Actually as we were only a few minutes' walk from the main building so although I'd been dreading the thought of venturing out in the night, it wasn't too bad in reality and of course being mid summer the night was rather short. Had it been raining or freezing cold of course it would have been a different story and my, as yet untested, emergency solution of a plastic bag in the waste paper bin might have come into play. One of the ladies in the group has bought something from Age UK which is a bag with crystals that completely absorb the liquid - something to look out for should we do a similar trip.
Breakfast was on a par with dinner last night, although I somehow managed to get us a plate of watermelon. Before long we were packed and ready to reload into our little vans. First stop was the Ongi Monastery with its ornate,
brightly painted wooden gate.
Founded
in 1660, it was once a massive monastic complex housing over 1,000 monks and
multiple temples and universities before its complete destruction in 1939 by
the Soviet linked government. More than 200
monks were executed on-site during its destruction and those who survived were
either imprisoned, exiled, or forcibly conscripted into the
communist-controlled military.
Restoration efforts began in the 1990s, with new small temples and a local museum established on the historic site.
This reconstructed stupa serves as a memorial and site of reflection for the monks who lost their lives during the communist purges.
This building houses the museum.
Various pieces of Buddhist regalia.
These are traditional sacred texts (pecha); unbound loose-leaf pages placed between wooden boards and wrapped tightly in colourful fabric bundles with protruding labeled cloth markers or tags indicating the title or contents of the scripture without needing to unwrap the bundle. The bundles are then neatly stacked on shelves to protect the sacred words (dharma) from dust, light, and damage.
The buildings in the distance were once part of the monastery complex.
Moving on, we have a long drive today during which there was very little to report on, although the general scenery was still stunning.
These camels are obviously domestic as they have green and red bows on them (I wonder if red indicates a spitter like a red bow on a horse's tail denotes a kicker!)
I asked Oogii about the different size humps and he said it was all to do with the overall health of the camel; so the one on the left is in good condition whereas the right hand one isn't so good - this has nothing to do with the coat as it's clear they are all moulting.
I always imagined the humps to be stiff but as you can see, these have flopped over.
Oogii decided it would be a good place to stop for coffee (unfortunately no tea) except when we got out of the bus on the right side the wind was so strong it was almost impossible to stand up, but quite sheltered on the other side. Brewing up the coffee took an awfully long time and I can only imagine the stop was a time wasting exercise as the camels had wandered off ages ago and there was nothing else to look at bar flat, parched, land.
Occasionally other forms of human life showed up.
From the time we got out of the bus to the time we were ready to get back in, Pudu was wrestling with a mini tent - quite why he thought it might be a good idea given the strength of the wind I don't know but it was hilarious watching him struggle.
At times it took input from all 4.
But eventually he was victorious: Tent 0 Pudu 1 - except I wouldn't have put it past him to let go at the vital moment.
After another hour or so driving we came to the Moltsog Els (sand dunes) which aren't as extensive as the Khongor ones and having visited Namibia these weren't very impressive. Still, the pale sand against the clear blue sky is quite dramatic.
There was no way I wanted to attempt to climb the dunes, especially in the mid-day heat, I know from before just how difficult it is. But I did venture a little way up just to get a photograph.
The plant in the image is a saxaul tree (Haloxylon ammodendron), a tough desert shrub or small tree from the amaranth family which helps stabilize sand dunes and prevents desert spread. It usually has a gnarled trunk with thin, green, needle-like branchlets that act as leaves to reduce water loss.
For lunch we stopped at Gobi Tour Tourist Camp which was very similar to the other ones we've stopped at and we're even now recognising people from other tour groups who are obviously taking the same route as us. Lunch consisted of the usual salad, soup and meat and was all over and done with very quickly.
We were then due to visit Bayanzag, the Flaming Cliffs, a name coined by the American palaeontologist Roy Chapman Andrews (1884-1960). The area was first excavated in 1922 and is renowned for the number of dinosaur bones and eggs found which now reside in museums worldwide. As well as visiting the Information Centre we were scheduled to take a hike along a designated trail. Ian and I had read that the colours on the rock formations were at their best at sunset and we made the mistake of mentioning this to Oogii who then decided it would be a good idea to have an early dinner and visit the cliffs afterwards. I was very happy about this, anything to make a photo better, but what he didn't make clear was that we were literally driving right past the information centre and it was a good hour's drive further on to our overnight stop of Gobi Mirage Lodge Camp.
This camp was everything the last one should have been; lovely accommodation and helpful, friendly staff.
It even had a toilet with buttons!
And what a view!
Once we'd managed to turf Pudu off the swing bench we settled ourselves down to enjoy the view and a quick glass of wine before dinner.
Unfortunately Oogii's plans of an early dinner and back out quickly never quite happened and we then had a long hour drive back to the flaming cliffs, where it was getting on for sunset already. So no time to go to the information centre, just a quick dash to the edge of the rocks - and that sentence probably says it all - most of the group do not do "quick".
The sandstone escarpment looked rather beautiful in the soft evening light.
Oogii unfortunately has a drone - I did threaten to shoot it down if he flew it too close to me!
iphone selfie so weird colouring once again.
We then drove a short way to where we were supposed to do the hike but it was clear it would have been stupid to attempt it as in was practically dark by now. Oogii insisted we still go to the visitor centre and watch a 15 min film but there was no time to wander around the exhibits and sadly it was a bit of a waste of time. A couple of the group were quite vocal in their annoyance and so Ian and I kept our heads down as we felt partially responsible for the mess up.
Reading up on the place subsequently though it turns out numerous species, including the infamous Velocirapter were first discovered there https://www.theflamingcliffs.com/discover/dinosaurs
I resisted the urge to buy a cuddly camel.
The drive back to the camp was in the pitch black and I have absolutely no idea how Sotto and Bridget could possibly have known where they were going and at times I really began to get quite concerned especially as the rumblings of discontented travellers got louder. After around an hour or so we stopped and I thought we must have broken down or got seriously lost but a few minutes later we drove off again and straight into camp. Sotto and Bridget presumably teasing us - unfortunately it was an unnecessarily long day's driving for them too.