Mongolia has been a bucket list destination for a while, but as a sort of wild dream, not a realistic plan. The plan that did end up coming together was to hire a car and set off into the wilderness. This was based on very limited information because it is very rare not to take a tour. Planning a route is the easy part, finding helpful recommendations for the logistics of self driving the itinerary is a lot harder. Asking questions online results in many people answering ‘it’s not safe to go alone, hire a guide’. I can confirm it absolutely is safe, and so incredibly amazingly awesome – you just have to be flexible and prepared for anything. Here’s how it went for us!
On the first morning it took us a while to double and triple check we had everything we needed for 4 people to drive and camp around the Mongolian steppes for 2 weeks. It then took us around 2 hours to get out of the city, thanks to the awful Ulaan Baatar traffic which apparently is an everyday occurrence. On the outskirts of town we did a big food shop and thoroughly stocked up. We were finally truly on the road at around 2pm. The first stop was Gorkhi Terelj National Park, the closest park to the city and a popular day trip for locals and tourists. It’s famous for a big rock shaped like a turtle, and a meditation centre perched on a hill deep in the valley. There were so many ger camps (hotels made up of a dozen or so Mongolian style tents) that I was convinced we wouldn’t find a camping spot away from other people, but we managed to find the perfect location right at the foot of the meditation centre hill, with complete solitude and beautiful scenery. We had a delicious camp stove steak dinner followed by a game of cards inside the tent. Throughout the night we heard the noises of dogs, horses, cows, and Mel swears there was a bear.
The next day we had a lot of driving ahead of us, but our campsite was so enjoyable it was hard not to have a leisurely morning. We headed off late morning, and stopped at a local food market for lunch, where we tried mutton meatballs and Mongolian goulash. The next stop was an enormous statue of Genghis Khan in the middle of the countryside. We were about 2km away when the car started smoking. We quickly pulled off the side of the road, and after some explanations and pictures sent to the owner, he determined the radiator was broken, and told us to wait and he would come with a new part and repair it for us. We decided to hitchhike the last 2km to the statue and wait there. We climbed to the top of Genghis Kahn’s head, we viewed the largest Mongolian boot, we explored the small underground museum, and we sat in the lobby for a while doing quizzes. Eventually our contact said the owner was 10km away, so we decided to walk back to the car. He still wasn’t there when we got there. Apparently it was election day, and the first day of a 3-day weekend, so the traffic in Ulaan Baatar was even worse than normal. We were 5km from the city and in the end it took him 3 hours to get to us. Once he arrived though he immediately got to work, confirmed it was not a simple fix but a complete replacement that was needed, and with a small tool bag managed to pull the engine apart, remove the old radiator, fit the new one, reattach everything, and check it all, in under an hour. It was very impressive, and he followed us a little way down the road afterwards to make sure it was all working. Once back on the road we tried to get as many miles behind us as possible, which is made easier by the fact that sunset is around 9pm here, so we kept going until around 8 before finding a place to camp. The vast flat landscape that comes to mind when you think of Mongolia is not an exaggeration. There was nothing to see for miles in any direction, so all we could do was choose a spot that looked exactly the same as all other spots, and drive a few hundred meters away from the road. We had zero protection from the elements, and it was extremely windy throughout the night, though thankfully not too cold.
On Saturday we managed to drive a long distance, with a lot of hours spent in the car. We decided to skip the 4 hour detour to a cool rock formation, and instead continued driving to a different cool rock formation. Around 6pm we made it to the White Stupa, a cliff face with interesting shapes and colours, with a rocky landscape at the bottom with many nooks and crannies to tuck the car into and camp for the night. Navigating the rocks was a test of our car’s 4×4 abilities, but it managed admirably and we found ourselves a sheltered spot below the cliff face. A Mongolian family decided our nook was a particularly good one, and decided to camp quite close to us, which was a shame because we wanted the views all to ourselves. We were still able to enjoy walking around the rocky landscape in the morning in relative solitude before the majority of tourists arrived.
After a leisurely morning and some hiking around the rock formations we set off, and ventured further into the rockiness. It was due to be shorter driving day, so we added in a stop at a cave tunnel that most tourists don’t get to see. From here we headed back to the highway to continue south. One of the best things about roadtripping in Mongolia is the offroading. It’s (mostly) so flat, with no buildings or plants, that you can just pick a direction and drive. If you take a wrong turn there’s no need to retrace your steps, you just veer off in the right direction and take a short cut. We were entirely alone on our drive, cruising across fields with no signs of civilisation save the faint tire tracks that reassured us we weren’t the first people to do this. The phrase ‘in the middle of nowhere’ has never been more accurate. Once we did rejoin the highway we drove in a completely straight line for a couple of hours. When we finally hit a town and tried to turn off to a supermarket we discovered our second car issue: the power steering was out. After more communication with our guy back in Ulaan Baatar we determined the power steering fluid was leaking and we were completely dry. He sent out a local woman to top us up enough to make it to a garage, where we were told to wait for an undetermined period. After a while we discovered the leak was coming from a pipe, and they did not have the part to replace it, and then they closed. Fortunately this was one of the bigger towns we’ve encountered, and there was a second mechanic open later who did have the part. Again the actual fix was extremely fast, and cost a total of $12 including the labour, replacement tube and extra bottle of fluid. Thankfully we weren’t too far from our destination for the day, and enjoyed the final part of the drive into the canyon as the sun set.
After all the difficulties were were happy to spend the whole next day at Yolin Am Canyon. The canyon is filled by a glacier for much of the year, and even in July we were walking on ice for some of the hike through. For some reason my $12 Decathlon trainers which cause me to slip on every single other surface while hiking were completely unfazed by the ice and I was able to walk perfectly fine even while everybody else was slipping and sliding all around me. We explore some ice caves and tunnels, and ventured far enough into the canyon to escape all the other tourists. Mongolia is a mostly very flat landscape, so this was one of the few stops with real hiking opportunities, so we made the most of it. On our way out we filled a bottle with glacier water for a very cold shower later in the day, and bought a very Mongolian chess set from a local stall at the canyon entrance. Our car hire contact had not been able to understand what a tarp was when we requested one while picking up the car, and we hadn’t managed to find any in any supermarket, so we spent 30 minutes creating a very makeshift shade by attaching one of the tent covers to the side of the car and propping it up with the table. In the evening we climbed one of the very steep rocky hills right next to our camping spot for epic views over the canyon.
Next we headed to Khongoryn Els, the huge sand dunes of the Gobi desert. After a day off from driving we were hoping for no new car issues, but we quickly discovered that the power steering had not in fact been fixed. Keen not to disrupt our trip further, we spent a little time hunting for the fluid that would allow us to keep moving, and bought 4 bottles to try to get as far as we could without needing another long wait at a mechanic. The route to the dunes was extremely bumpy, and our little landcruiser (we named him Herbert) was so much slower than all of the tourist vans who just flew over the lumps and bumps, sending huge dust clouds trailing out behind them. There are many ger camps spread out along the foot of the dunes, because almost nobody is camping like we are, but it meant that we were able to drive past all of these and set up right at the foot of the biggest dune that everybody climbs for sunset. After a fried rice dinner at the car we set off on the climb, which takes twice as long as it should because with every step you slide halfway back through the sand. It took around 45 minutes with many stops, but the views from the top were spectacular, and the colours at sunset were well worth the effort. Many tour groups has brought sleds for getting back down and we were disappointed not to have thought of that. Mel and Thomas both tried and failed at sledding on a plastic bag, and instead we amused ourselves by leaping down the dune in ridiculous styles, which ended up being much faster than the timid sledders. Our car contact sent one of the nearby tour guides over to us to help with the power steering problem, but of course as a tour guide not a mechanic he wasn’t able to do much but provide even more fluid and tell us a place to stop the next day for better help. We got to chat a little with the travellers on his tour, who were very impressed with our adventurousness but I think also very relieved to have gone for the tour option with the reliable car!
The next morning we attempted to find the place the guide had told us about, but the pin on Google maps was in the middle of nowhere, so we gave up and continued on to our next destination: the Flaming Cliffs. These rock formations are very red, and were made famous in the 1960s when the first dinosaur eggs ever discovered were unearthed here, along with many skeletons of various species of dinosaur. We watched an extremely old introductory video about the area, visited the small museum, and then set up for lunch right on the edge of the cliffs. There’s a boardwalk set up along the rock formations, which meant the site was much more controlled than any other land we’d come across in the 1500km we’d driven so far across Mongolia. It didn’t seem like a great spot to set up camp, so we pushed on, continuing through the desert landscape and out the other side. We found a lovely meadow with a fairly large watering hole, full of horses and camels, and decided this was the perfect spot as a complete contrast to the sand and rock of the previous few days. We’ve been in awe of how different every single stop has been on this roadtrip: forested national park, wide open steppes, rocky canyon, ice canyon, sand dunes, meadows. And there’s more to come!
Check out part 2 here.
