Woody Packard

Words + Pictures

The Gov


My anticipation of our tour to the Гов was flavored by by everything I thought I knew about it—from the reading I've done, but also from the pictures I've seen. You have seen the same pictures, and so you have the same impression I did. Sand dunes, camels, heat waves shimmering on the horizon creating patches of large and temporary lakes that disappear when you approach. So let me tell you a secret about what we call the Gobi Desert and what Mongolians just call the Gov. (It rhymes with rove.) Most of it looks like the rest of Mongolia, but bigger—sandy, gravelly, or rocky soil, distressed uplifts of solidified sediment, eroded silt from a long ago lake bottom, and sparse vegetation of grass and sage-like plants which, at this time of year, give the land a pale green haze.

Deep inside this area, sandwiched between two small ridges, is a strip of sand dunes roughly a kilometer or two wide and a hundred kilometers long, the ones you saw on the cover of National Geographic and which pop from your memory when you hear the words Gobi Desert. The camels live nearby on the grass and shrub. They do not like to climb sand dunes, but will walk on sand, and from just the right angle and with just the right lens the effect is of an endless barren expanse. That impression supports an entire tourist industry that caters to foreigners like us, who want to get the essence of Mongolia but don't have, say, a year to see it. There is a network of ger camps with restaurants serving westernized Mongolian food, all at convenient intervals to the tourist highlights.

On our whirlwind tour we flew to Dalanzadgad early in the morning and were met by Oyuna, our guide, and a driver in a four wheel drive van. We saw the red eroded soil at Flaming Cliffs, where dinosaurs were first discovered in Mongolia; the famous sand dunes; a canyon which until very recently had ice in it all year long. Between these highlights were mile after mile of dirt roads and nearly flat open space that was only limited by a faintly visible distant mountain ridge. Dotting this landscape like pepper sprinkled from an airplane were an occasional herd of goats, a few horses or camels, and once in a while the dust plume of another vehicle on another dirt path far in the distance.

While I was disappointed that there were not more sand dunes, the ones we found were really amazing. They are so tall and unstable that climbing them is an ordeal. On our way up, Oyuna stopped us to hear the dunes "sing," a groan or moaning sound they make when they countless grains of sand decide to shift. The same sound, induced by our disturbance, could be heard when we were hiking down from the top.

There is one other amazing fact about the Gov, noticeable because of our previous year's experience in other parts of Mongolia. There is no litter, or practically none. It is unlike anywhere else we had been. When I remarked on this to Oyuna, a reserved smile slid across her face, partly not wanting to admit it but also, I think, a little pleased that I noticed. "Not many Mongolians come here," she explained. "The ones who do understand that foreign visitors do not want to see garbage." In a part of the country that depends so heavily on tourism, they have figured out how to preserve the impression of an unspoiled wilderness.

Close Story—Back to Pictures

The Gov

Click below to page through enlarged images or read the story.

2130625-052
Pit Stop

2130625-062
Goat Herder

2130625-057
Goats

2130625-085
Fuel Pump Replacement

2130625-076
Little Dinosaur

2130625-086
Big Dinosaur

2130625-090
Lunch, Concrete Ger

2130625-093
Smoking Lounge

2130625-101
Flaming Cliffs

2130625-131
Rock Seller

2130625-133
Ovoo

2130625-136
Mountains, Dunes

2130625-196
Camel Riders

2130625-188
View From Camel

2130625-203
Camel Control

2130625-216
Between Mountain and Field

2130626-042
Dunes

2130626-048
Dunes

2130626-049
Dunes

2130626-052
Climbing Dunes

2130626-074
Singing Insect

2130626-107
Vulture Valley

2130626-121
Ice Field

2130626-149
Gers, Sidewalk

2130627-023
Ger Camp

2130627-007
Slope, Gers

2130627-032
Foothills, Gers