Gobi desert

Dear near-forest dwelling creatures,

Today I will share the story of how we ventured on a new adventure through unknown terrains, over vast plains, through the endless steppe and unforgiving desert. It’s the story with many new characters and it's also the story of how we ended up in a sandstorm in the middle of the Gobi Desert. But I’m jumping ahead. Let me start at the beginning, on the day of the 18th sun in the 6th moon of this year or also our 257th travel day. That day we had a meagre breakfast in our guesthouse. First, it appeared that we would get no breakfast which would be a disaster for us hobbits, as the day promised much adventure. The bread was finished already for the day and the manager of the guesthouse gave us a look like: well, what am I supposed to do? After a short discussion, he gave in and went to buy more bread. That was lucky for us and everyone who we met that day. Everyone knows, that no one enjoys the company of a hungry hobbit, especially if the hobbit's name is Artey. Half an hour later, we were fed, packed and ready to head off. Very unusual for us we had booked a tour for the next 8 days. It seems there is only limited public transport in the least densely populated kingdom of this planet and even less of that is going to remote places in the stretch of land called Gobi. So, if you want to see all these magnificent places where you can find more animals than humans and even more stones (sounds perfect in my opinion) you need to book a tour. Thus, we were greeted this morning by our driver Dordjo (I don’t think I’m spelling this right, I’m sorry) and our tour guide Orna and were led to our horseless carriage that would take us over the vast plains. It is of Russian design and we were assured that it is the best kind of method of transport for our trip. After travelling in it for quite a bit, I have to say I must agree. I would not necessarily call it reliable but definitely reliably fixable which is much more important. In the carriage we were joined by the last member of our travelling party: Jane, a fellow traveller from Taiwan. Our first stop was the market where Orna stocked up on provisions for our long tour and we went to get some snacks (on top of the fruits and veggies and muesli bars we already had with us). Then we headed off out of the city, past many gers (Mongolian yurts) and decreasingly green but increasingly vast plains. For lunch, we stopped at a small inn on the way and had fried noodles. These fried noodles are nothing like their counterparts in more southern parts of Asia. For one they are made with mutton, a meat uncommon in other parts of the continent, and it is made with much fewer spices but much more fat. The noodles also look quite different. We also had our first try of milk tea. A traditional Mongolian brew made out of black tea, milk and salt. And no, it does not taste as bad as you might imagine it now. After lunch, we headed further south until we reached Baga Gazriin Chuluu. This is a place full of mystery with piles of layered stone formations covering the landscape. We wandered past an old Buddhist monastery, decorated with many coloured silks connecting to the sky and earth until we reached a point overlooking a gorge. On the way we briefly conversed with two experienced adventurers, who will get a more important part in the second part of this chapter. But they do deserve a mention here.

It was a stunning view over the plains, which are so similar to the ones in Essos where the Dothraki dwell. Just the grass is shorter in this world and the dragons are better at hiding themselves here. Artey and Sesy wandered around, climbed some rocks and practised some fighting patterns of peoples unknown to most, like the people of Oog. While we are far away from being a First of the Blade, we like to practice occasionally. But time called and our carriage whisked us away towards our first ger camp in the desert. The family owning this camp welcomed us graciously with tea and “biscuits”. City dwellers and less travelled people might not have recognised the round-shaped dough pieces as biscuits. To the inexperienced, they might have more resemblance with doughnuts in mini carrot form, but I can assure you that they contain flour rather than carrots and don’t taste like doughnuts. I actually don’t think they contain that much more than flour. There was still some time left before our evening meal called so we ventured out once more, trying to get acquainted with the local “sheepandgoat”. Yes, this is very much one term. A flock of sheepandgoat might contain two species but as a herd, they are one and so this is the correct term. You will have to come here and listen to the guides to fully understand what I mean. Orna cooked us a lovely dinner and we ate outside our ger. We retired early that night as our heads were eager to spin new stories out of the pictures they collected today.

19.6.

The next morning started early as we had many miles to go before our next destination. So, we settled back into our carriage after a hearty breakfast and continued our journey south. The vastness of our view out of the carriage took our breaths away while we rumbled on over rocks and grass whirling up the dust with nothing between us and the horizon. Drogon would have loved it here. It was still early in the morning when we came across a particularly large herd of livestock at a well. There were horses, sheepandgoat and cows (like I said, Drogon would have loved it here) and all of them were thirsty. As the poor beasts had not yet accomplished mastery over lifting a bucket out of a well, they were reliant on other creatures (mainly humans) to do it for them. In turn, we thus heaved buckets of water up from beneath the ground, watering the animals. It appeared that the horses were the most eager to drink, and also the most brutal fighters in the battle of the well. That was until the cows came who just used their horns to push the smaller sheepandgoat out of the way. Our arms grew tired after a bit and Orna assured us that the farmer was on his way on his metal horse to continue our work. So, we returned to follow our own quest of the day: reaching the Yol Valley. Around teatime in decent lands, we succeeded. We left our carriage behind and ventured on foot in between the mountains. The path grew steadily narrower, while huge Yols circled over our heads and tiny Picas ran in between the grass. It was very green here, much greener than the plains in front of the mountains, with little streams running here and there. And suddenly there was ice, like a huge ice giant had just come to rest at the narrowest point between the mountains. The temperature had not changed, just our feet no longer walked over grass and stone but were sliding over ice. It was magnificent. At the very narrowest point of the valley, there was a hole in the ice through which we could see into the home of a small troll. Orna and Jane remained on this side of the hole but our curiosity begged us to go further and we continued on our small expedition. It revealed another magnificent view over the southern side of the valley with more ice and also definitely more trolls (but the cute kind). With more pictures in our mind, we returned to our companions and the carriage. Yet before we were whisked away towards our camp for the night, we still had a peak into the house of knowledge of this valley. Representatives of all the dwellers of these lands filled its halls. However, I must admit that I questioned the intelligence of some of them as they were staring quite glassy-eyed into the distance. That night we also learned some new skills with cards from Orna and Jane over a couple of ales. They both are masters at this craft, but we were also faring not too badly. At least that is what I’m trying to tell myself. We didn’t lose all the time and we both also won a couple of times, at least in between.

20.6.

On the next day, only a “short” carriage drive awaited us (meaning 3-4 hours, that is short here). Our destination was towering piles of sand. The owner of our camp for the night was no one else than Orna’s husband and we were to rest and eat there before climbing the singing dunes.

We passed the time drinking coffee and improving our guide on how to channel the inner core reserves to become a true fantasy adventurer which we will present at the next Magiccon. Meanwhile, a storm had started to rage outside of the ger we were resting in. A storm might sound harmless to you, but in the lands of shifting sands it is a different matter. As soon as we stepped outside to move from one ger to another we were attacked by aggressive gusts of wind and sand, blocking our view of the horizon and making it impossible to stay outside for too long. The sand picked at our skin and made our lungs and eyes burn. Thankfully the way in between the gers was quite short. The way to the toilet on the other hand was much longer and demanded the channelling of massive inner strength to convince oneself to leave the safety of the ger to face the battle with the sand spirits. In this weather, it would be impossible to climb a dune. Our guides had the same opinion so we and a couple of other travelling parties settled for dinner in our camp. We had a lovely chat with some adventurers from the UK and China and generally had a great time. While we were deep in conversations the winds had calmed and the view of the dunes was released from the dust of the desert. It was decided that we could head to the mounts of sands after all. Not for climbing them though but to admire them on the back of trusted weight-carrying creatures of the desert. These gentle beasts had been indispensable until the nomads of these lands had gotten access to motor-powered carriages. We each got assigned to one of these by their owners and were then lead in groups of three towards the glittering mounts of golden sand in the distance. We were in one line with Artey coming first, followed by Jane and lastly Sesy. Jane’s camel (yes, I’m talking about camels if you haven’t realised this by now) seemed to really like Artey. It was not merely content with walking with its head as close as possible at her side but tried continuously turn to look at her directly. It was adorable though not quite the best way to move forward, as these beasts are not usually made to walk sidewalks or backwards. Consequently, our progress was stalled every time Jane’s mount managed to turn in Artey’s direction. Sesy’s camel which was tied behind Jane was also constantly a bit confused about what was going on. After being pushed back by it’s owner multiple times, Artey’s new admirer gave up and we ventured on towards the setting sun, into a breathtaking sunset. I must admit that camelback is not the most comfortable place to be in and we were quite glad to be allowed to dismount and return to camp. We were the first group to arrive back and thus we were hoping that we could be the first to use the freshly installed shower. Orna’s camp is still in a bit of construction and before we had left the showers had not been working yet. I also should mention that the Gobi Desert is quite like Hogwarts before the 19th century. This stuff that muggles use instead of magic is basically not accessible here. Some have devices to channel the power of the sun into magic but these are limited in what they can do. Also, there is no such thing as plumbing and the water for the few showers in this area comes from tanks that need to be filled at a nearby well. This shower would be the first we had come across since we started our adventure into Gobi and we were all quite excited about it. We had to wait for a bit until we could wash off and then fall into bed.

 21.6.

In the morning the weather had calmed completely and after breakfast, we once more headed to the piles of unburned glass. On the way two of the other carriages got stuck in the sand and we had to come to their rescue to pull them back out. Now it was time to climb the 500-meter-high dunes. When we left our carriage other travellers were just leaving this place and they were carrying sleighs. That looked like the perfect morning adrenaline rush activity and as we lacked sleighs, we packed our most sturdy-looking plastic bags. Everyone knows though that before you can whisk down a mountain you first have to get on top of it. With the experience of Mount Doom and Small Chimgan, we felt perfectly prepared for these mountains. Yes, you might sink in at every step, but that was the same halfway up Mount Doom and this climb would be a lot shorter. First, we were positively surprised because half of the sand was what we would call “Legolas sand”. This type of sand allows you to channel your inner elf and run over it like Legolas ran over the snow at Caradhras while the rest of the fellowship had to fight their way through it. Halfway up the dune, it became much harder work though, our lungs burned from the climb and we were getting exhausted quickly. This negatively surprised me. We had climbed the mountain to the Great Wall not even two weeks ago and had walked around much in between. How had our level of fitness deteriorated so much? To make matters worse sand was again blowing in our faces so we decided to switch our bandanas from pirate to assassin mode. This was a gamechanger. It became apparent that our lungs had not burned from the climbing but rather from the sand we were inhaling. By breathing through our bandanas that was not the case anymore and we successfully made it to the top. The view over the surrounding plains and mountains was magnificent!

Trying to slide down the mountain on top of our plastic bags failed afterwards. However, we were still in assassin mode so we started jumping down into the sands. As the way steep and the sand soft (you just had to make sure you don’t land on Legolas sand) we could jump far while trying our best assassin moves. This is my new favourite morning sport. Back down we were whisked away towards our next destination: the flaming cliffs. We reached them in the afternoon. These petrified flames are the resting place of many long-lost creatures who roamed the earth millions of years ago. It appears though that flames do not make the sturdiest rocks. They are crumbling continuously. Meanwhile, they reveal more and more of what sleeps beneath them, telling us stories from times long ago. Our camp for that night was not too far and we reached it soon after. It lay close to a desert forest, which resembles forests in other areas as much as an Ent resembles a Huorn: Maybe distantly related. It consists of something that might be called trees, for lack of a better word, but is very much different. The two of us strolled through the trees after dinner and watched a breathtaking sunset from a low cliff, reminiscing on our adventures of the past months. It was an extraordinary place.