The Gobi Trip Begins

By Rachel

Swarthmore friends Doug and Georgine joined us after our snowy weekend and we set out for the Gobi. Our home away from home arrived around ten to collect us, all our stuff and a satellite dish that Charlie needed to deliver to Naraa at Gobi Wave.

Packed to the gills, we set off to the west, headed for Kharkhorin, which is about 7 hours from Ulaanbaatar, where we planned to camp.

The drive was great, and the road was paved and smooth. Baatar and Lucky, our driver and guide, decided to use the Millenium Road, a newer road that may, some day, stretch the length of Mongolia. Now there are bits and pieces, and the piece we rolled along was good, until we had to head south to find the road to Kharkhorin. The driving was slow, and the road was a dirt track, but we happened upon a beautiful valley filled with grazing horses and sheep, and greener grass than we’ve seen for months. All those little specks in the second picture are animals.

We got to Kharkhorin around 8. We drove across part of a river onto an island with a few small trees. The Tent Team and the Dinner Team leapt into action.

It was still light, but cold and windy. The Dinner Team had a difficult job because the wind made the stoves fairly useless and the cold made the whole thing uncomfortable. The dinner we planned – the easy pork and eggplant dish we learned from Leng and Neng in Luang Prabang – was not easy enough.

Even worse was washing the bok choi, a task Rob suffered through.

But in the end it was delicious. As we were eating, Baatar arrived with some firewood, and we warmed up a bit. The night was cold, but we survived. In the morning we enjoyed our American Breakfast and visited with the cows that grazed their way through our campsite.

After cleaning up and packing up we went to see Erdene Zuu, an active Buddhist monastery near the remains of Mongolia’s ancient capital Kharkhorin.

We listened to some wonderful chanting, and then wandered around.

Over the course of this trip, Doug and Georgine came to admire these door-knockers, and later became proud owners of their own at the Antiques Market in Beijing.

This is one of four turtles who guarded the ancient capital.

Before leaving town we stopped to see the Phallic Rock.

It wasn’t really what the sign lead you to imagine.

We had a long afternoon of driving, punctuated by cows in their coats and a few camel sightings.

By afternoon we were in the Gobi.