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Khongoryn Els, Mongolia
43° 44' N 102° 20' E
Aug 28, 2005 07:39
Distance 228km

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Other entries in Khongoryn Els

Staying with nomads at the sand dunes

Text written in: English

After a most copious night sleep, i had a whopping breakfast in preperation for the longest driving day of the trip (300km) through the desert to the southern Gobi and sand dunes. 

The landscape changed once again as the day wore on.  Now it is just bone dry everywhere, the ground is cracked and sandy and the only vegetation is littlke shrubs no taller than shin height.  Im surprised anything can grow out here to be honest.  This place is kind of what i would expect the surface of the moon to look like if you know what i mean.

As i stared blankly into the desert for hours opon hours of monotonous driving, all I could think about was what the Man Utd score was against Newcastle.  I had visions in my head of young Wayne scoring a bicycle kick from 30 yards like Trevor Sinclair back in the day!!  Now i know we won 2-0, so i am a happy lad.  God i miss watching the football so much...cant wait to get to china, where I suppose they show most of the Man Utd games since the majority of are fans are from there.

We finally arrived sweat soaked at a local herding familys ger at about 7pm.  We figured that we would try and stay there if we could because the tents were so crappy before.  They invited us in for some airag (alcoholic fermented mares milk) and some kind of dough balls which were surprisingly quite nice.  We managed to arrange to stay in one of their gers for the night which was a bit of a Brucey Bonus for the measly price of $5 for the 3 of us.  I think the head of the family is either a bit pissed or a bit mental.  As we spoke to him, he rolled around on the floor laughing at not very much and he had that crazy look in his eyes (a bit like the bird in Natural Born Killers).

The gers opened out to amazing views of the sand dunes, which are spectacular and when it got dark, the sky was unbelievably clear.  I have never seen so many stars in my entire life.

After dinner (revolting), i fell asleep to the sound of goats farting outside.  It was so beautiful!