Day 195: Goodbye Gobi — Back to UB for One Night
Alarm went off at 5 am today. Quick breakfast at sunrise and flew back across the grasslands to the airport for our flight back to Ulaanbaatar. We will miss the...
Category: Mongolia
Day 194: Last Full Day in The Gobi — Bulgan Village — Babies Documentary — Flaming Cliffs — Special Sunset Performance
It rained hard last night which washed out our planned dinner and performance up the hill at the sunset viewing spot. The lodge staff rescheduled for tonight — more on...
Day 193: Horseback Riding — A Real Paleontologist — Teachers from Local Performing Arts School —Rain!
Teddy woke up early for a bike ride out onto the plains. He passed the guard dog from the family whose ger we’d visited yesterday — it was having a...
Day 192: Visiting a Nomadic Family — Riding in Sidecars — Hiking to See Petroglyphs — Epic Rainbow
It was a relaxing start to a memorable day. I worked out up at the “Sunset Spot” on the top of the little hill behind the lodge. We had a...
Day 191: A Memorable Day Hiking in the Gobi’s Yol Valley
Today is certain to be among the most memorable of our trip so far. Jam-packed with activities and new friends and stunning surroundings. Breakfast was at 7:45 am but we...
Day 190: UB to The Gobi — Three Camel Lodge — Camel Riding and Dune Sledding
Today was our earliest departure of the year: a 6:20am flight from Ulaanbaatar to The Gobi. The Shangri La packed us takeaway yogurt, muffins and apples. Ganzo was on our...
Day 189: Monastery and Museum Hopping — Dinner with Wayne and Emily
After a 10am pickup we spent the morning at checking some cultural boxes: Gandantegchinlen Monastery: we walked through as the monks were chanting from their [name] and then went next...
Day 188: Naadam Festival Continues — Horse Races in the Countryside
We got picked up at 8:30 to make the drive west of the city toward another festival site — this time to watch horse racing. It’s usually a 40-minute drive,...
Day 187: Naadam Festival Kicks Off in UB!
The morning of the big festival is here! I was a little nervous about wearing the Mongolian clothes because of all the (justified) cultural appropriation sensitivities these days. But from...
Day 186: Asia Adventures Begin — Arrive in Ulaanbaatar —Shopping for Naadam with our guide Ganzo — How Not to Beat Jet Lag
Today we demonstrated all the ways *not* to beat jet lag. We got almost no sleep on the 5.5 hour flight from Moscow to Ulaanbaatar (locals call it “UB”) and...