HAPPY CAMEL Camel Riding in the Gobi and Visit to Central Mongolia (13 days) p. 1
Camel Riding in the Gobi and visit to CenteralMongolia
(13 days)
13 Days 2 Nights in Hotel 3Nights Tented Camp
6Nights Ger Camp1 Nights Family Stay
Happy Camel invites you to discover the natural and cultural wonders of Mongolia, one of the last remaining seldom-explored countries. Largely inaccessible to the Western world until only recently, Mongolia offers a rare glimpse into an ancient nomadic culture that has changed little over the centuries.
The traveller will discover this untouched country by exploring the rare combination of ancient traditions of Buddhism, nomadic horse-based culture and natural beauties such as the high mountains, the grasslands and the desert region.
Hiking Camel Riding Gobi desert Kharkhorin Monasteries Museums Granite Formations Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park Sand Dunes Family Stay Flaming Cliffs
Trip Type: Camel Riding in the Gobi and Central Mongolia
© Happy Camel Travel Co., Ltd.E-mail: el
HAPPY CAMEL Camel Riding in the Gobi and Visit to Central Mongolia (13 days) p. 1
Quick Itinerary Reference
1st day arrival in ulaanbaatar
2nd day baga gazryn chuluu
3rd day yoliin am
4th day khongor sand dune
5th day camel riding to red hill
6th day camel riding to chono kharaikh
7th day camel riding back to red hill
8th day camel riding back to the singing dune
9th day drive to bayanzag/ flaming cliffs
10th day drive to ongi monastery
11th day drive to kharkhorin and visit erdenezuu monastery
12th day drive to ulaanbaatar
13th day departure
© Happy Camel Travel Co., Ltd.E-mail: el
HAPPY CAMEL Camel Riding in the Gobi and Visit to Central Mongolia (13 days) p. 1
Map of the Itinerary
© Happy Camel Travel Co., Ltd.E-mail: el
HAPPY CAMEL Camel Riding in the Gobi and Visit to Central Mongolia (13 days) p. 1
1st day arrivalin ulaanbaatar
Upon arrival at the airport you will be welcomed by our team. We will bring you to your comfortable, centrally located hotel. Ulaanbaatar is fast-growing modern city with more than 1.3 million habitants.Depending on your arrival time, city tour can be organised.
City sightseeing includes Bogd Khan's Winter & Summer Palace, a series of beautiful traditional buildings in which the eighth Living Buddha and the last king lived. It is now a museum displaying fascinating artefacts and costumes associated with the last king as well as his collection of stuffed animals.
We will stop at the Gandantegchinlen Monastery. It is the largest and most important monastery of Mongolia. We will scroll through the different monasteries and see the magnificent statue of MigjidJanraisig, an 82-food high statue gilded in gold and covered with silk cloths.
We will finish city tour with Zaisan hill to have a view of whole Ulaanbaatar. The city sightseeing tour takes about 4 – 5 hours.
You may have to check the famous folklore concert famous of its throat singing before going back to the hotel. In the evening your tour guide will give you a short briefing about the trip and answer all your questions before he takes you to a famous Mongolian restaurant for the first taste of Mongolian food.
(Hotel, B)
2nd daybagagazrynchuluu
After breakfast in our hotel restaurant, we will leave for the Mongolian countryside. Our first stop will be 250 km southward in the beautiful region of BagaGazrinChuluu. It is a huge granite formation in the middle of the Mongolian sandy plane.
On open plain we will visit the remains of a small monastery named Delgeriin Choir Monastery. You will be entering first time in a Ger, huge impressive 12 walls Ger richly decorated and carved used by monks to chant during colder season when the stone monastery gets too cold to be inside.
End of the afternoon we will drive and hike around in the area. We will visit the picturesque ruins of a small monastery that are hidden in a nice little protected valley and wander between huge endless piled granite rocky hills as if they were put.
(Ger Camp, B, L, D)
3rd dayyoliin am
Today we will drive to South Gobi province town Dalanzadgad. The Gobi desert measures over 1,610 km from southwest to northeast and 800 km from north to south and stretches over Mongolia and China. It occupies an arc of land 1,295,000 km2 in area, making it fifth largest in the world and Asia's largest. Much of the Gobi is not sandy but is covered with bare rock.
The Gobi is a cold desert, with frost snow on its dunes during the winter months. Besides being quite far north, it is also located on a plateau roughly 910–1,520 meters above sea level, which further contributes to its low temperatures. An average of approximately 194 millimetres of rain falls per year in the Gobi. Additional moisture reaches parts of the Gobi in winter as snow is blown by the wind from the Siberian Steppes. These winds cause the Gobi to reach extremes of temperature ranging from –40°C in winter to +50°C in summer.
We will take a ride through the beautiful gorges of the imposing Altai Mountain Chain. We will pass through the Yoliin Am and the Dungenee Am both located in the Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park. Ancient rivers carved those green valleys.
We may catch a glimpse of the wild Argali sheep, the Ibex, the desert gazelles or the Golden Eagles. We will also pay a visit to the little museum of the park where you can admire a collection of dinosaur bones and local flora and fauna.
(Ger Camp, B, L, D)
4th daykhongor sand dune
After a good morning breakfast we will drive 150 km westwards to the KhongoriinEls. These are Mongolia's largest sand dunes. Those impressive dunes of 275 meters high in some places, stretch from East to West over more than 100 km. Behind the sand dunes we will see the impressive black rocky mass of the Sevrey Mountain. Once you reach the top of the Singing Dune, the whole environment looks full of mysteries, and you get amazed how possibly the landscape can be. We will visit our host camel breeding family. All the nomadic families are famous for their hospitality. It is our tradition to offer food and drinks without asking the visitors.
(Family stay, B, L, D)
5thdaycamel riding to red hill
In the morning we will reach family where we load our luggage on the camels and start camel riding along the singing dune. We will be guided by experienced camel man from the host family during our 4 days camel journey. The Gobi is rich of antelopes and black-tailed gazelles. We might catch a glimpse. We will have enough time to wander around the area and then set up our first camp site. We will start to know how to water the camels and take care of them little bit as nomads do.
(Tented Camp, B, L, D)
6thday camel riding to chonokharaikh
We will continue the camel riding journey through rolling sand dunes of Gobi desert. The first change of landscape will be a stream called ChonoKharaikh flows between sand dunes. There will be no sign of life except for us, camels and small animal tracks. With a breeze which is unavoidable in Mongolia it is a perfect place for overstressed city brain. At stream with a little chance we might observe some species of birds and antelopes as the latter one serves the main water supply for the many yet mostly unobserved wild animals in Gobi desert.
(Tented Camp, B, L, D)
7th daycamel riding back to red hill
Today we will ride to the Red Hill going the same way back.
(Tented Camp, B, L, D)
8th day camel riding back to the singing dune
Our last day of the camel riding we will be heading back to the camel breeding family at the singing dune. We will get there in the afternoon and bid goodbye to the family members and leave to our ger camp for shower where we stayed last time.
(Ger Camp, B, L, D)
9th day drive to bayanzag/ flaming cliffs
Today our drive will take us toBayanzag also known as the "Flaming Cliffs" is the worldwide renowned place where palaeontologist Roy Chapman Andrews found dinosaur bones and eggs in 1920s. The surrounding landscape is a beautiful combination of rocks, red sand and scrubs. Here we will spend some time exploring the cliffs.
(Ger Camp, B, L, D)
10th daydrive to ongi monastery
Today we will continue driving to northwest to Ongiin Monastery. We will enjoy the peace and beauty of the DelgerKhangai Mountains. We will explore the ruins of Hoshuu Monastery on one side of the river and the ruins of Ongiin Monastery on the other side of the river. We will hike around in this massive series of rocky hills cut by the river.
The monasteries were built in the 17th century and destroyed in 1937. They were among the largest temples in Mongolia and housed over 1000 monks.
Now day between ruins little monastery was built and in Ger museum are exhibited remains of old monasteries.
(Ger Camp, B, L, D)
11th daydrive to kharkhorin and visit erdenezuu monastery
After an early wake up, we will set off for a driving day to Kharkhorin (also called Kharhorin).
Kharhorin is the site of the 13th century capital of the Mongolian Empire created by Chinggis Khan. The founding of Karakorum started on the ruins of Turug and Uigur cities in the Orkhon valley at the eastern end of the Khangai Mountains in 1220 by the ChinggisKhaan's order. It was completed 15 years later during the UgedeiKhaan's reign. The town was a very cosmopolitan and religiously tolerant place.
The silver tree, part of Möngke Khan's palace has become the symbol of Karakorum.
The highest peak of its prosperity was from 1220 to 1260. The specific feature of this stage is that Kharkhorin existed as the great capital of the Euro-Asian Empire with Mongolia as its core and as the centre of politics, economy, culture, religion, intellect, and diplomacy and the prominent tie of international relations.
Between 1260 and 1380 Kharkhorin lost the status of the Great Mongolian Empire and became the capital of Mongolia. When Kublai Khan claimed the throne of the Mongol Empire in 1260, as did his younger brother, Ariq Boke, he relocated his capital to today's Beijing. Kharkhorin was reduced to the administrative centre of a provincial backwater of the Yuan Dynasty.
In 1368, the rule of Mongolian Yuan Dynasty collapsed and the centre of Mongolian government was shifted to its homeland after 110 years since KhubilaiKhaan moved the Empire capital to China in 1260. It gave Karakorum a chance to prosper again.
In 1388, Ming troops under General Xu Da took and destroyed the town.
Today nothing is left from this legendary city.
In 1580, when AbtaiSain Khan together with his brother, lord Tumenkhen, visited the 3rd Dalai Lama and expressed their wish to build a temple in Mongolia, he advised them to reconstruct one old temple in Karakorum. The temple in Takhai ruins that was restored in 1588 according to the Dalai Lama's recommendation is the Main Zuutemple of ErdeneZuu monastery.
Now ErdeneZuu Monastery is all that remains of what once was a huge monastery of 100 temples and about 1.000 lamas residing there. We will explore the grounds of ErdeneZuu Monastery surrounded by its massive 400 m X 400 m walls. We will be guided around the 3 remaining temples: Dalai Lama, Zuu of Buddha and Lavrin Temple.
Another place we will visit will be Kharkhorin's New Archaeological Museum. It is a small museum but housed in a modern well-run building with good lighting and display cases with clear English labels. The exhibits include dozens of artefacts dating from the 13th and 14th centuries which were recovered from the immediate area, plus others that were found from archaeological sites in other parts of the provinces, including prehistoric stone tools. You'll see pottery, bronzes, coins, religious statues and stone inscriptions. There's also a half-excavated kiln sunk into the museum floor. Perhaps most interesting is the scale model of ancient Karakorum, which aims to represent the city as it may have looked in the 1250s, and is based on descriptions written by the French missionary William of Rubruck. Another chamber exhibits a most recent addition, a Turkic noble tomb with wall paintings and artefacts, including gold items and jewellery. There is a short video of actual burial site.
(Ger Camp, B, L, D)
12th day drive to ulaanbaatar
Drive back to Ulaanbaatar. We will do some short stops. This will be the longest driving day in the whole trip and once you get back to the capital city, take a rest or catch up some activities you haven’t done yet.
(Hotel, B, L)
13th day departure
Time to say goodbye to Mongolia and our team will take you to the airport depending on your scheduled time.
(B)
B = BreakfastL = LunchD = Dinner
Price includes
- Airport transfers
- Land transportation
- Hotel stays
- Family stay
- Tented camp
- Ger camp stay
- Meals – 13B, 11L, 10D
- Tour guides/Camel guide/Packing and Riding camels
- Camping and kitchen equipment
- National park entrance fees/Museum and Monasteries entrance tickets
Price does not include
- International flights
- Visa fee
- Optional activities fee
- Extra food and drinks
- Travel Insurance
Delays
We are not responsible for any additional charges incurred arising from the delay or extension of a trip due to weather, equipment failure, illness, or other causes beyond our control. No refunds can be made for any unused services or accommodations on the trip.
Transport
Toyota Land Cruiser - 80, 100, 105 series are the best-known qualified 4×4 SUVs for Mongolian roads and off-beaten tracks. It has 4 seats. Comfortable and air-conditioned.
Delica -Japanese vehicle has 5 seats with air-conditioning system. The quality is good on dirt road and during long driving hours.
Furgon - A Russian military vehicle has 7 seats. Not fitted with seat belts and no air conditioning system.
Food
Traditional Mongolian food based on different type of meat: mutton, beef, goat, horse and camel. As well as we eat diaries and usually heavy meals due to our radical climate of cold long winter and hot dry summer. However nowadays our food culture is becoming more diverse and you can easily find international food in restaurants and buy diverse imported food at supermarkets. We will do our best to accommodate your food requirement. Please let us know in advance if you have any special food requirement.
Accommodation
In Ulaanbaatar you will be accommodated in the best and most comfortable hotel. The hotel is centrally located, in walking distances from shops and museums.
While in the countryside you will overnight in the gers of ger camps. Gers are the traditional felt tents of nomadic herders. Each ger is furnished with a wood stove and beautifully painted furniture such as beds, a table and stools. Gers are based on double occupancy. Each ger camp has its restaurant, western style toilet and hot water showers.
Most visitors find their stay in gers, which provide an authentic taste of Mongolian culture and adventure, their most enjoyable experience in Mongolia.
Each time we will travel far from the usual tourist tracks, we will have no other solution than to overnight in western style tents because no other accommodation is available. We will however do our best to offer you the best available service. For this a special jeep will accompany us with camping and kitchen equipment. We pride ourselves on the level of comfort we provide while camping in these remote areas, but camping is not for everyone. It is important to remain open-minded and physically willing.
Remark
Mongolia is a developing country in terms of infrastructure. The standard of the roads is very low, with no tarmac outside the capital. As a result be prepared for bumpy and dusty rides.
Travelling in a seldom-explored country, with very little infrastructure requires flexibility, tolerance, a spirit of adventure and respect and understanding for cultural differences. The trip itinerary is subject to changes due to weather, trail conditions, government restrictions, or other reasons beyond our control. We will however do every attempt to adhere to the given schedule.
© Happy Camel Travel Co., Ltd.E-mail: el