry river valley…always such pleasure and came across another spring where nomads have established themselves. The vegetation improves as one travels further north, and with that, nomads with their stock also appear in greater numbers.
We spent a few nights on the way in very small settlements. These small urban centres were apparently established by the Russians decades ago. There is no running water, and locals collect water from a borehole normally located in the town. Toilets are the long drop type. All the settlements have electricity. Although very basic, all the accommodation was spotless clean. The food was also tasty. This was all contrary to horror stories that we read about before our trip.
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