The Communist Revolution: Mongolia, The tour days 1 and 2. Take it to the limit!

The ger camp out in an isolated basin which was surrounded by less than nothing

I dream I can converse with a nomad of Mongolia.

“Is your herd fattening up well?” I enquire.

“It is cold and the winter approaches, the autumn has been dry but my herd is fat enough to survive” he replies in his rugged and well worn voice, he stands wearing a long coat with sleeves that go past his hands which are clutched behind his back.

Limestone hills roll up out of the Gobi

The bitterly cold wind blows. “Yes it will not be long till snow is falling, what will you do if the winter is harsh?”. I do not have much hope in survival, I can barely handle the current weather and it is only late October.

“We will make it through. Mongols know how to survive, this is how we live”. He then invites me into his ger and shares a meal of rice and mutton with me. I give back a bottle of vodka in return for the hospitality.

Standing at the edge of a huge cliff at Tsagaan Suvraga

Rolling steppe, building up layers of browns like a chocolate cake

Warmed by the vodka, we speak into the night. “What do you think about moving to the city and forgetting about this hard way of life?”.

“Many families are moving to the city for money and modern amenities, it is a shame to see them go. They give up so much for so little, I have everything I need in my ger which only takes two hours to pack up. This may not be a lot of tangible goods, but I have a purpose in my life out on the steppe. Survival is not easy and so it gives your life a lot of meaning. My spirit is always awake, there is the openness and freedom which the sun shines on every day and what the millions of stars light up every night. I do not need to keep buying new things; I’m contempt with my current state. Every day I wake up with a job to do which lets me survive the day, why would I want to horde stuff I do not need for today.”

You could get lost out here, but you'd have to run for a day to get out of view over the horizon

The endless steppe of Mongolia meets the big sky of Mongolia

He pauses, then in reflection says, “You are similar to me, you travel with just a backpack and no more. You find purpose in survival and achieving your goals of getting where you need to go.”

I agree with everything he says, but I will return to the west soon, to the comforts of the city. It won’t be long before I am sitting once again behind a desk every day feeding the pockets of the greedy. I can’t escape this though, there are some things I cannot give up, things I was brought up with my entire life that I have been made to believe I need. It is sad but true, the emptiness that I feel from having too much stuff without any point but to numb the senses has created a hole that can’t be filled.

A lone traveller walks the hills in the Gobi Desert

The tour begins:

After a hectic morning we jump into the van, another group has had to change their plans because of a storm so we have another van tagging along with us for the first eight nights. Our two vans packed up full of life's necessities roll on out of Ulaanbaatar. It is only an hour before we are out of the city of one million people and onto a completely empty valley with only a 4wd track, some old rubbish on the side of the track and large barren mountains within view. It was fantastic to see how easy it is to get away from everything in Mongolia.

After driving for less than an hour out of Ulaanbaatar we were in the middle of nothing

The gang plays around in the granite rocks of Baga Gazryn Chuluu

Wild herd of Bactrian Camels, double humps are the best.

On the first day we drove south to the north of the Gobi Desert. It was a great way to start, we were greeted by a herd of wondering camels, drove through huge valleys surrounded by incredibly sharp mountain ridges and saw the sun set over a peaceful lake. The only concern was that it was well dark and we hadn’t found our ger camp to stay in for the night. This was our first lesson in trusting the driver, without any road signs or actual roads it was incredible how all of a sudden we turned up at a camp site surrounded only by complete darkness. A cooked meal of mutton and rice made by the family was a great treat before we went to sleep, with the fire roaring away fueled by some good old cow dung.

Me vs Camel. Result: Camel 1, Me nil.

Over looking the first nights ger, there is no shopping malls around

The sleep was not the most comfortable ever. Just sleeping on an old hospital styled bed with a few pieces of wood and a rug to support you on the old beds rusting springs. This was the least of our worries, as later into the night when the cow dung had run out and so the fire basically out the cold set in. This wasn't the coldest night we were to have, but it was a bit of a shock compared to being inside over heated accommodations in the city. So after a long night we gratefully welcomed in the family hosts who got the fire going again and brought in some hot water and breakfast. Getting out of the ger we were surprised to see that surrounding us was a fortress of rock formations named Baga Gazryn Chuluu. So we spent an hour playing around before we were again off in the awesome Russian van for another day of adventure.

The sun sets over Ulaan Suvraga

Russian Van and Ger at night!

Day two was spent driving deeper south into the Gobi, after driving past the Sum Khokh Burd ruins, an ancient temple surrounded by a small lake and built from rocks found no closer than 300 km away, we were next to just drive for hours past absolutely nothing. This nothing was incredible. In the afternoon after only having seen the odd herd of animals and random nomads out on there yamaha motorbikes we pulled into a town which had a petrol station. We somehow managed to acquire some petrol even though there was a shortage of gas and we were in a town that seemed to have no decent roads coming into it that a petrol tanker could drive down. Feeling a bit safer after not having been given any fuel at the last two petrol stations the day before we headed off to Ulaan Suvraga which is a place with a set of cliffs that are a burning rusty red colour and look like they were stolen off the planet mars (the lonely planet describes it as a 'badlands', i'd say it was bad ass!). This was only a short drive to our ger for the night. This was a beautifully located camp, in the middle of a small isolated basin where the sun set and lit up the desert into a orange glowing landscape which was a magical way to end a great day before returning to the ger for another mutton and rice dinner and cold nights sleep.