Photo of the Week: Khongoryn Els, Mongolia – July 2013
Khongoryn Els, the Singing Sand Dunes, are some of the largest dunes in Mongolia. No trip to the Gobi is complete without a visit to them, and a picture from the top of course! The dunes really do make a sound like a low chanting or hum, an eery sound in the middle of nowhere at night!
Mongolia – Part II: The Gobi Desert and the route north to Ulaan Baatar
How we escaped flash floods and spent the following two weeks bashing through the Gobi Desert following old soviet maps in the vague direction of Khongoryn Els.
We left Altai with the Frenchies, fully stocked with fuel, water and food. It was raining hard in Altai. The streets were flooded as we left in a south easterly direction heading for some smaller settlements where we could get fuel before heading off road into the South Gobi Aimag later on. En-route we were heading for ‘The Secret Canyon’ which we had been shown the co-ordinates to by another French group. We called it a day about 50km from what we believed to be the canyon entrance a couple of kms from a small gathering of mud brick homes. This didn’t deter local trucks full of men offering vodka or men on motorbikes with their families sat behind (babies included!) popping by to see who we were. None of us could speak Mongolian, and they didn’t speak Russian, so we were limited to hand gestures, toasts and shots of vodka to communicate greetings!
Wild Camping in Mongolia… Usually the only way!
Lisa
Griff
Sirocco Overland | Сирокко Оверленд 