16-17 November

On this train, we had an entire compartment for ourselves! At the border, after one hour of manoeuvres, we got out of the train to get some air. To our astonishment, all other carriages, as well as the engine, had gone! Our carriage was the only one left to cross the border to Mongolia, and on it were all non-Russian, non-Mongolian passengers except three! The passport and customs control at both sides of the border took six hours in total. Why we don't know, because most of the time nothing seemed to be happening.

17-23 November

We arrived in the capital of Mongolia at 6 AM. At the train station, several representatives of guesthouses were trying to attract tourists with promises of hot showers and good beds. We took the most centrally located one. It was a "home-stay" and our room was actually the living room of a grandmother; while we were sleeping, we were guarded by the ancestors on the wall.

Ulan Bator is not a very beautiful city; it is composed of Soviet-style concrete blocks and occasional scruffy ger-settlements which do not please the eye. Besides, due to a huge amount of cars and a central heating system running on coal, there is a lot of pollution. Apart form that, there a many street kids, living underground in manholes and gutters.

We spent the first week visiting various attractions. We went to a traditional wrestling tournament, where big guys in bikini's and leather boots try to put each other to the floor. Furthermore, we saw impressive dinosaur skeletons dug out form the Gobi-desert in the museum of Natural History, lots of very scary deities in the Chasidim Lama Monastery-Museum and in the largest monastery of Mongolia (Gandantegchinlen Khiid), a 25-meter-high Buddha named Migjid Jam Raisig, which means "the lord that looks in every direction". Unfortunately, there are only windows at the height of his enormous toes, so he probably doesn't see very much!

Furthermore we spend time arranging a tour in the countryside. We finally opted for the Gobi-desert and Kharkhorin, a ten-day journey, in the company of two Frenchmen, Laurent and Doan and a Canadian, Mike.

23 November - 03 December

During this trip we saw a part of the real Mongolia, which can not be compared to Ulan Bator: plains, partially covered with snow, creating a palette of colours varying between reddish-brown to gold and white, always with a mountain range in the distance; herds of camels, sheep, horses, yak and ... gazelle! A lone vulture following the van, hoping to get a nice well-fed western tourist-snack out of it; marmots whistling to alarm their mates that two-legged danger is approaching; evenings in a candle-lit ger, heated by a camel-dung fuelled stove playing cards, chess and the ancient astragali (or knucklebones, nl: bikkelen, fr: jouer aux osselets) with the family and sleeping on the ground; temperatures between -10°C, during a warm day, and -30°C at night; no running water and no toilets.

The five of us left, accompanied by Bayara, the driver and Arona, the cook, in a Furgon, the legendary Russian 4-wheel drive army minivan. A Furgon looks like a cosmic jeep (or a VW minivan for the less astronomically orientated) and is capable of many things: it always gets through the snow, no matter how deep it is; it somehow always starts in the morning, despite the cold; it doesn't fall over even though you thought it should and its motor is capable of overheating at -20°C, which is quite an achievement!

Some of the highlights of the trip were:

BAYANZAG

Here we made a two and a half hours lasting camel trip to the flaming cliffs, the famous location where probably half of the world's dinosaur skeletons were found. Sitting between two camel humps is rather comfortable and physically not very demanding. As a result  we were completely frozen by the time we arrived at the site and it took us five minutes to be able to walk again. In the beautifull landscape we looked for more dino-fossils and the guide showed us some dino-eggs, but the skeletons at the museum were more exciting.

YOLYN AM

In this valley we visited a gorge with a river that remains frozen, even throughout summer. The ice is meters thick and continues to fill the gorge for kilometres. Had we known the condition of the ice, we would have brought skates! It was very impressive.
Afterwards, to get across the mountains, we drove through the Dungene Am, a spectacular trip through another gorge over a frozen river.

KHONGORYN ELS

Here the Gobi presents the most spectacular sand dunes in Mongolia. We, of course, had to climb them, which was one of the most exhausting things we ever did. The climb was 250 meters high according to the GPS, but the guidebook says 800 meters high; anyway, high it was. The dunes are covered with a layer of ice, snow and sand. If this layer breaks, you go down two meters for each meter you go up. Besides, the cold wind was freezing off ears and noses. Nevertheless, once at the top, the views of the desert were wonderful. And, what took us two hours to get up, we descended "a la ski" in fifteen minutes.

GUCHIN-US

There, we spent a night in a ger where we had to keep the fire going ourselves. Even though Mike managed to raise temperatures to about 25°C at 2 AM, the fire died quickly and in the morning we woke up at -5°C!

ORKHON KHURKHREE

On our way to the Orkhon valley it was getting late and the sun had already gone, but the driver had guaranteed: "very good road!" After the first time we stopped and turned back on our tracks, we suspected we were lost. After the second time, all trace of a road had disappeared. After the third time the driver nearly wrecked the van when he tried to mount from a waddi (dry river bed) to the shore: a nearly 1-meter-high step! But somehow, we got to the ger-camp.
In the morning we visited the gorgeous river valley and the 22-meter-high waterfall, which was completely frozen.

The remains of Ghinngis Kahn's capital are limited to a few temples that still stand and are being restored (Erdene Zuu Khiid) and two stone turtles. In one of the temples we entered and joined a Buddhist prayer session but we did not stay until the end (it lasted very long). In a ger on the temple-grounds, you could pay a priest to say prayers for you; the more Tugrug, the longer the prayer (or: no pay, no pray).

We also visited one of the turtle-rocks, which was half an hours' walk through knee-deep snow, almost as exhausting as climbing the dune! Afterwards we went back to Ulan Bator, but we arrived only at 2 AM, because the van broke down. Luckily it was not in middle of the Gobi desert but along a "highway" with villages where we could get help!

03-11 December

Back in Ulan Bator we now appreciate the hot showers and good beds that the guesthouses initially promised us! And of course, there is no more need to get your bum frozen during a nightly excursion to relieve yourself in the windy desert. The last week we went to the black market for shopping and we rested a lot in front of the TV! Besides, we went to the Bogd Kahn Winter Palace and did a nightly excursion to the local star-observatory where we saw the moon and Saturn through a huge telescope, at an open roofed dome (brrrr).

We left on the 11^th of December for Beijing.