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| Gobi Desert Off-Road Motorcycle Tour |
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28th August - 06th September 2010 Euros €2695
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NOTE: |
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In 2010 we will be changing our motorcycles from Yamaha WR to new KTM 450EXC off-road enduro competition motorbikes. |
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The Gobi Desert straddling the border between Mongolia and China, is a wild and dramatic place, entirely suitable for motorcycling. We ride on all sorts of roads: asphalt as well as packed mud or gravel tracks with washouts and potholes. Just about free of traffic & through some spectacular scenery. |
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Tour photos: |
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Look at some of our photos of this tour. We've got several
pictures of the area around your trip. Click on the camera |
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The famous Gobi Desert is not all vast flat steppe under a deep blue sky. There are bizarre rock formations, canyons, the Gurvansaikhan mountain range and sand dunes 185km long, as well as forests of small saxaul trees and other desert vegetation. Apart from a few villages and small towns that we pass through on the way, most of the population have a nomadic lifestyle, frequently moving with their round white felt yurts (“gers”) and herds of camels, goats and horses. This trip is a fascinating cultural experience as well as an off-road bike tour across Mongolia of over one and a 1500km's.
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| 28 Aug |
Arrive Ulaanbaatar and transfer to hotel. Evening meet crew and allocate motorbikes.
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| 29 Aug |
Make an early start to get out of Ulaanbaatar city and onto the road leading south to the Gobi. Ride on to Baga Gazriin Chuluu, a mountain of unusual granite rocks which are home to ibex, marmots, steppe fox and plenty of birds of prey.
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| 30 Aug |
Ride through Mandalgov, and continue across the
open steppe of Middle Gobi to Tsagaan Suvraga, an amazing series of cliffs, white and pink limestone rock formations taking the appearance of stalagmites up to 30 meters high. It is an excellent site for some out-of-the-ordinary photography. Overnight ger camp.
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| 31 Aug |
The track to Dalanzadgad has little traffic, even
though we are travelling on the main road. This is Mongolia as one imagines it – distant horizons, dry rocky earth and a huge blue sky. The town appears like a mirage and it takes nearly two hours of riding to reach it after seeing it from afar. Overnight ger camp.
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| 01 Sept |
Ride up into the mountains of the Gobi Gurvansaikhan Uul. This
national park is so unexpected in the middle of the desert and it is a delight to feel so cool in the deep canyon where sunlight reaches for only a few minutes each day. After walking into Yolyn Am (the “Vulcher’s Mouth”) we ride westwards at the foot of the mountains to Khongoryn Els where huge sand dunes meet the end of the Altai mountain range. Overnight ger camp.
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| 02 Sept |
Leaving the golden dunes behind us we ride through a wonderful mountain pass and on to
Bulgan village. Not far from here is Bayanzag, a forest of rare saxaul trees and the “flaming cliffs” where many dinosaur remains have been found and Roy Chapman Andrews discovered the first dinosaur eggs during his expedition of the 1920s. Overnight ger camp.
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| 03 Sept |
Today we travel north-east to Mandal-Ovoo and then to Saikhan-Ovoo. Here, on a bend in the Ongi river, are the remains of two monasteries, one on each bank of the river. Overnight ger camp.
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| 04 Sept |
Continue northwards to reach Zorgol Khairkhan, a dramatic granite
mountain with bizarre rock formations jutting out against the skyline. Overnight hotel.
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| 05 Sept |
As we return to Ulaanbaatar, the landscape becomes gradually greener and more mountainous. Even close to the city people still live the traditional lifestyle, there are more horses and less camels than we encountered in the Gobi. Overnight hotel.
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| 06 Sept |
Transfer to airport for departure.
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Price per person: Euro €2695
fuel & motorbike hire included in price
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Tall white and pink limestone rocks in Middle Gobi have strange and beautiful shapes as a result of wind and water erosion. From afar the White Stupa can be mistaken for the ruins of an old city. 
Even in summer a thick corridor of ice stretches along the deep narrow canyon in the Gurvansaikhan mountains high above the desert floor. You might see large argali sheep, wild ibex goats, birds of prey and all sorts of rodents in the rocks. The canyon is lined with juniper bushes which are burned in the monasteries as incense.
The sands of Khongor Els extend for 185 kilometers and include dunes that reach 20 metres in height. The sound produced by the moving sand can be heard from afar and they are known as the "Singing Sands". The road to Sevrei village passes through the ever-changing sand dunes and is often impassable. 
White Lake & Khorgo Volcano National Park on the edge of the Khangai range in Central Mongolia is a thrilling place to ride a motorcycle. Travel across mountain, desert, steppe and forest to get to the lake created 20,000 years ago following volcanic eruption. 
Genghis Khan was born in Dadal in 1162. Riding mainly off-road across remote mountains and river valleys, it is 600 km from Ulaanbaatar to the village where the great leader of the Mongol Empire was born 800 years ago. His mother cooked horse spleen soup on that day, so the lake that now covers the place where their ger once stood is known as "Spleen Lake".