So here goes...my Gobi trip! theres just so much to say! I think Ill do it day by day, so the order that I write in will match the photos-after a LOT of time got them sorted into chronological order. Saturday... We past herds of wild horses, which was lovely. With the snow covered mountains in the background it was a great way to start our trip. I remember thinking how starnge it was to see see manby horses together, wild, just roaming around. Free like they should be. Reminded me of herds of elephants in Africa. All big families. The scenary changed so much during our first day on the road. From snow everywhere, to bare yellowish mountains, to flatter plains where loads more horses were, to random clumps of grass to well nothing. Vastness! We stayed in MandelGovi the first night, at the Gobi Hotel. The beds at the time I thought were quite hard and uncomfortable and had to deal with a freezing cold shower the following morning. Later I was to find that heating through the night and any shower at all was wonderful compared to what we had in store for us for the next five/six days. I appreciated these luxeries much more on our return trip to UB, when we stayed at the hotel on our way back. In the evening we all went to a bar in the town. Was pretty impressive inside, not what we expected at all! As youve probably seen from the pictures, Ingrid and Valerie danced in 'circle style' with the Mongolians there. (Typically Mongolians all dance in big circles, reminiscent to school dances when I was 12! Quite sweet really) Valerie remained on the dance floor with this one Mongolian guy, who was a suprisingly good dancer and they danced to Tango kind of music. very funny. On our way back to the hotel the sky was beautiful. Id never seen so many stars in the sky before. amazing. Sunday.... The following morning we were up bright and early ready for another 8 hours of driving. Then Gana, our driver told us that the vans water pump was broken and had to wait until 9am until a repair shop opened to sort it. This was to be the first of many things to go wrong with Vladimir the van (named by Rachel, I think the name sounds quite menacing which fits perfectly with the vans behaviour as you will soon hear about!) So at about 11pm we set off again, Vladimir temporarily in good form. So after a few hours of travelling, when we are in the middle of NO WHERE! we hear this big bang and discover one of the tyres burst. No great problem as there is a spare, but only one, so for the rest of the day we were all praying there wouldnt be another flat tyre as we could be stuck in the deseret for days and days before any vehicle passed by! Luckily for us, Gana is an engineer and quite nifty with repairs. Within 20 minutes we were ready to set off once more. However, Vladimir had other plans! The engine wouldnt start! Another 10 minutes go by with all us in the back looking at each othger with anxious faces. At first Gana thought it was the battery, which would be a very serious problem! But then saw that the windscreen wipers were still sorking so luckily wasnt the battery. Finally Gana managed to get it going again, something to do with a cable, I dont know! Later on we found that there was HEAPS of dust in the back of the van, and put it down to the back doors opening a bit each time we went over a bump in the road! So Gana to the rescue, managed to keep them closed used a nail which he hammered into the outside bit, a little bit away from the doors and then wedging a plank of wood in between the nail and doors. Worked well but also meant we now couldnt get to the food and all our bags from outside and had to heave them all over the back seats. Hmmmm We had our first lunch in the van. Victoria, Rachel and I had some of our powdered soup with hot water, and some bread and cheese. God by the end of the trip cheese was a longed for and distant pleasure! It went so fast! Later on we saw quite a few camels and even mixed herds of camels and horses together. I love the Mongoilian camels. So sweet looking and all their hair is great! We also saw our first herds of gazelle which was amazing. So exciting. The first lot were white gazelles, very pretty. We drove over to them but didnt get all that close as they weer quite skittish and can run very fast! Anyhoo we did arrive in Dalanzadgad that evening. My Lonely Planert describes it as 'a souless and windy town', promising! But was the site of my new founded hair style. Braids! After another FREEZING shower(actually hurt! had to keep having breaks away from the water as was getting such a bad headache!)-so my hair would be easier to braid, Rachel sat down and started the big task of braiding all my hair. I counted them at some point. Ive got 33. Having my hair like that was a godsend as I wasnt able to have a shower for like 5 days, so wouldnt have been able to wash my hair for that long. I would have gone mad! But with my hair like this you dont feel the need to wash it. (Except now after the trip I have so much sand in my hair that is quite gross now! So will have to take them out soon, and get Rachel to rebraid them before I go to China) Tonight was our first night sleeping in a ger. Was really nice. See pics! We made our first meal in a ger or pasta and vegetable sauce. Yummm Next stop Yolyn Am. Our first proper destination.