We've been through the desert on a camel with no name....

It's been a crazy cool week!! We were lucky enough to find 4 other crazy people to join us on a trip to the Gobi desert (bringing the price down from way too expensive to just affordable). And it was worth it! (Check out the Photos on the Gobi album)

We took off last Wednesday, in an 7 year old UAZ-452(Ulyanovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, Russian car manufacturer) car/jeep/minivan whatsoever :). We simply love those cars, and they are really functioning well here (not flashy, but solid, rusty but indestructable as it seems :)) as you can still repair anything on them if necessary. So together with our driver Ogi (who owns the car) and Ganaa, our guide and cook, we headed off to the first stop, Erdenedalai. A sleepy town with not much to offer. We were shortly stopped by the police to check the engine, which gave us some time to buy cookies and toilet paper. (quite essential, as Mongolian toilets outside the city are squat toilets, nothing but two planks over a hole with if you're lucky there are 4 walls around it :-) )

Outside Ulaanbaatar, the roads directly turn into bumpy gravel tracks. The first 100 km being the worst, and we had a hard time not to bump our heads against something or someone! But the view is also immediately amazing. No more houses, no more people, no more smog, just sand, a little (dry) vegetation and rocks. No roads, just dirt tracks that continously change. Our driver didn't use a map, nor GPS, neither are there any sort of roadsigns!!! " We just know the way". A journey of around 1500 km through the desert.

In Erdenedalai, for a moment it looked like we couldn't find a place to stay. Luckily, we could sleep at a friends' of a friend's place. A house, but still with matrasses on the floor and the grandmother voluntarily offered her bed to the guests. No way of changing that, the Mongolian hospitality is endless!!! (true!!).

Most of the days we had looooong driving. Jan was carsick for the first time in his life (too much playing backgammon??) and there is dust everywhere (the car is not really sealed....) so it wears you out, even though you sit on your bum the whole day. Nothing to do about that than to eat.... cookies and schokolinsen :)! I think cookiemonster would have been proud of us.

We've seen and done some amazing things and learned about Mongoia and Gobi. To give you a few key points :)

• Climbed the red flaming cliffs of Bayanzag and watching the sundown over our Gers
• Tasted fermented camel yoghurt and milk in Mandal-Ovoo in the ice-cream factory - the taste is somewhat between rotten, sour, old, acid, stinking yoghurt or milk which initiates a spontanuous reaction of throwing up..... GROSS!!!!! (but an experience :)
• Climed the Sanddunes at Khongoryn Els (one step up, three steps down at about 45 % steepness) to watch the sunset. The sun setting changing the colours of the sanddunes every minute in the end letting the sanddunes appear to be on fire.... magnificient!!!
• Got a sore behind from riding a camel that doesn't respond on our " choo-choo" at all, but still great fun and camels being very pleasant animals...By the way, I named mine Scratchy (sorry Finn!)
• Drove  through the gorge of Dugany Am which is just wide enough for a car
• Had a snowball fight in the cool ice-gorge of Yolun Am (no ice left from last winter unfortunately)
• Battled for a shower spot with the locals in the public shower in Dalanzadgad - training our defense tactics :)
• Learnt to count to 20, say "thank you" and " bon apetit" in a language that is completely differently written than pronounced than anything else - imagine a turkish language written in cyrillic due to 70 years of russian occupation, prounced somewhat like chinese and having tsch and other weird sounds you are not able to make:) cute but no way to learn it easily!!
• Viewed the former bottom of the ocean from the Tsagaan Suvraga cliffs
• Drank (horrible) fizzy fermented horse milk (AIRAG) at a family near Mandalgovi (had to stop for asking for directions as the shortcut became a longcut). Note: Jan had to drink two full bowls! (normally they drink 3 but we had difficulties with just one) Try to leave milk on the sunny balcony for a few weeks and then drink it all at once... try to keep it inside :DD...
• Had a diet of real fatty horse, sheep and goat meat. Mostly with noodles, once on a campfire and finished with a Mongolian barbecue with steamed sheep meat... nice meat but just awful load of fat in comparison to us
• Tried to wash our eyes in the Baga Gazryn Chuluu spring to get rid of our glasses, but ending up with a stinking face.
• Bumped up and down in the car while travelling through Mongolia - it  takes some time. especially by car - an average of 50 is a really good pace!!! Imagine driving through Denmark's dunes without any infrastructure or similar for 1500 km!!! Exhausting.... :)

So to shorten this blog a bit :-) It's simply been great. We laughed so much with our travel companions Jen (US), Blaine (CAN), Ophelie (FR) and Mikel (ES); something that could be really different when you are locked up with new people and a small car for 7 days!

Yesterday night we rounded it off with some drinks and a karaoke, our first time :-) Mongolians love this, so we had to take part in that bit of culture as well! Was real fun to do, but not sure that we are the most talented for it :-)

Today is our last day in Mongolia, our train leaves to Beijing tomorrow. We've been granted our Visa (hurray!!) so are ok to go. We will be in China for about 26 days, our flight to Osaka (Japan) leaves on the 7th of November. Just for those who might not be aware of it: it will not always be possible to communicate on the same ways as we have done now. We know that some websites like Google (and thus Gmail) and Facebook are blocked by the government..... We are unsure about our blog, we will just have to find out. We have redirected all mail to a Yahoo account, so you should be able to keep writing mails, we just read it through a different channel. Whatsapp, Viber and Skype should be allright, we'll see. So please dont' worry if we are silent for a longer time!!!

Looking forward to keep hearing from you!! We love everyday-pictures of the life back home to still take a bit part of all....