We were up at 2:30am this morning and got picked up at 3am to head to the airport for our flight to Dalanzadgad.
After getting checked in and grabbing a coffee we head to our small domestic gate. Fiona and I got a behind the scenes tour of the security when Avery’s kindle got flagged as power bank which I gather is not allowed. They actually let us go into the back security area to search the checked bag and pull out the culprit!
We head to our gate get loaded onto the bus to take us to the plane when we find ourselves doing a u-turn and heading back to the airport. We are told that it’s due to weather initially but then find out the plane has technical issues and that our flight is cancelled.
There are several tour groups travelling to the same location, and all the tour guides spring into action to sort out alternate plans.
The initial plan is for us to take a charter flight to Khanbogd which is a mining airport. From there our drivers in Dalanzadgad will drive out to meet us and drive us to back to our Ger Camp.
That plan gets the kibosh, and they then want to put us on a bus the whole way, which is approximately 8 hours and a better road.
They seem to want us to travel with another group of travellers who are keen to take option 2, however we pipe up that our preference is to take the plane partway there, and do the shorter drive. Despite the fact that it will apparently be a very rough road for 250kms, this feels like a better plan. Certainly more fun and more our style!
The airlines are pulling our luggage and trying to keep up with our evolving plans, but ultimately we fly into the mining town of Khanbogd landing around 6:30am or so. We have to wait for our drivers to come from our camp so we sit around the airport and grab a few snacks and charge our phones. Some games of cribbage ensue. In my opinion sitting in an airport beats driving for hours.
It’s raining in Khanbogd and our drivers show up around 10:15am and we load into the 3 Lexus SUV’s and get on the road. The SUV’s are numbered and there seems to be a hierarchy…no passing car #1!! This ends up being fun later when car #2 keeps pushing things!
The roads are nowhere near as bad as we thought it would be and this way takes us past the largest mine in Mongolia which is the Rio Tinto (Australian - own 66%), which is an underground and open pit mining gold and copper. We also pass multiple open pit coal mines. There are trucks rolling past us regularly headed for the Chinese border which is only about 125km south.
It’s a mixture of paved road and off-roading and the air is cool outside and it’s raining off and on. It is by no means as bad as what we have seen, and we are happy with our choice to fly and drive this way.
The one thing to point out at this point is that it is windy…not a little bit windy…a LOT windy. It is unrelenting.
We arrive into Dalanzadgad around 1:45pm and then we head off-road again to our camp which is about 40mins out. We are staying at the Gobi Nomad Lodge which is owned by our tour company. It’s really lovely and the gers are beautiful inside. We actually get a washroom with a shower, although when we arrive the power is out, we suspect due to the wind which here seems to be blowing even harder.
We grab some lunch and decide that we won’t do any further sightseeing for the day, so take the time to relax and read and wait for our next meal.
The dining hall ger is really stunning inside and the food is very good. They always have instant coffee, sugar and instant creamer on the table and serve got water and tea with every meal. We are offered lovely 3 course meals that consist of simple salads, carrot soup and mains which consist of roasted veggies and meat. They have been very receptive to my dietary needs and so far so good.
The ger beds are a little hard, but it’s been a crazy long day and sleep comes quickly!
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