Day 2 in the Gobi Desert was out first full day there. At this point in our trip, we were still one person short, who was taking the train to meet us.
It was dark when we arrived the night before, so the view out of hotel room window gave us our first glimpse at the desert.
Sainshand from the hotel
After breakfast, we transferred to our ger camp accommodation (home for the next three days). The ride out into the desert was bumpy, to say the least. The paved road lasted maybe a kilometre outside of town, after that it was just rutted dirt tracks.
They look like fun but the beds are terribly uncomfortable
We wandered around the camp for a while, then hopped back in our South Korean van to head off into the Eastern Gobi Desert. Our driver (who we referred to as Neo, from the Matrix, because of his love of a black leather jacket and some rad shades) was friends with the entire desert. He seemed to know everyone, so before we got to any of the sights for the day, we stopped to help a couple with a broken down jeep.
Broken down jeeps lead to fun activities like drawing water from a well
We towed the couple and their cheap to their ger homestead. Did I mention the couple were camel herders? I apparently lose my mind around camels. I exclaimed rather loudly in the van “CAMELS!!!!!!”. I became a bit of a mockery in the process, but hey, I’ve never seen a camel before. Can you blame me?
it's a BABY CAMEL!!!
One of the main draws in the East Gobi is an ‘energy centre’. All the rocks in this one area are a vibrant red, whereas, everything else is that dusty beige you see above. So people come here for the healing power of the earth and for the spirituality of the area. So sights like the following are pretty common.
Offerings
As a side note, they have these Soviet built vans everywhere here. I am mildly obsessed with them and if I had enough money to ship one to Canada I would.
My favourite vehicle
This is probably one of the best lunch spots I’ve ever been too.
One of the monuments in the complex is specifically for women. When we drove up to it, our guide was like guess what those are. We didn’t know, but the answer was apparently “boobs”.
Women walk around and throw milk on these. Yup, all that white stuff on the rocks is milk.
The area that we were in is also famous for it’s petrified wood. Ya, it’s as exciting as it sounds. I won’t even post a picture because it isn’t worth the effort of you scrolling over it.
When we got back to our camp, the previous emptiness has been overtaken by seventeen year olds. And after dinner, our dining area turned into a seventeen year old disco. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to be seventeen again, it involves a lot of high pitched screaming, alternated with shyness.
-Heather
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