HELLO GOBI

One of the best mornings of the whole trip

Portrait of Ell (bottom left)

This van is 5 years old!

Western and the General completely oblivious to imminent sandstorm!

At lunchtime, we hit the Hut

Credit Marcin for this top shot - yes, thats the Milky Way you can see

Wild goat

Western lecturing the others on the subtleties of test match cricket (credit: Marcin)

Kings of the Gobi

The early morning alarm clocks

Ah, the Gobi, one of the most evocative place names on the planet, up there with Kathmandu, Titikaka, Timbuktu and Bognor Regis - or as Ells gran beautifully entitled it 'Borgogna di Regina'. We left UB in a Russian minivan - (the 2 of us, accompanied by a Polish photographer (Good morning Marcin) and a Japanese musician. The van was only 5 years old but the design was classic 60s. The driver bore an uncanny resemblance to Chinggis Khan, and our guide was the delightful 'Baggy' - a 24 year old 'I can do anything' Mongolian girl. We would be covering 2000kms in 8 days - approximately 50 hrs of driving. The driver had no GPS, and there were no roads, just compacted tracks that veered off in all directions, lord knows how he navigated us around. The Gobi is 3% sand, with the rest scrubland. Nomadic families eke out an existence here, where they move camp 4 times a year - their houses or 'gers' are marvelous structures - circular with felt walls, with a central fireplace, they are very toasty. We stayed in 'tourist' gers, ie designated for non mongolians, placed next to the family's. We managed to get 2 showers, an unexpected bonus, and on the other days , a cup of water for washing hands and face. The landscape was 99% flat and featureless - the odd discarded vodka bottle littering the side of the track, skeletons of animals that had not made it through the -30 winters, and hawks that patiently wait by the side of the tracks for passing vehicles which might disturb mice or marmots - an effective double act. Goats, camels and horses sporadically fill the landscape and during the day it was HOT & DUSTY. At night the temperature was perfect, and the stars - oh yes the stars, almost up there with a Himalayan nightscene,and thats saying something.

Western loves the early morning, and between 6-8am, the Gobi was at its most beautiful - sun still warming up, and the goats that had been on the horizon during the night, had all congregated around the gers. We would often be awoken by sneezing and farting goats, and belching camels. Baggy fed us well, and Chinggis we all agreed was a safe and careful driver. He'd wipe down his vehicle most stops, and he rarely hit a divot. The cleaning of the vehicle was impressive but completely futile, as within 10 seconds of driving off, we would all be dusty again!

The highlight of the trip was a climb to the top of the 300m sand dunes - a lung busting 1 hr, but to be standing on the ridge with only your own foot prints to look at was magnificent and just reward for the sand scramble. The descent took 10 mins, sliding down barefoot on cool early morning powder sand, as the sand slid away from under your weight, the dunes groaned (think WW2 bombers)....memorable stuff.

We got caught in a sandstorm, played basketball, ate goat cooked in a large pot with hot stones and we played mongolian cards. An absolutely excellent trip.