Gobi Desert Adventure by Steve

We arrived at Ulaan Baator, the capital of Mongolia, at 6.30 in the morning on the 31st May. All our travelling companions were met by their tour guides except us, somehow the times had been mixed up. We ended up paying for a guy in a poorly converted van with a bench in the back to take us to our hotel. The girl next to me kept asking me what the weather was like in Holland until we managed to communicate we were from England. You could see we were moving into Asia with the hustle and bustle.

Our guide Dalai and driver Migal ("call him Michael" grinned Dalai, "like Michael Jackson") turned up in a HUGE off road car, which it turns out was entirely necessary for the trip we were about to undertake. Dalai's name means 'ocean' although he'd never been outside Mongolia. We spent that afternoon looking around Ulaan Baator and learning about Mongolia, which is a very interesting country. Everyone is very friendly. They have a cool national symbol. 45% of the population are nomadic and live in tent-like gers, moving with their cattle. But they like baseball.

We went to a performance of traditional Mongolian dance. It reminded me of the David Brent dance in The Office. One lady balanced cups on her head. A contortionist did strange things that reminded me of an awful monster in a film with legs for arms. One guy gargled a song.

Next day, 1st of June, we headed out to the desert. We stopped for some water and I got chased around a shop by a very scary all-in-black security guard with one of those police sticks. I bought two bottles of water and was thus ready for desert survival! We left UB on this awful road out to the south, with Michael Jackson overtaking on a hill bend. Mongolians beep whenever they overtake to warn the person they are coming - with the amount of holes in the road and the swerving this makes sense. After about 5 miles we swerved off the road and it was the last time I would see a paved road for a while. Our road through the desert was now the car-carved one!

We travelled over tracks that were just so horrendously bad in places, real car breakers. The sun had baked the mud and sand incredibly hard, making huge bumps. These would often be at the side of the track, so hit them at speed and you risk flipping the vehicle. A relatively flat road would often be hiding a very nasty track wide divot created by a dried up stream or a vehicle track, which if you take too fast your vehicle nose dives into the road. Being inside the car was like being inside a rally car. At one point the dashboard seemed to be shaking itself loose, and Michael was checking to see if it was still attached.

We sped through an enormously diverse terrain - grassland, shrubland, dunes, heathland, steppe, some even resembled the surface of the moon! Sand typhoons raced across the horizon. Birds of prey nested in telegraph poles becuase there are no trees. The gazelles are fast but have a habit of curving round in their route away from you, which means you can intercept them further on. Michael absolutely hammered it once and we were so close to one as it crossed out path I could see the whites of its eyes.

We were looking for a lunch spot and Michael kept looking around as if lost. I have no idea how he got us around the Gobi over 4 days as we only saw one signpost the whole time, visible probably from about 10 metres. We eventually found it after going back on ourselves and asking at a petrol station. The jeep got stuck in the sand and I looked on as Michael selected Reverse and we didn't go backwards then Drive and we didn't go forwards. Whilst I was thinking that I hadn't seen Michael's desert survival kit yet, he twiddled a knob called DIFF LOCK and out we came. Dalai had forgotten the forks so we had to eat with bits of twigs pulled out of the sand.

Throughout the journey we listened to Michael's mongolian music and Dalai's Best of 90's Mongolia. It was like being in an Indian restaurant. One tape played 4 times back to back. There was no point reading or writing during the journey, so you had to sit back, look at the vastness in front and get used to Mongolian music.

We arrived at the ger camp at 630pm, we had driven 267km. We were in the middle of nowhere, nothing to see anywhere as far as the eye could see. It was how I imagined living on another planet would be like, and the central building even looked a bit space centre like. The toilets didn't though. We ate a good meal which fused together baked beans and sushi. I thought some beer would go down nicely, so asked if they had any as it looked like they had a bar. I was told that as tourist season hadn't started yet they had none. The guy who was in charge was insistent that he went and got some. In the next town. 20km across the desert. On his motorbike. We tried to dissuade him but I think we had breached some kind of hospitality rule and he had to go. Later I lost at chess to Dalai, who I think found out was ranked 1, 800th in the world! We played Top Trumps and Snap, Dalai thought this was the best thing ever, Michael was very competitive and both of them cheated.

Two girls lit a fire in our ger using sheep dung and it was fabulously warm. I woke at 5am freezing.

We stopped at a monastry the next day. In front of the building a small boy pulled his trousers down and did a wee. As we charged through the desert Michael stopped at a few people gathered around a motorbike. These were the first nomads proper we were to meet, their cattle was over yonder and their ger was over yonder also. Suddenly 3 generations of the Khurel family converged on us, 4 young children, one sullen teenage boy, father, grandfather and lots of women. Suddenly Grandad pulled from his big shirt a baby goat!

We raced off again, and Michael chased a Marmot that had lost it's hole. Poor thing but it was very funny at the time. Michael's driving was erratic. He had a sleep after lunch and drove like a maniac for the next hour.

Day 3 in the desert and Dalai responded to our comment that we hadn't eaten much mutton, which Mongolians eat a lot of, by giving us Monglian noodle soup for breakfast. As we drove I counted 120 gers in 52kms.

Getting petrol is interesting in Mongolia. You pull up at a petrol station which usually consists of a pump and a shed. You then wait for as long as it takes for someone to come and serve you, beeping, shouting, asking the locals. You could be waiting 5 minutes, you could be waiting 35 minutes, but you wait until someone comes. At this particular one a boy on a horse did a reccy for us, then an old man and women arrived on a motorbike, put the code into the pump and we were off. We hadn't driven long when Michael asked if we would like to go and vist the people in that ger over there. He didn't know them. We said ok why not. Inside we were greeted by a lady with 2 boys, a grumpy 3 year old and shy 9 year old. They gave us some refreshments. We were joined by an old man and woman who were the elders of the area. He handed round some snuff in a colourful bottle, Michael had so much he had to go outside for some air. We were soon joined by the rest of the Tserendash family - Dad, Grandma and uncle. The lady opened the oven contraption on the stove and inside was a sheep's head. She put some pastry on top. I didn't think we would be eating it, just for flavour or something. We went next door and the lady put the food out. It appeared we were going to be eating the sheep's head after all. There were 3 sharp knives. Michael and Dalai and the Dad proceeded to carve meat off the head. Bits of tongue. The tail. Michael even gouged out both eyes and ate the bit around them. I looked on bewildered. I didn't quite know what to do. I wimpishly sawed at a few bits. Dalai gave me some of his. Towards the end I built up the courage to carve a bit off a leg but I'm sure I didn't do it very well. The women looked on, this seemed to be a man's meal. We played football with the 9 year old, with his first kick he booted it at Jo who had to take defensive measures. We gave them some English coins, and they gave us some beautiful needlework.

Day 4 we went to Kharhourin which is the ancient monasty of Mongolia. I haggled poorly for a map, I'm sure I'll get more practice in SE Asia. We then drove the 400km back to Ulaan Baator. The drive in was very interesting. They are building a road along the path that we had driven, and as we got to Ulaan Baator we had to drive across the building site. Dust billowed up around us so we couldn't see beyond the hood. Cars came this way and that. There were pits and bumps in the track. It was insane. We went through the checkpoint into Ulaan Baator, Michael had to pay some money to a man in a booth, then got annoyed when a lady in a little yellow car pulled out in front of us and tried to run her off the road. Then we drove past a petrol tanker with smoke and flames coming from one side and it's driver on the other side oblivious, smoking a cig. Michael yelled out of the window and the look of panic on the drivers face, he ran away, then ran back with about 6 men. The last we saw these men were gathered round it hopefully doing something about it.