Trip to Saynshand & the Gobi Desert
Trip Start
Apr 14, 2008
1
24
85
Trip End
Nov 11, 2008
Sainshand,
Mongolia
Friday, July 18, 2008
15/7/08
Photos 20+
The 'Monkey' group met at 6.45am, I was the last to join 15mins late. No excuses, I was only staying over the road.
At 7.45am the official start to the Trans-Siberian pulled away from Beijing platform #2. I
was sharing a 4 bed cabin with 2 other 'Monkeys' on the same tour to Moscow, Arnold & Chinhan. As we escaped further away from Beijing we got more & more blue sky. Mountains, tunnels & stony basins. We were heading in a Westerly direction until passing the outposts of the Great Wall into Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of China. Here we took a Northerly Route through dry rolling hills and mud brick houses. This is not what you
would expect from China, no pollution haze & more animals than people; but this is an 'autonomous' region! The hours were slow as the afternoon sun hit our cabin.
Approaching evening close to the Mongolian border the landscape was drier, flatter & even less sparsely populated. After night fall it was time for a boogie change at the 842kms point. Passports were first taken by Chinese Border Control. I was sleeping at this point so I choose to stay on board as the other guys left the train for the boogie change. There was a siren and then an earthquake every time the carriages were shunted forward. After 20 plus shunts I heard some hydraulic sounds and the carriage had a new set of 5foot gauge wheels. Between all this I tried to sleep, the process taking 2.5 hrs. When the guys and our passports were returned we entered Mongolia gone midnight for more passport checks.
Food for the day was fine; chicken capsicum & onion stir fry with rice for lunch.
ChinHan's Photo1
For dinner i ate from my supplies and added a bowl of rice for good oriental measure.Made an excellent call with bringing along some Jasmine Tea leaves. I was right is assuming bottled drinking water was in short supply. Hot drinking water on the other hand was free and plentiful.
Day 93. The Gobi 'Gravelly' Dessert
16/7/08
Photos 30+
I must of got a few hours of quality sleep as I was feeling ready for action at the 5am alarm call. The Monkeys, all 9 of us, exited at Sanyshand Station to be met by our local tour operator. We jumped in the old 4x4 for an 18kms trip. It took over an hour to plod through the gravel puddly landscape to our remote 'Ger'. The Gobi was originally an ancient inland sea basin. Later it became home to many species of dinosaurs and today is a reservoir of fossilized dinosaur bones and eggs. The great Gobi was designated by the UN as the forth largest Bio-sphere in the world!
This outpost I've named Ger-Ville, for the 20 plus Ger's (indigenous huts) in no where. The Ger's are made of wood and wool/felt. They smell like a sheep! Maria, I think your right, I'm going to smell like a sheep by the time I depart Mongolia.
At 9am we started with breakfast, twisted bread n jam, rice & horse sausage pancake. From there we left to Khamariin Khiid Monastory (KKM) 20 kms away. Here it went weird. This Tibetan Buddhist monastery looked out of place in the middle if nowhere. The small main hall had 7 monks of various age/order chanting, reading script, hitting a drum and meditating.
ChinHan's Photo2
Donations all around, not just in the donation box. But they never pressurized us in handing over money. The second hall contained an image of the Mongolian Buddha, the iron god of 1000 knives. I think there was a story here but it was lost in translation.Away from the compound we visited the sacred well. Here we waited for a guy to come from the monastery and transfer the water from the sacred well to a funnel to feed the lions mouth. If a wells sacred why does it need human intervention?
Lunch; Grated Carrot & mayo with sour bread, potato & carrot soup, spag bol, cherry in syrup for dessert. Dinner; Cucumber & tomato starter, lamb stirfry & rice and sheep's milk yogurt.
The vegetables we eat are imported for the westerners. Generally Mongols don't farm the earth but eat what grows naturally. And of course native animals. In the late afternoon I walked with the guide to pick some naturally growing chives. In doing so I was introduced to the main plants that survive in the desert and some lizards.
On our return she said the best time to shower was at 7.30am. I said I would shower after a run and asked if she ran. She retorted yes so I said we could run together. She went all red! She thought I wanted to shower with her! Like normal she struggles with questions and
understanding us clearly.
At night a hedgehog visited us. Where it lives I have no idea (being so baron).
Day 94. Our Full Moon
17/7/08
Photos 50+
With my back so sore and feeling OD'ed on food I started the morning with exercise.
ChinHan's Photo3
Running and fast walking I headed Northerly. It was the only direction that was not visible being on a very slight incline. But it was not long till I had a target, I found more Ger-Ville's! This area of the Gobi does not have residents, only holiday Ger's. So the Question, why is this an international tourist destination? This is what we concluded:
1) location is blissfully quiet
2) location is close to the railway line running through Mongolia
3) the history of the monastery prior to anti-religious purges in 1936 is indisputable. (it was rebuilt in 1990; genuinely by monks or as a tourist attraction?)
4) the so called Eco-sphere* and dinosaur fossils of the area.
*little vegetation and few, but strange degrees of animals coexisting i.e. Hedgehogs (not seen any hedges) and lizards
Our first sight seeing for the day were 'breasts for women's rights'. Originally built in the 1820's (alongside the KKM) to say "on this site you have equal, if not more rights than men". Prior to this Mongolian women had very little rights. Why they thought breasts
symbolizes this I don't know, Men hey! What characterized these was the smell of rancid sheep's milk. Offerings of food and milk were left, sometimes stuffed into the brickwork of the breasts. If your interested in knowing the meaning of the scarfs used in Mongolian/Tibetan Buddhism; Blue is for the sky; Red fire; White milk; Yellow monks;
Green earth.
Next stop the Spiritual energy center of the site (aka Died Word). Can't say I gave much for the site.
ChinHan's Photo4
There was meant to be some ritual involving ringing a bell 3 times, burning bad thoughts, rice, vodka, removing shoe, singing and walking round the something 3 times. The site was connected to the monastery via electricity pylons; I figured this saves the Lammas walking to the site as the spiritual energy, using modern means, can now easily reach them at the KKM.The small meditation caves were next on the list. One Lamma spent 108 days in meditation here. This site was also believed to be where a Lamma hide boxes a valuables from the monastery prior to the persecution of the 1930's. My understanding was that these boxes were never all retrieved because he died and took with him the locations of the hidden artifacts.
We took a stop at some petrified trees and rocks. Someone scared them millions of years ago where they have lied frozen in time till now.
Then finally we visited the bell tower of the KKM site.
On the way back to camp one of the Russian-Toyota's blew up its will to live. But the drivers cum mechanics took half hour or so to give the vehicle one more chance at life.
The word for the day was 'originality', a word the guide keeps using. She meant original, as in natural or been here long time. But it comes out like originality, like many of there tourist attractions.
The summer here is like Bunbury. Very dry heat and I loved it. The landscape is far from Bunbury though. A handful of shrub species and little wildlife......at least where we were.
Breakfast; Chive pancakes tasting like seaweed, chips, horse sausage & marinated veg.
ChinHan's Photo5
(Seems chives were marinated thats why it tasted funny)Lunch; cucumber, tomato, spam on sour bread, spinach & carrot soup, lamb & veg pasta and water melon.
Dinner; potato & meat salad, rice with lamb & potato and chocolate/ginger sponge roll.
In the evening after an afternoon nap we played a Mongol game using sheep's ankle bones. If you feel a little sheepish about bones this ain't the game for you. Basically there are 4 sides the bone will lay; Upturned is a horse; Downturned camel; LHSidedown sheep; RHSidedown goat. We all had a 'horse' that we raced down a track with markers denoted by, you guessed it, bones. We took it in turns to throw 4 bones. For every horse you throw you move a marker down the course. And now for the exciting part if you roll four of the same, or four different animals you get to move four places forward. The object is obviously to get to the finish line first.
The night time I was constantly disturbed by an animal rummaging around. After 2 hours I decided to open my eyes and investigate. It was not coming from outside, it was from my food bag hanging up, bloody mouse! I threw the bag on the floor emptied and investigated
the contents. It was not a mouse, just a grasshopper jumping inside lost dazed and confused against the crackly plastic. Food intact!
Although my stomach was rumbling with dinner, I did manage to get some sleep.
Day 95. Stranded in the desert
18/7/08
Photos 80+
We set off to a camel breeding family aka another tourist attraction.
ChinHan's Photo6
However halfway one of the 4x4s broke down (same car & problem as day before). After trying to rejuvenate the spark plugs with tin from a coke can and failing, we all squeezed into one vehicle.Two choose to ride a camel for an hour while the rest of us sat in the Ger drinking Camels Milk Tea and Camel, lemon and limestone biscuits. Yummy. On the return of the other Monkeys we had to wait for another vehicle to arrive. When it did it was as clapped out as the 1st and was driven by a troll. The troll turned off the engine, 1st mistake. Battery was dead. They tried a crank start with no success and finally they push started the replacement vehicle. So we reluctantly headed to the forest. When they got there the drivers both turned off the engines. We got out and were disappointed by the shrub land. We wanted to go, but the replacement 4x4 was dripping water (not coolant) from the radiator. We hung around for another 20 mins while they filled her up and tried to start the vehicles.
We got halfway back passing a small farm when the vehicle packed itself again, over heating. They got more water from the farm but could not restart it. The farm gave them a vine to tow start the dead vehicle, but it broke twice. At this point the Ozzie girls and I got out the working vehicle and pushed the other one along to start it. Ozzie Grit! We made it back for a late feast with a burnt neck. After the Donkey work of the day we renamed Monkey Business to Donkey Business.
Breakfast; twisted bread, jam and meat omelette.
Lunch; meat & coleslaw, soup, dumplings & veg.
At 5pm we headed back to Sanyshead for vodka, Internet and cash before jumping on the train to Ulan Bator. On the train the Victorian's and I had a large Chinggis Khaan Vodka session. We were a bit noisy
