The guide and driver took us to Tavan Dokhio Ger Camp in Dornogobi Amiag (Gobi desert in East Gobi province).
At the camp were two Kiwi guys on a short holiday from London heading to Beijing. There were also 20 Japanese who were planting trees to stop the encroaching desert onto the pastureland. They left the next day and we were on our own.
The ger camp was in the middle of a flat area and everywhere you looked it stretched for miles to the horizon-there was lots of sky. Mongolia gets an income from the planes that fly its skies so there are about 30 planes a day leaving vapour trails in the sky.
Our ger had 4 beds and we ate at a larger dining ger. The most common food eaten was mutton. The main meal of the day was at lunch and started with a salad-carrot, egg or cabbage. Next we had hot soup usually with mutton. The main course followed and then dessert was stewed fruit or yoghurt. We drank tea with our meals.
For breakfast we had either home made bread or fried bread followed by beef sausages with potatoes and then yoghurt.
It seems Mongolians do not like to disturb the earth so they traditionally did not grow vegetables and we were never given chicken to eat.
The water for the camp came from a deep well and it was salty. Power lines carried the electricity to the camp from Sainshand city. The wind flapped the washing dry in no time at all.
Our lips and nostrils dried out in the hot dry air and our skin flaked from the salty showers.
At night hedgehogs ran around the camp looking for an open ger door or they buried themselves in the soft sand at the base of the gers. It was not an animal I had expected to find in the Gobi!
