Gobi Desert
Sainshand
Sainshand is a sandblown collection of gers, hotels, rundown restaurants and never-full bars that ekes out a living from the train line snaking through. It has neat rows of windbreaking trees and no grass. It's about as much town as it's fair to expect in the middle of a desert.
Supposedly it's a 'historically important' town too. A better fed person might have been able to say. To us, Sainshand was seen through hungry eyes: it meant food, easy water, more food and spring mattresses.
We were ready to move out after the third day but rolled into wind you couldn't argue with. We returned for another 24 hours of hot meals, including one where a Mongol-American mining contractor informed us that the road further north had seen a snowstorm the week before.
We'd done sandstorm and windstorm already. We readied ourselves for the next day wondering if we could be heading for a trifecta.
Sainshand is a sandblown collection of gers, hotels, rundown restaurants and never-full bars that ekes out a living from the train line snaking through. It has neat rows of windbreaking trees and no grass. It's about as much town as it's fair to expect in the middle of a desert.
Supposedly it's a 'historically important' town too. A better fed person might have been able to say. To us, Sainshand was seen through hungry eyes: it meant food, easy water, more food and spring mattresses.
We were ready to move out after the third day but rolled into wind you couldn't argue with. We returned for another 24 hours of hot meals, including one where a Mongol-American mining contractor informed us that the road further north had seen a snowstorm the week before.
We'd done sandstorm and windstorm already. We readied ourselves for the next day wondering if we could be heading for a trifecta.
No comments:
Post a Comment